Judges who have special gold embroideries sewn into their robes are scary enough.

Judges whose special gold robe-embroideries happen to be of the ten commandments are really, really fucking scary.

But what about prosecutors--the guys who actually do the work to get people convicted? Jeffrey Toobin's New Yorker article "Killer Instincts" (note: PDF file)--about corrupt murderer and major asshole Kenneth Peasley, a now-disbarred prosecutor in Pima County, Arizona--planted some very disturbing notions in my mind. Peasley was indicted for deliberately falsifying evidence in a capital triple-murder case which resulted in death sentences for three defendents. Two of the men received new trials, but one of them--Martin Soto-Fong--is still on death row. The deal with Peasley was a combination of intense personal hatred for the defendents, intense ego, and intense hubris. If he knew the guy was guilty and deserved to die, why shouldn't he bend the evidence a little here and there in order to win the verdict that we wanted? He knew he was right. Etc. etc.

Now, there's probably little doubt Peasley is a Republican, or at least a neo-fascist. He's certainly not a "faith-based" person (except insofar as he has faith in the infallibility of his own prosecutorial instincts). But his story planted an image in my mind, of a whole new generation of Christianist prosecutors, trained at Bob Jones University Law School or whatever, who go out into the world to win death sentences against criminals, who see themselves as serving God's Divine Death-Justice, and who see the petty details of the law as subordinate to that Justice? Lawyers who pray on a case, and receive direct personal revelation, from God, of a client's guilt?

I have no knowledge that such a state of affairs has come to pass...but just imagine.