Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don't like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty.

I apologize to the public, whom I promised better.

While their fiscal views aren't mine, the moderates are the last reasonable voice in the current Republican Party.

As one who was a prosecutor for many years, I can tell you that having a tape recording of interrogations would help everybody. It would make clear if there had been improper pressure exerted on a defendant or witness, and it would also protect the interrogating officer from false claims that such pressure had been brought to bear.

I don't like politicians who vacillate.

I don't think Michael Bloomberg would say that his greatest skill is delivering the speech. He would say he's more of a nuts-and-bolts mayor-picking up the trash, dealing with the school system.

Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an e-mail.