On Wednesdays, I teach a three hour class on state and local government. Tuesdays are spent preparing for the class, so that’s why I disappear for a couple of days a week.

Teaching State and Local Government requires a deft hand. It can so very easily turn boring — a recitation of   some really dull studies and memorization of trivial pursuit.

What saves this class is the news of the weird. There are the lovely corruption stories. There are wackjob legislators introducing bizarro legislation. In February, Mississippi legislators introduced a bill to bar fat people from restaurants. Throw that stuff into a lecture and you’ll wake them enough to discuss the four ways to amend a state constitution.

We were talking about state courts yesterday and some recent decisions.

The states are having trouble figuring out how to kill their prisoners. The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that the electric chair is cruel and unusual punishment. They have no problem killing their prisoners; they just don’t like shaving a guy’s head, slapping on an electric helmet, and jolting his body with 2000 volts of juice. Go figure. But they won’t switch to lethal injection because the US Supreme Court may rule that  Kentucky’s lethal injection program cases undue pain.

So, the states don’t know how to kill their prisoners. Now, I’m again capital punishment, but if pressed, I think I could come up with lots of painless way to kill people. There’s the Heath Ledger drug cocktail. Defenestration – I am not sure if it is painless, but it is such a great word that I think we ought to consider it again. the guillotine was very efficient. I just think that there are alternatives out there that should be considered.