Death Penalty

Oregon has more or less decriminalized the possession of otherwise illegal drugs like heroin and oxycontin. People in possession can still be fined $100, a citation that will be dropped if they agree to a health assessment. That looks like common sense. It takes some profit out of organized crime, and Oregon can hire fewer deputies and fewer prison guards. 

A law like that might have saved Andrew Brown's life last week in North Carolina. A posse of officers showed up to arrest him. Someone had fingered Brown, an unarmed black man, as a drug dealer. Frightened he tried to flee in his car, forcing a white officer to jump out of the way, which is a death penalty offense in North Carolina. After Brown got clear of the police and was motoring into the distance, they shot him in the back of the head. And that was justified, the local white prosecutor said.