one of capitalism's hallmarks

Did Texas execute an innocent man? Not knowing for certain, I will say that there is no such thing as a human system which is without error, and that includes systems (mechanical, electrical) devised by humans. So they most likely did. I found the following statement interesting: "Each official had a separate role in the process, so that no one person felt responsible for taking a life."

Yup, that's a hallmark of the capitalist system, especially with respect to industrialization. Sounds like something out of 1984, and it illustrates how dehumanizing the parceling out of personal responsibility can be. It can make people so desensitized as to partake in murder. Remember that in Ye Olden Dayz, the accomplices also used to hang (now they just get life). And yet we ascribe to such a system that can so dehumanize us most of the plaudits for creating enormous wealth and well-being for so many. Interesting, is it not, to consider that such divisions of labor also lead corporations unable to name individuals responsible for things like "rogue" trading (no mention of the system that exists behind the trader, or the conspiracy required to hide the misdeeds) and the recent (fawesome) legal debacle over the Merrill Lynch / Citigroup merger and bonus scheme.

My favorite quotations have to be:

• “The S.E.C. gets to claim that it is exposing wrongdoing on the part of the Bank of America in a high-profile merger,” he wrote, and “the Bank’s management gets to claim that they have been coerced into an onerous settlement by overzealous regulators.”

• “It is quite something else for the very management that is accused of having lied to its shareholders to determine how much of those victims’ money should be used to make the case against the management go away,” Judge Rakoff wrote.

• “You filed a rather uninformative, bare-bones complaint,” Mr. Rakoff told SEC lead lawyer David Rosenfeld, who reportedly replied meekly that the commission hadn't made any allegations against specific individuals.

The response didn't satisfy Mr. Rakoff.

“I would be less than candid if I didn't express my continued misgivings about this settlement at this stage,” he told the lawyers for both sides. “When this settlement first came to me, it seemed to be lacking, for lack of a better word, transparency.”

People already have enough of a hard time taking proper responsibility for their actions without Adam Smith getting in the way! lol