I was in Mayville, the county seat out on Lake Chautauqua a number of years ago around Halloween, in a diner just down the hill from the last public hanging in the state of New York. Across the street at the county courthouse was the media van with its satellite up link. A young man had been arrested for allegedly knowing he had AIDS, had sex with a 16 year old woman and perhaps others, minors. The then Republican governor of NY, George Pataki, stated publicly that perhaps there should be a death penalty for this, which like the media sometimes is a hell of a way to tamper with "innocent until proven guilty". Fortunately, perhaps the Bronx D.A., who had other "confrontations" with the governor over what some might see as dictated jurisprudent goals for other defendants, extradited the young man on another outstanding charge. Perhaps the courts, and as a minor I saw a smuggled photo by a newsman of the first woman being electrocuted in Cook County, Chicago, Illinois, determine how in this age of visual mass communication, "media trials" can be regulated, before the State of Louisiana, which just released out of solitary of 30 years former social activist Black Panthers and allowed its own prisoners to almost drown in hurricane Katrina (gee hurricanes we never heard of those) dictates another rule of law that with proper medical study may be shown to have a genetic basis, i.e., perhaps a tumor or endocrine disorder, etc. Where will the Supreme Court "draw the line" in incest? Slate -> The Fray -> Jurisprudence
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