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Kozinski exercises his writing flair

Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, was in his usual fighting trim when writing a dissent from an en banc vote to toss the death sentence against Scott Pinholster for a double murder in Los Angeles.

“Meanwhile, prison has been good to Pinholster. He sits in his cell reading Machiavelli, Voltaire ‘and all the philosophers,’ drawing pictures to sell over the Internet,” Kozinski wrote. “He enjoys the gravitas, authority and mentoring opportunities that come with being an elder in his prison gang, and has surgery performed on his knees at taxpayer expense. He still stabs people whenever he can, without passion or regret; ‘it was just business,’ he explains. His conscience doesn’t trouble him about the fact that he took the lives of two fellow human beings; he has never expressed the least remorse for his killings. The people of California are entitled to put an end to Pinholster’s paid vacation and insist that the punishment lawfully imposed on him be carried out.”