‘Life or Death Confusion’

The language of the Briggs Initiative in stating that a jury shall impose the death penalty if it finds that aggravating factors outweigh mitigating ones may be strange, ambiguous, and confusing to Lakoff, but it looks like perfectly plain English to us common folks who are not linguistic.

What is strange and confusing is the judge’s interpretation of the law as only permitting and not mandating the death penalty when the jury has decided that aggravating factors outweigh mitigating ones. This was not the intent of the framers of the initiative or of the voters who passed it.

Shall clearly was used here as an imperative. I suppose that if the judge had been around when the Ten Commandments were handed down, he would have explained to Moses that all those shalts and shalt nots really meant that you are permitted but not required to obey them.

THOMAS D. CULLEN

San Pedro