(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's going down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of government' gets done, and where the sun peels the paint, and the seat covers fade, and the water moccasin dies.

We begin in the Commonwealth (God save it!). A while back, we looked at the case of Annie Dookhan, an employee of the state police whose finagling with the forensics in drug cases resulted in a huge scandal, the reversal of more than 20,000 drug convictions, and successful lawsuits that were still being settled last April. (One guy got $2 million.) Believe it or not, it happened again. And this time, it reached into the state attorney general's office. From The Boston Globe:

The Supreme Judicial Court ordered the dismissals for every case that involved methamphetamine drug evidence during the nine years that former state chemist Sonja Farak worked at the lab, as well as for every case involving any drug evidence processed by anyone at the lab between Jan. 1, 2009, and Jan. 18, 2013, when she was arrested.

Writing for the unanimous court, Justice Frank M. Gaziano said that Farak’s tampering with evidence samples to feed her drug habit and the subsequent failure by two former assistant attorneys general to share what they learned about Farak’s personal history together warranted a fierce response by the SJC, the ethical guardian of the state’s criminal justice system.

Annie Dookhan Boston Globe Getty Images

“We conclude that Farak’s widespread evidence tampering has compromised the integrity of thousands of drug convictions apart from those that the Commonwealth has agreed should be vacated and dismissed,’’ Justice Frank Gaziano wrote for the court. “Her misconduct, compounded by prosecutorial misconduct, requires that this court exercise its superintendence authority and vacate and dismiss all criminal convictions tainted by governmental wrongdoing.”

Ultimately, according to the Globe, the cost to the Commonwealth (God save it!) of Dookhan's and Farak's misdeeds could be "north of $10 million," which is pretty far north indeed. This is all about the ongoing, tragic idiocy of the "war" on drugs. The manic nature of many politicians on the subject filters down to prosecutors and then spreads out all through the criminal justice system, right down to the lab techs who process the evidence. (In Farak's case, she lifted some of the evidence for her own personal use.) The fact that it doesn't make sense, and that it hasn't ever made sense, is only one part of its debilitating effect on society. The "war" on drugs corrupts everything it touches.

We scoot out continentally and find ourselves in Washington, The State—not to be confused with Washington, The Bedlam—where the state supreme court just completely threw out the death penalty—lock, stock, and hypodermic needle. From The Seattle Times:

The court unanimously converted the sentences of the eight people on death row to life in prison, though the justices differed mildly in their reasoning.“The use of the death penalty is unequally applied — sometimes by where the crime took place, or the county of residence, or the available budgetary resources at any given point in time, or the race of the defendant,” Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst wrote in the lead opinion. She added: “Our capital punishment law lacks ‘fundamental fairness.'”...

“We leave open the possibility that the legislature may enact a ‘carefully drafted statute’ to impose capital punishment in this state, but it cannot create a system that offends constitutional rights,” the opinion said. There is almost no way to do that, as the state's attorney general seems to admit. Attorney General Bob Ferguson said he would press the Legislature to make the sole punishment for aggravated murder life in prison without release.

This is criminal justice reform bubbling up quite on its own. The death penalty is an abomination in a civilized society, and there is absolutely no way to reconcile it with the guarantees in the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Attempts to do so inevitably corrupt the due process of law. There is a general recognition of all these points in the judiciary right now. And now, in Washington at least, there seems to be an acknowledgement of this reality as well as the political will to accept it.

This being an election year, there's all sorts of interesting political fauna gamboling across the landscape at all points of the compass. (Don't believe me? Google "GOP candidate said," and be amazed yourself.) In Mississippi, for example, there's a guy named Chris McDaniel, an out-and-out Confederate apologist, who's running for the U.S. Senate. He had some thoughts he wanted to share about social programs and black folks. From the Jackson Clarion-Ledger via shamefaced USA Today:

An interview panelist asked McDaniel about his support for the controversial state flag, comments about hip-hop music contributing to gun violence and praise of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The panelist, Eddie Glaude, also asked McDaniel how he would speak to African-Americans in Mississippi, who make up 38 percent of the state's population and how he would convince them "you are not a danger to them."

Chris McDaniel Justin Sullivan Getty Images

McDaniel responded: "I am going to ask them, after 100 years, after 100 years of relying on big government to save you, where are you today? After 100 years of begging for federal government scraps, where are you today?"...After the Clarion Ledger reported his comments, McDaniel sent a message to the newspaper, saying: "It was an 11-minute segment. And that one sentence is your primary focus? I easily clarified my position – that is, Mississippi being the dead last state of the Union in terms of wealth and economic prosperity, based on outdated economic models."

Meanwhile, out in New Mexico, there's a pistol-packin' mama who's had to pull an ad because it was too crazy for television. From CBS News:

Yvette Herrell, a Republican House candidate in New Mexico, is firing back at her opponent with an ad that features her holding a gun and accusing Democrat Xochitl Torres Small of joining forces with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to "shoot down our values together." The ad dropped days after Torres Small released an ad touting her own hunting skills and highlighting her devotion to New Mexico's public lands. "Xochitl Torres Small went hunting for Nancy Pelosi's support and they'll shoot down our values together," the narrator said. "Yvette Herrell a leader we can trust to protect our rights."

I want to live long enough to see an election where nobody from either party feels obligated to demonstrate their facility with deadly weapons. Trust me. The fact that you can kill a deer with a long-distance sniper rifle doesn't make a damn bit of difference to me either way. Nobody's voting for king of the damn Ostrogoths.

Back in New Jersey, there's a Republican congressional candidate who doesn't need any of your damn science, he's got the Book of Exodus. From NJ.com:

[Seth] Grossman dismissed climate change. “Climate’s been changing for five billion years. Go ask Noah,” Grossman said. “Who’s causing it we don’t know and there’s no consensus among scientists except for those getting federal money.”

I asked Noah, my dude. He says shut up and listen to the scientists.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Wandering Pilgrim Friedman of the Plains brings us a tale of politics reaching into a small-town school and pretty much throwing meatloaf onto the walls of the cafeteria. From News4:

The controversy started when State Senator Paul Rosino toured Crooked Oak Public Schools last month and stopped into teacher Amanda Jeffers' classroom. While the Oklahoma City Republican was in the room, Jeffers said she asked Rosino to talk to her high school English students about his legislation, including a bill he co-authored on work requirements for SoonerCare recipients. The legislation, HB 2932, passed the house and senate (mostly along party lines) and was signed into law by Gov. Mary Fallin this past spring.

Paul Rosino PaulRosino.com

"He just said, ‘Yes I did. I think that all able-bodied people should work at least part-time in order to receive this benefit,'" Jeffers said. "And that was essentially the end of the conversation." Jeffers is the Democratic candidate for House District 91 and will face Republican incumbent State Representative Chris Kannady in November. Jeffers posted about Rosino's visit and her opinion about his work requirement legislation on her candidate Facebook page later that evening.

The post was fairly anodyne, with Jeffers stating her opposition to the workfare bill quite civilly and complimenting Rosino for dropping by. Which is about where the local school board fell out of the stupid tree.

Less than a week later, and without Jeffers' knowledge, the Crooked Oak Public Schools superintendent and school board issued a signed apology letter to Rosino for Jeffers' post, calling it "grossly inappropriate."

Amanda Jeffers AmandaJeffers.com

And it wasn't just the school board tumbling down out of the branches, either. Shortly after, copies of that apology letter made the rounds, taped to people's front doors, along with an additional comment that said:"Amanda Jeffers is a Democrat candidate and teacher who was so rude to her guest that the entire Crooked Oak School Board called her actions "grossly inappropriate" and issued an apology. Isn't it like the far left to forget civility and use our public schools to push their liberal agenda?"

"Civility" is apparently now another wingnut conjuring word, the actual meaning of which is completely lost, and "incivility" becomes yet another wingnut synonym for, "ideas that I don't like." I wish Crooked Oak—and the RufNex, who play Little Axe on Friday night—a lot of luck in their local elections. Try not to toss any tapioca.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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