A good week for justice, thus far.

Monday, federal district court judge Henry Floyd ruled that Jose Padilla - who has been in custody since May of 2002 - must either be released within 45 days or charge him with a crime. The Bush administration has already announced their intent to appeal.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty may not be used in cases where the convicted was a minor when the crime was committed.

Wow. We're making progress - granted, it's entirely possible that the Padilla ruling will be overturned in appeal. However, the Supreme Court ruling stands, as executing minors is now 'officially' a violation of the 8th amendment. It's about time, too - for a long time, we've been the only world power willing to execute minors for their crimes. I still am unclear as to why we even reinstated the death penalty in the '70's. It doesn't work as a deterrent (has there been any notable decrease in capital crimes since 1976?). Obviously, it's not much of a rehabilitative treatment - true, that person won't commit another crime, but if we put more money into our prison systems, we could get the same 'success' rate with a life sentence.

The Padilla ruling is excellent, in my opinion. It gives a legal precedent. Maybe, within a few years, we won't be allowed to just snatch up whoever we want to, declare them a 'detainee' and a 'terror suspect' - which are entirely meaningless terms, really - and toss them into a military prison for as long as we like.

In a twisted, twisted way, I'd like to see the following scenario, just to see how it plays out: We detain (abduct, perhaps?) a 'terror suspect' in, say, New York - wherever. Some American city. A man, mid-twenties-to-thirties, of Arab descent. Let's make it real interesting: his parents are very wealthy Saudi businessmen. Our young man is accused of plotting some nefarious scheme to ruin the foundations of this nation, so we take him into custody. Here's the part I want to see: He's a British citizen. Grew up, the child of wealthy Saudi parents, somewhere in Great Britain. So Britain, our closest ally, finds one of their own citizens, who's in the US legally, with a valid visa - a 'detainee'. Maybe there's evidence of his plotting. Maybe there's not. Maybe there is, but it's 'highly classified' in the name of national security.

I'd be fascinated by that one.

And while I'm speaking of our neighbors across the pond: could you kindly remove your royalty from our news outlets? I don't understand why anyone, let alone Americans, care about them. Sure, Queen Elizabeth seems to be a wonderful person, who does quite well in her entirely-decorative role. But...really, folks, did we not fight a war, shed far too much blood (American and British alike) to get rid of royals? Can we focus on the important things?