Dostoyevsky said that you can tell what a nation is like by the way it treats its prisoners. If this is true, a nation whose government continues to engage in ritual human sacrifice, of victims culled largely from an underprivileged minority, is certainly as open to scrutiny as one that relies on Subarctic labor camps to maintain its iron-fisted grip on power.

The Christian Science Monitor examines clemency in death penalty cases, including Tookie and Karla Faye Tucker. It also provides these stats:

Thirty-three states give their governors exclusive, unconditional power to grant pardons or reduce prison sentences.

• Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, and Texas have stripped their governors of the power to pardon and instead established clemency boards, whose members are appointed by the governor.

• In nine states, the governor can only consider clemency recommendations issued by a clemency board.

• In Nebraska, Nevada, and Utah, the governor sits as a member of a pardoning board, making clemency decisions in cooperation with board members.

Clemency and pardon law expert Margy Love sums clemency decisions up this way:

... "clemency is a very lonely decision," says Margaret Love, former head of the pardon office in the US Justice Department. "It is a question of how to blend mercy with justice, the human and the legal in light of all circumstances before you, with life on the line."

I'll be discussing Tookie's clemency bid tonight on KABC radio (Los Angeles) at 7pm PT on the Al Rankel show. You can listen in online through this link.

TalkLeft background on Tookie is available here.