Inspector Javert (USA)

China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, South Sudan, Taiwan, Singapore, Palestine Authority, Afghanistan, Belarus, Egypt, UAE, Malaysia, and Syria.

And the United States of America.

Those are the countries that made use of the death penalty in 2011.  Gives you sort of a warm and fuzzy feeling doesn't it?  To find ourselves in such enlightened company?  According to Wikipedia, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are the only other developed countries, aside from the U.S.A., to have the death penalty on their books, regardless of whether they ever make use of it. 

In New York, the federal government is trying to persuade a federal jury to find that an unsavory murderer named Ronell Wilson should be put to death.  On federal racketeering charges, since murder is generally considered a state offense. 

It seems that New York's death penalty was held unconstitutional under state law after Wilson did his deed.  Therefore, Wilson could receive "only" the maximum penalty of life in prison without parole.  So the feds took over the case, convicted Wilson in 2007, and secured a verdict of death.  But the federal attorney got a little too excited and vigorous during closing arguments, and the death penalty -- but not the conviction -- was reversed on appeal.  Wilson has been serving his life sentence in a federal prison, while waiting for the Justice Department to decide whether to retry the penalty portion of the case. 

Wilson's life sentence apparently wasn't enough to satisfy federal prosecutors.

Although most prisoners sentenced to death languish in prison for years or decades while their appeals wend their way through the courts, someone up there feels that it's important to put yet another guy on death row.  Since 1988, according to the New York Times, the federal government has obtained 280 death sentences against convicted criminals, and executed a total of three of them.  It ain't just me who wonders what this is all about -- especially with Wilson already serving a life sentence.  According to the Times, United States Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis

insisted in open court that they [federal prosecutors] get approval from the new attorney general, Mr. Holder.  "If I'm going to spend four months of my career and millions of dollars of taxpayers' money trying another one of these penalty cases, I need to know that this attorney general wants to try it," Judge Garaufis said.

He summoned four thousand prospective jurors, from which 12 jurors were ultimately selected.

If  Attorney General Holder and the Assistant Attorney General for the Eastern District of New York have a lot of spare time and money on their hands, then instead of pursuing Ronell Wilson further, they might better have devoted their attention to deciding how to balance the civil liberties of American citizens against the rather frightening surveillance techniques now in the hands of the federal government.

Opening arguments in Wilson's trial started Wednesday in Brooklyn.