Big Headline Alert! I love it when the Times gets a little excited, and in today's paper, they had a larger headline than usual for the story about the Supreme Court's ruling that defendants have the Constitutional right to effective legal advice in plea negotiations. This is definitely a story that warranted the increase in headline size, especially given that it was passed with the crossover vote of conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy. It may cause a sticky situation in trying to determine the very subjective idea of "good legal advice," but it still marks an increase in rights for the accused. And as a law professor is quoted as saying in the article, "[this decision] is the single greatest revolution in the criminal justice system since Gideon vs. Wainwright provided indigents the right to counsel." So this is big news for sure.
I was also interested in the story about NFL coach Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints being suspended for a year without pay for his involvement in his team's "bounty scandal." It is cool to see sports get on the front page for any reason, but I guess it's not so great to see the NFL marked by this controversy. Payton deserves to be suspended, but it makes me wonder how many other teams in the league have a similar bounty, or "pay per injury" system in place. Also, this makes Bill Bellichick look like a regular law abiding citizen. All of a sudden spygate doesn't seem so bad.
In more news from the worst presidential primary of all time: Romney's campaign is an etch-a-sketch. Of course it is...anything to keep Santorum's dying race alive. It's annoying how everyone knows that politicians change their platforms between the primaries and the presidential election, yet everybody still gets infuriated if anybody admits it.
If Romney is an etch-a-sketch, Santorum is a crucifix. And in a race of the "worse of two evils", I'd rather be able to shake and erase.
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