Why Wasn’t This Briefed?
By The Supreme Court yesterday denied cert in two cases asking them to review standards for the “victim impact” statements that the Court decided to reverse course with unusual speed and permit at the sentencing phase of death penalty trials. The dissents make some interesting arguments, but I think they overlook a key constitutional issue:
All 37 states and the federal government that maintain the death penalty allow victim impact evidence in the sentencing phase of murder trials. In the cases denied review on Monday, the evidence was composed of a 20-minute videotape in one case, and a 14-minute videotape in the other. The 20-minute presentation included dozens of still photographs and video clips depicting the victim’s life, set to the music of recording star Enya, with a voice narration by the victim’s mother.
If forcing a captive audience at a state trial to listen to Enya isn’t cruel and unusual punishment, I don’t know what is. I hope a future case will consider the second Eight Amendment issue.
Meanwhile, in the interests of being fair-and-balanced for those Enya fans out there, I present an alternative perspective from an objective critic:
Pondering the fate of post-September 11 pop, everyone predicted what they already wished for–Slipknot undone, Britney in hiding. What happened instead was the unthinkable–sales of Enya’s first album since 1995 spiked 10 months after release. (And she thought that movie where Charlize Theron fucked Keanu Reeves and died of cancer was a promotional coup!) Two years in the making with the artiste playing every synthesizer, the 11 songs here last a resounding 34 minutes and represent a significant downsizing of her New Age exoticism since 1988’s breakthrough, Watermark–it’s goopier, more simplistic. Yanni is Tchaikovsky by comparison, Sarah McLachlan Ella Fitzgerald, treacle Smithfield ham. Right, whatever gets folks through the night. But Enya’s the kind of artist who makes you think, if this piffle got them through it, how dark could their night have been? Like Master P or Michael Bolton only worse, she tests one’s faith in democracy itself.
Maybe a little generous, but…