The judge calling for a return to the guillotine [View all]

[Rollo]

Impeachment is slower, but not as messy.

The judge calling for a return to the guillotine

Ninth Circuit Appeals Court Judge Alex Kozinski holds provocative views on the death penalty. In an interview with Lesley Stahl this week, he advocates for the firing squad — even the guillotine.

“It’s 100 percent effective, and it leaves no doubt that what we are doing is a violent thing,” he tells Stahl on the broadcast.

But look past the shocking sentiment and French Revolution imagery and see Judge Kozinski’s broader notion: killing a person — no matter how it’s carried out and how legally justified courts deem it — is vicious.

“If we’re going to take human life, if we’re going to execute people, if the state is going to snuff out a human being,” he says, “we should not fool ourselves into thinking that it’s anything but a violent, brutal act.”