“Not to be flip,” C. Ian McLachlan, then a nominee for the state Supreme Court, told a state senator who was quizzing him about the death penalty, “but the question really isn’t what I think about it. What do you think about it?”
McLachlan was at the judicial equivalent of his job interview with the legislative Judiciary Committee. He was making a point on principle: “As far as I’m concerned, capital punishment is a political decision. It’s been held to be constitutional. It doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t look at a new constitutional challenge. But if the legislature wants to change it, change it.”
