A reader writes:

“Mr. Dreher,

You missed Ramesh Ponnuru’s rebuttle to his own pro-death penalty argument. In the Corner today, he argues that juries can’t be trusted to decide personal injury cases:

“As Walter Olson notes in his new book The Rule of Lawyers, trial lawyers are forever talking about how representative the jury is–and then working hard to stack juries so they’re as unrepresentative as possible. As Olson notes in an excerpt published in Reason, the same folks who say the jury box is like the ballot box are the most avid to keep out people who might vote the wrong way.”

“Substitute ‘prosecutor’ for ‘trial lawyer’ and Ramesh has made the case against himself.

“I know it’s a cliche, but if juries can’t be trusted to set damages for medical malpractice and other personal injury cases, they can’t be trusted to decide whether to impose the death penalty.”