California's Death Penalty

Some folks were surprised that a California jury recommended death for Scott Peterson.

They shouldn’t have been. Despite California’s reputation as a liberal state, Californians have no trouble imposing the death penalty (search). While it’s true that just 10 inmates have been executed since 1976, compared to 335 in Texas, Californians have put more criminals on death row than any other state. And when California’s Chief Justice Rose Bird and two other liberal justices spent a decade reversing 90 percent of the death sentences imposed by Californians, voters tossed Justice Bird and her fellow justices off the bench.

Now, a quick update on a story we told you about yesterday. Susan Rosenberg (search), a former member of the terrorist Weather Underground, who was sentenced to almost 60 years in prison for possession of explosives before President Clinton commuted her sentence, will not be teaching writing at Hamilton College (search) in New York. She withdrew her nomination as “artist-in-residence,” even though the Hamilton faculty “affirmed the high value they place on the free expression of a diversity of opinions by people from a wide variety of backgrounds.”

No word on whether that respect for diversity of opinions will clear the way for other bomb-making felons.

And that’s the Asman Observer.

Watch David Asman on "FOX News Live" weekdays at noon ET.