Well, that didn't take long. In fact, the ban on the death penalty hasn't officially been lifted yet. But that didn't stop an Iraqi judge yesterday from sentencing 3 Shiites to death--and praising his own decision:

Judge Saleh Shaibani said the sentences were the first to be handed down by an Iraqi court since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime 15 months ago, after which the US-led occupation administration suspended the death penalty. The caretaker Government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has said the ban will soon be reversed.

The judge, praising his own decision, said the extreme nature of the crimes for which the three men were convicted led him to pronounce the death sentences.

It's true the crimes were particularly gruesome. That's not as important to us as the message the sentences send--that Judges under the new regime see no reason to comply with the "rule of law" and instead feel free to impose their own brand of judicial activism on their subjects. There's a lesson in here somewhere, and it's not just applicable to Iraq.