As cynical as anyone following the case of the West Memphis Three might be, last week’s ruling by the Arkansas Supreme Court remanding their cases once again to the circuit court was sure to elicit a massive groan by supporters. Although it should only take Judge David Burnett of the 2^nd district a matter of weeks to turn the case around (he is listed as a "special" judge, and as such has no regular caseload), any additional delay in this case is wholly unacceptable. Damien Echols has been on death row for 15.6 years - 12.8 is the average span between sentencing and execution - and with conditions being what they are, years of uncertainty for an inmate and the families of the victims is unconscionable. Our current president has decided that repeatedly holding the heads of foreign-born enemy combatants under water is torture. What must he think of inmates, U.S. citizens, spending years - or decades - sequestered in tiny, airless cells for 23 hours a day. The incidents of suicide and attempted suicide by death row inmates is 113 per 100,000, about 6 times the rate among U.S. males in the general prison population ("Suicide on Death Row", David Lester and Christine Tartaro, Journal of Forensic Sciences.) Our corrections system is based upon justice, not vengeance. At least that’s what it says in the text books. Guilty or innocent, in the words of Barack Obama, "The United States does not torture people."

But to the issue at hand: why did the high court remand the case? The October 1 opinion reads, in part, "Although the record in Baldwin v. State . . . reflects that Baldwin Exhibit Nos. 1-71 and 75-77 were filed under seal, we are unable to determine whether these exhibits were also filed under seal in Echols v. State . . . and Misskelley v. State. Likewise, the records in each case do not indicate whether any of the pleadings were filed under seal . . . [as such] we remand the above-captioned cases to the trial court to settle the record concerning which portions of the respective records are under seal."

Is this for real? If the court received a record that was sealed, it should remain sealed. Why is this even a question? The lone dissenter, Justice Paul Danielson, agreed, writing that " . . .such an inquiry at this point is a simple one. Either the records, or portions thereof, were filed under seal . . . or they were not." Danielson said the decision to send the records back to Burnett means, in essence, that the higher court is " providing the circuit court with a second opportunity to seal portions of those records." On this issue the circuit court should not have another bite at the apple, particularly in a case where Judge Burnett has had the opportunity to eat the entire apple, core and all, although in fairness, he surely wishes it would go away as well. Could it possibly be - say it ain’t so - that the higher court is dodging the difficult decision of whether or not to grant new trials to the three men? Of course, on the positive side, and there is one, Damien Echols is still alive.

Let’s hope it stays that way.