The Probably Not Impending Execution of Ralph Birdsong

Ralph Birdsong sits on death row awaiting execution by the people of Pennsylvania. His execution is currently scheduled for 17 January. Though it is likely his execution will be stayed, I will nonetheless review his case in this post. I offer the following summary from the adverse appeal in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Ralph Birdsong. To improve the readability, I have excluded the legal references and I have changed most instances of Appellant to Birdsong.

Appellant, Ralph Birdsong, was convicted of two counts of first degree murder, possession of an instrument of crime, six counts of aggravated assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, rape, and criminal conspiracy on October 27, 1989, following a consolidated bench trial before the Honorable Juanita Kidd Stout. A separate penalty hearing was held, and the trial court found two aggravating circumstances: that Birdsong "ha[d] a significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence to the person" and that Birdsong "ha[d] been convicted of another murder, committed . . . at the time of the offense at issue." No mitigating circumstances were found, and ... the trial judge sentenced Birdsong to death for the first degree murder conviction. In addition, the trial judge sentenced Birdsong to a consecutive term of fifty-two and one-half (52½) to one hundred five (105) years of imprisonment for the other convictions stemming from the incident which occurred on July 17, 1988. Thereafter, the trial court heard and denied Birdsong's post-trial motions. 

Birdsong does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence; however, we have independently reviewed the record to determine the sufficiency of the evidence supporting Birdsong's conviction consistent with our obligation in a case in which the death penalty has been imposed. ... The test for determining the sufficiency of the evidence is whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner and drawing all proper inferences favorable to the Commonwealth, the trier of fact could reasonably have determined all elements of the crime to have been established beyond a reasonable doubt. 

On July 17, 1988, Birdsong and his brother, Anthony Birdsong, went to a residence located at 5723 North 17th Street. Birdsong entered the residence while Anthony remained outside. The Commonwealth presented the testimony of several eyewitnesses who saw Birdsong commit the crimes on the day in question. 

Gregory Johnson, who lived at 5723 North 17th Street, testified that he was seated at the dining room table ingesting crack cocaine in the early morning hours of July 17, 1988. Hassan Holmes and Kim Glenn were also present. The doorbell rang, and Holmes arose and observed through a window that Birdsong, also known as "Hakeem," was at the front door. At that point, Johnson arose from the table to admit Birdsong, whom he had known for ten years. Birdsong then entered the house, walked by Johnson, turned around, and shot Johnson in the back of the head with a shotgun. Although the impact of the shotgun blast caused Johnson to fall to the floor, he was nevertheless able to get up and run out of the house. 

Hassan Holmes corroborated the testimony of Johnson by identifying Birdsong as the person who rang the doorbell on July 17, 1988. Holmes assumed that Birdsong wished to purchase drugs from Johnson, who was a dealer. After seeing Johnson shot, Holmes attempted to flee to the basement, but Birdsong intercepted him and shot him in the shoulder. Holmes then heard James Bagwell, who was sleeping on the living room couch, get off the couch and attempt to flee to the basement. However, Birdsong intercepted Bagwell and fatally wounded him as he ran down the stairs. Shortly thereafter, Holmes managed to flee from the house. 

Additionally, Andre Kinard testified that he saw Birdsong shoot Bagwell in the head as Bagwell was running down the basement stairs attempting to flee. Kinard then tried to flee, but Birdsong shot him as well. 

Kim Glenn also testified that Birdsong, whom she had known for one and one-half years, rang the doorbell that morning. Glenn was able to identify Birdsong because she had sold drugs for him in the past. Glenn hid under the dining room table as Birdsong proceeded to shoot Johnson, Holmes, and Bagwell. When Birdsong went upstairs, Glenn hid under a mattress in the front of the house. From there she heard a second man enter the house and warn Birdsong about the police. 

The Commonwealth presented the testimony of Monroe Clark, who testified that he was in the second floor bedroom with Gloria Pannell when Birdsong kicked in the bedroom door. Birdsong fired shots, but missed Clark. Birdsong's shots hit Pannell. After leaving the room for a brief instant, Birdsong reentered the room and fatally shot Pannell while standing over her as Clark hid in the bedroom closet.

Fifteen-year old Quinzell Pannell testified that he, his brother Albert, and his sister Yiana were in another bedroom when Birdsong entered and struck them repeatedly with the butt of his gun. After beating the children, Birdsong then directed them into another bedroom. On the way, Birdsong struck Quinzell in the back of the head causing Quinzell to fall to the floor. Next, Birdsong took Albert out of the room and shot him. Birdsong then returned, stated "I am going to rape you, bitch," and took Yiana out of the room. 

Yiana corroborated the testimony of Quinzell. She also testified that Birdsong forced her out of the house and across the street to a park where he proceeded to rape and sodomize her. By stipulation, the results of the rape kit taken at the hospital were admitted, showing the presence of sperm in Yiana's vagina and rectum. 

Albert Jones testified that Birdsong, whom he had known for sixteen years, showed up at Jones' apartment in the early morning hours of July 17, 1988, with blood on his hands and the back of his legs. Birdsong then requested a ride to pick up his car and Jones assented. When the two arrived at the driveway where Birdsong's truck was located, they were stopped by Detective Thomas Augustine. 

Detective Augustine testified that when he stopped Jones, the passenger in Jones' car, who was later identified as Birdsong, looked very nervous. Detective Augustine noticed a jacket under the passenger seat, picked it up, and felt a magazine from a gun. When Detective Augustine asked whose jacket it was, Birdsong admitted it was his, but fled the scene when Detective Augustine indicated that he would like the two men to come with him. Through continued questioning of the driver, Detective Augustine adduced that the passenger was Birdsong. Additionally, upon further investigation, the detective discerned that the jacket contained an empty magazine from a .45 caliber handgun. 

Birdsong disappeared from Philadelphia and was subsequently arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on November 14, 1988. 

The parties stipulated that the jacket recovered from Jones' automobile was stained with human blood. It was further stipulated that Gloria Pannell and James Bagwell died of multiple gunshot wounds. Finally, it was stipulated that Albert Pannell suffered a gunshot wound to the back of the head which rendered him permanently disabled and confined to a wheelchair. 

Clearly, the evidence introduced at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth as verdict winner and drawing all proper inferences favorable to the Commonwealth, was sufficient for the trier of fact to reasonably have determined all elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.

I find no one, not even Ralph Birdsong, claiming that he is factually innocent of the crimes. While I vehemently oppose the execution of someone who might reasonably be factually innocent of the crime for which they are to die, I neither oppose nor support executions in which the person clearly committed the crime. In the case of Ralph Birdsong, I therefore stand mute with respect the propriety of his execution.

The Compliant Juror: Part V

In Parts I, II, and III of this series, I argued that jurors tend to be compliant because they are (as all people)  loath to defy authority. In Part IV, I belatedly took the trouble to show that jurors are indeed compliant, and I then actually bothered to define the term.

In this post, I will present an alternate hypothesis for juror compliance, a hypothesis other than blind obedience to authority. I will support my alternative hypothesis by writing first and mostly of craniometry, the study of skull measurements and their significance (or lack thereof). I will then make an elegant and seamless segue to compliant jurors, and my case will be made.

From The Skeptic's Dictionary, I offer the following overview of craniometry. Forgive their use of "etc." They're skeptics, not grammarians.

Craniometry is the measurement of cranial features in order to classify people according to race, criminal temperament, intelligence, etc. The underlying assumption of craniometry is that skull size and shape determine brain size which determines such things as intelligence and capacity for moral behavior. Empirical evidence for this assumption is not very strong. This fact has not hindered small-headed people from claiming they are members of a superior race or gender because the head size of their racial or gender group is larger on average than the head size of some other racial or gender group. As members of superior races and gender, these small-headed people reason that they, too, must be superior to all members of races inferior to their own and of all members of the other gender. ... 

In the 19th century, the British used craniometry to justify its racist policies toward the Irish and black Africans, whom the British considered to be inferior races. Irish skulls were said to have the shape of Cro-Magnon men and were akin to that of apes, proof of their inferiority along with black Africans. In France, Paul Broca demonstrated that women are  inferior to men because of their smaller crania. He argued against higher education for women because their small brains couldn't handle the demands. 

In the 20th century, the Nazis used craniometry and anthropometry to distinguish Aryans from non-Aryans. The Belgians used these pseudosciences, among other things, to distinguish Hutus from Tutsis in Rwanda. "In the 1930s the Belgians required everybody [in Rwanda] to start carrying an identity card classifying themselves as Hutu or Tutsi, thereby markedly increasing the ethnic distinction that had already existed"

That Hutu / Tutsi thing worked out great, didn't it?

If you want to join the exciting world of craniometry, you're going to need some tools. Here a few tools of the trade.

Where people were really going with this nonsense was brain size. The craniometricians were almost exclusively Caucasian. In the golden era of craniometry, Caucasians dominated, and they sought to justify their dominant position. They weren't heartless, insensitive, or inhumane, you see. It was simply science, simply fact. One class of people had larger brains, were more intelligent, and meant to rule. Other classes had smaller brains, were less intelligent, and were fit only for a lesser station in life.

It was only natural, therefore, that scientists who studied craniometry came from the large-brained class. They were merely recording as scientific fact, in impassive fashion, the differences in brain size among different races. Samuel George Morton was one of those scientists. An American physician and naturalist, his tool of choice was the mustard seed.

By the time he died in 1851, Morton had collected more than 1000 skulls of people from around the world. He measured the brain volume of these skulls by seeing how much mustard seed they would hold. He attempted to conduct and document his work carefully, to be as unbiased as he could. From a book to be referenced below:

Morton a Philadelphia patrician with two medical degrees -- one from fashionable Edinburgh -- provided the "facts" that won worldwide respect ... Morton won his reputation as the great data-gatherer and objectivist of American science, the man who would raise an immature enterprise from the mires of fanciful speculation. Oliver Wendell Holmes praised Morton for "the severe and cautious character" of his works, which "from their very nature are permanent data for all future students of ethnology." ... When Morton died in 1851, the New York Tribune wrote that "probably no scientific man in America enjoyed a higher reputation among scholars throughout the world, than Dr. Morton."

Yet Morton gathered skulls neither from the dilettante's motive of abstract interest nor the taxonomist's zeal for complete representation. He had a hypothesis to test; that a ranking of races could be established objectively by physical characteristics of the brain, particularly by its size.

Morton took a special interest in native Americans, both north and south. He titled his first and largest work the Crania Americana. Perhaps as a European-American scientist, he was particularly interested in justifying the treatment of native Americans by European-Americans. Of Greenland's natives, for example, he wrote:

They are crafty, sensual, ungrateful, obstinate and unfeeling, and much of their affection for their children may be traced to purely selfish motives. They devour the most disgusting aliments uncooked and uncleaned, and seem to have no ideas beyond providing for the present moment. ... Their mental faculties, from infancy to old age, present a continued childhood. ... In gluttony, selfishness and ingratitude, they are perhaps unequalled by any other nation of people.

Of the Chinese, Morton wrote:

So versatile are their feelings and actions, that hey have been compared to the monkey race, whose attention is perpetually changing from one object to another.

Of Hottentots:

... the nearest approximation to the lower animals. ... The women are represented as even more repulsive than the men.

After Morton's work, there could no longer be any reasonable doubt as to the superiority of the races. It was no longer a matter of casual observation or cultural bias. The science was settled. 

In 1977, however, science historian Stephen Jay Gould re-examined Morton's work. Gould reported his findings in several sources including one of my favorite books: The Mismeasure of Man.

I quoted previously from that book. I quote again below.

During the summer of 1977, I spent several weeks reanalyzing Morton's data. (Morton, the self-styled objectivist, published all his raw information. We can infer with little doubt how he moved from raw measurements to summary tables.) In short, and to put it bluntly, Morton's summaries are a patchwork of fudging and finagling in the clear interest of controlling a priori convictions. Yet -- and this is the most intriguing aspect of the case -- I find no evidence of conscious fraud; indeed, had Morton been a conscious fudger, he would not have published his data so openly. 

Conscious fraud is probably rare in science. It is also not very interesting, for it tells us little about the nature of scientific activity. Liars, if discovered, are excommunicated; scientists declare that their profession has properly policed itself, and they return to work, mythology unimpaired, and objectivity vindicated. The prevalence of unconscious finagling, on the other hand, suggests a general conclusion about the social context of science. For if scientists can be honestly self-deluded to Morton's extent, then prior prejudice may be found anywhere, even in the basics of measuring bones and toting sums.

Gould provided, in great detail, examples of the "unconscious finagling" that he claims littered Morton's work. Using Morton's own data, he recalculated the average brain size for Caucasians and native Americans. He found that Morton had made multiple errors and that the errors always favored Morton's pre-conceived notion about racial superiority. Morton's errors caused the Caucasian brain size to be overstated and the native American brain size to be understated. Instead of 87 versus 82 cubic inches, Gould calculated (using the same data) values of 84.45 and 83.79 cubic inches. In other words, using the same set of data, Morton found a significant difference where Gould found none at all. 

Gould categorized Morton's errors into three groups: procedural omissions, selectivity, and subjectivity. Regarding procedural omissions, Gould wrote:

Morton was convinced that the variation in the skull size recorded differential, innate mental ability. He never considered alternate hypotheses, though his own data almost cried out for a different interpretation. Morton never computed means by sex or stature, even when he recorded these data in his tabulations. Had he computed the effect of stature, he would presumably have recognized that it explained all important differences in brain size among his groups.

It is now well-recognized that body size is a first order determinant of brain size. As a scientist, Morton had the evidence for that conclusion, but failed to see or explore it. He was too focused finding proof of his preconceived notions to correct his data for effect of body size. Even today, there's no reason to believe that people the size of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are inherently less intelligent that the average NBA player.

Regarding selectivity, Gould wrote:

Morton often choose to include or delete large subsamples in order to match group averages with prior expectations. He included Inca Peruvians to decrease the [American] Indian average, but deleted Hindus to raise the Caucasian mean.

Regarding subjectivity, Gould wrote:

Morton's measures with [mustard] seed were sufficiently imprecise to permit a wide range of influence by subjective bias; later measurements with [lead] shot, on the other hand, were repeatable, and presumably objective. In skulls measured by both methods, values for shot always exceed values for the light, poorly packed seed. But degrees of discrepancy match a priori assumptions; an average of 5.4, 2.2, and 1.8 cubic inches for blacks, Indians, and whites, respectively. In other words, blacks fared poorest when the results could be biased toward an expected result. ... Plausible scenarios are easy to construct. Morton, measuring by seed, picks up a threateningly large black skull, fills it lightly and gives it a few desultory shakes. Next, he takes a distressingly small Caucasian skull, shakes hard, and pushes mightily at the foramen magnum with his thumb. It is easily done, without conscious motivation; expectation is a powerful guide to action.

And now for promised elegant and seamless segue.

Just as Samuel George Morton was unable to recognize and control the effect of his pre-conceived notions on his science, I suggest that jurors are unable to recognize and control the effect of their preconceived notions on their jury verdicts.

Morton believed that the non-white races were mentally inferior to Caucasians. Jurors (i.e. the American public) believe that we generally don't arrest and prosecute, much less imprison, people for doing nothing wrong. After my last stint as a juror, my mother asked me what the case was about. I said it had to do with child molestation. She said: "Oh, my. I hope you convicted him." I said nothing. I let he comment hang there, uncomfortable to us both. Then she said quietly, but not convincingly: "I guess I should wait to hear the evidence."

Morton knew that, as a man of science, he was not supposed to anticipate the answer. He was supposed to allow the data to speak for itself. Jurors know that they are not supposed to anticipate a verdict. They are instructed to presume the defendant innocent, and not render a guilty verdict unless the State proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. All jurors take an oath to do just that, but many of them, far too many of them do not.

Morton's bias made its way into his results and was later discovered because Morton did not recognize his own bias. He published all his work, including his raw data and his methods. Gould argued that Morton's openness spoke to both his integrity and his failure to see his own bias. Similarly, when polled, jurors will freely admit they voted guilty even when the evidence failed to support such a verdict.  Once again, I repeat the critical plot below.

My alternative theory for juror compliance (and for Morton's behavior) has a name. It's called confirmation bias. I've written of it before. I'll write of it again sometime. For now, I'll turn as I frequently do to the fine folks at Wikipedia:

Confirmation bias ... is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true. As a result, people gather evidence and recall information from memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way. The biases appear in particular for emotionally significant issues and for established beliefs. For example, in reading about gun control, people usually prefer sources that affirm their existing attitudes. They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and/or recall have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a stronger weighting for data encountered early in an arbitrary series) and illusory correlation (in which people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).

In summary, I argue that jurors presume the defendant must have done something or he would not be on trial. I argue that confirmation bias then takes over. Every bit of evidence and every mannerism of the defendant is distorted by the overpowering lens of confirmation bias.

As evidence of the overpowering nature of confirmation bias, I offer a footnote on the work of Stephen Jay Gould, the noted Harvard professor who so skillfully took Samuel George Morton to task for his confirmation bias. Just this year, in June 2011, six anthropolgists reviewed Gould's review of Morton. They presented their findings in The Mismeasure of Science: Steven Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on Skulls and Bias. They too make all their work available for your review. If instead you trust me to summarize, press on.

Jason Lewis, et. al. find that Stephen Jay Gould suffered more seriously from confirmation bias than did Samuel George Morton, and that Gould made several of the same mistakes of which he wrongfully accused Morton. They make a compelling case that one of my intellectual paragons was just as human as the rest of us. I caution you that Lewis effectively refutes some of the very Gould quotes I used in this very post. I refer you to their article for specifics.

Who then should you trust to tell you the unvarnished, unbiased truth? Morton? Gould? Lewis? Me?

How about the judge, the police, or the prosecutor?

How about your preconceived notions?

How will you ever function again?

The Compliant Juror: Part IV

Despite three previous posts regarding compliant juries (here, here, and here) I have yet to establish that juries are compliant. I haven't even defined what I mean by a compliant jury.  I realize that I claimed a compliant juror is the opposite of a skeptical juror, but that merely sidestepped the issue: I didn't define a skeptical juror.

In this post, I hope to ameliorate those shortcomings. I'll begin by establishing that juries do tend to be compliant. Then, I'll actually define the term.

To establish that juries tend to be compliant, I'll borrow heavily from an earlier post in this august blog: Burden of Proof as a Legal Fiction. 

I hereby intend to prove to you, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the concept of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is nothing more than a legal fiction. This shouldn't take too long.

Consider first the alleged burden of proof in a civil case. That burden is usually described as the "preponderance of the evidence."  It's a 50-50 type decision. If the evidence favors the plaintiff even by a  teensy weensy bit, the jury is to find in favor of the plaintiff. If, on the other hand, the evidence favors the defense even by a smidgeon, then the jury is to find in favor of the defense. It's so simple.

I present the idealized concept of preponderance of the evidence in the figure below.

Matters are a little more confusing for jurors in a criminal case. They are asked to decide if the evidence proves the State's case beyond a reasonable doubt. The jurors must figure out how heavily the evidence favors the prosecution AND they must figure out what the hell the term reasonable doubt means AND they must decide whether the weight of the evidence provided by the prosecution exceeds the reasonable doubt threshold.

Courts are of almost no help in determining the meaning of reasonable doubt. One thing they absolutely will not do is apply any numeric value to reasonable doubt. They never suggest anything such as "you must be 90% certain."

Instead, they give you a reasonable doubt instruction something along the line of:

The question naturally is what is a reasonable doubt. The words almost define themselves. It is a doubt based upon reason and common sense. It is a doubt that a reasonable person has after carefully weighing all of the evidence. It is a doubt which would cause a reasonable person to hesitate to act in a matter of importance in his or her personal life. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt must be proof of such a convincing character that a reasonable person would not hesitate to rely and act upon it in the most important of his own affairs.

Legal scholars recognized that if you are to quantify the number, it should certainly be greater than 50%. That is, after all, the standard for civil cases. The burden of proof in criminal cases is supposed to be substantially greater. Legal scholars tend to throw out a value of 90% as a starting point. This corresponds roughly to William Blackstone's 250 year old claim that it is "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

That traditional view is portrayed in the figure below.

When Rita Simon and Linda Mahon asked 106 judges to put a non-legally-binding number to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, those judges gave a number (presumably on average) of 89%.

Simon and Mahon also asked 25 jurors to put a number to the concept. Those jurors put the number at 79%. That number is not far from a couple other studies I've seen where jurors put the number around 75%, assuming they are asked before they deliberate in a mock trial. If they are asked after they deliberate, the put the number closer to 55%. The suggestion is that they wanted to convict, the evidence didn't support conviction at even a 75% standard, so they reduced the standard. That smells of compliance.

As part of a NCSC (National Center for State Courts) study in 2000 and 2001, judges and jurors were asked to provide their estimate of the strength of the evidence used to convict (or acquit) a defendant. I've converted the results into the summary plot below. Prepare to be disturbed.

The results reek of compliance. Even when the evidence favors neither the prosecution nor the defense, both judge and jury are voting two out of three times to convict. Even when the evidence heavily favors the defense, the juries are voting to convict one out of three times.

Now, finally, I'm prepared to provide a definition of a compliant juror. A compliant juror is one who relieves the State of its burden of proof, either willfully or carelessly.

And ...

Since I've declared compliant jurors and skeptical jurors to be opposites, I'm ready to define a skeptical juror. A skeptical juror is one who does not relieve the State of its burden of proof, either willfully or carelessly.

With the amelioration out of the way, the series will continue. Next, I'll discuss alternative hypothesis regarding the compliant nature of jurors.

The Compliant Juror: Part III

In Part I of this series, I described an experiment in which a subject was willing to apply lethal electric shocks to a fellow human simply because the subject was instructed to do so by the person conducting the experiment.

In Part II of this series, I explained that the subject's response to authority was not unique, that two-thirds of the subjects in that particular experiment refused to disobey the authority figure even when instructed to apply what the subjects believed to be potentially deadly shocks.

I challenged to you, the readers, to decide whether you would have disobeyed the authority figure. I suggested that our natural reluctance to defy authority might explain the behavior of compliant juries. I promised to buttress that suggestion in a separate post. I'll attempt to do so now.

Stanley Milgram conducted 18 variations of the experiment I described. Many of the variants might be instructive to anyone attempting to understand jury behavior. I'll limit myself at the moment to Experiment 18. In that experiment, an additional confederate was introduced. I call him the Executioner, since he was the person who executed the sentence. He was the one who would apply the shock should the Learner fail to properly answer the question posed by the actual subject, the Teacher. The Teacher now had only to read the questions, announce whether the Learner responded correctly or incorrectly, and announce the shock level that was to be applied if the answer was incorrect.

The Teacher was the only subject in the experiment. The Experimenter, the Learner, and now the Executioner all understood that the Learner was not being shocked, that the experiment had to do with response to authority rather than the effect of negative feedback on learning.

Clearly, a juror's role is more similar to the subject in Experiment 18 than to the subject in Experiment 5, discussed previously.

The juror will not escort the convicted defendant from the courtroom. 

The juror will not impose the sentence. Except in capital murder cases, jurors usually are not allowed to know beforehand what the possible or likely sentence would be. Sentencing normally takes place after the jurors are dismissed. The jurors frequently never know the consequence of their decision. 

In capital murder cases, the jurors will not administer the lethal injection.

Experiment 18 was designed to study the impact of separating the subject from the final punishment. Here's how Milgram described that variation.

To examine this phenomenon within the laboratory, a variation was carried out in which the act of shocking the victim was removed from the naive subject and placed in the hand of another participant (a confederate). The naive subject performs the subsidiary acts which, through contributing to the over-all progress of the experiment, remove him from the actual act of depressing the lever on the shock generator. ... 

Any competent manager of a destructive bureaucratic system can arrange his personnel so that only the most callous and obtuse are directly involved in the violence. The greater part of the personnel can consist of men and women who, by virtue of their distance from the actual acts of brutality, will feel doubly absolved from responsibility. First, legitimate authority has given full warrant for their actions. Second, they have not themselves committed brutal physical acts.

For comparison, recall that 26 of 40 subjects in Experiment 5 refused to defy authority; 26 of 40 subjects actually applied (or thought they applied) 450 volts to a person who had long since gone quiet after screaming in pain and after complaining of heart problems. The subjects did so only because they were told by a person in a lab coat that such shocks were necessary to complete a word comparison test.

In Experiment 18, 37 of 40 subjects continued to participate in the test to the very end. They continued to read the questions, to announce whether the answers were right or wrong, and continued to identify the level of shock that was to be applied. They did everything except throw the switch.

The only difference between Experiment 5 and Experiment 18 was who threw the switch. If the real test subject, the Teacher, had to throw the switch, the obedience rate was 65%. If the real test subject did not have to throw the switch, the obedience rate was 92.5%.

Assuming you believed you would have defied the Experimenter if participating in Experiment 5, do you believe you would have defied the Experimenter if participating in Experimenter 18? Would you have been among the 7.5% who did not, or are you simply suffering from Lake Wobegon syndrome?

If I discomfort you near Christmas (or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Festivus for the rest of us), consider it a cautionary gift. Alternatively, consider me the Gingrich who stole Christmas.

The Gingrich Who Stole Christmas

You can add Newt Gingrich to the list of famous people who will not be receiving a Christmas card from me.

I was somewhat taken aback when during Friday's Fox News debate Newt went postal on the judiciary. Given that I am often critical of our judicial branch, it might come as a surprise to you that I vehemently disagree with him regarding the judiciary's final judgment on what is and is not constitutional. As president, he would refuse to recognize some Supreme Court rulings. He would haul some federal judges before Congress if they should rule in some fashion he (or someone) decided was outrageous. He would force their appearance before Congress via federal marshals if necessary.

Suddenly, we wouldn't be electing just a president. We would be electing someone who proclaimed at least some control over the judicial and legislative branches, as well as absolute control over the executive branch. He would take an oath to defend the Constitution but he would have his fingers crossed. He would only defend those portions he deemed worthy. If a wayward judge were to rule unreasonably, Chief Executive Gingrich would have him hauled before Congress.

None of the three branches of government is doing a praiseworthy job of protecting the rights granted to us by the Constitution. Of the three branches, however, the courts are doing the least bad job.

During the debate and elsewhere, the Newtster has given us some sense of what he considers outrageous. He seems really bothered about the Court ruling on prayer and the pledge of allegiance. He's unhappy with abortion rulings. He doesn't like Cooper v. Aaron, the ruling that forced integration of public schools in Arkansas (and everywhere else). He seems to be fretting in advance over gay rights rulings.

I suspect the Newtmeister would not be pleased of the Supremes ruled against Obamacare and President Obama simply decided to ignore them. I suspect Newtly would have been unhappy if Bill Clinton would have ignore the Supremes and handed the keys to the White House to Al Gore instead of George Bush.

It cuts both ways. If the President can choose which Supreme Court decisions he will enforce, and which he will ignore, then we can dispose of the Court. We will be at the mercy of whichever party controls the White House. The President will be unchecked and unbalanced by judges.

It's a pretty sad lot we have to choose from for President of these here United States. I'll offer my quick summary and then step down from my pedestal.

Gingrich -- the man who would be king

Obama -- a walking, talking credit card that we can no longer afford

Paul -- putting Amish practices at the forefront of our national security

Perry -- allowing innocents to be put to the needle

Bachmann -- an uncylopeadia

My ...

Oh ...

My.