News Worthy

Two different Icelandic radio stations, within the span of a few minutes, mentioned the same news item, taken from U.S. AP wires I guess. The item concerns a man on death row in Texas whose lawyer sent in a letter to the judge stating that his client could not be executed, with quotes from the convicted man's doctor discussing the medical reasons why this was impossible, all stemming from him being excessively overweight. I know from an American perspective that this item is newsworthy primarily because of the rhetorical brilliance, or despicable fenagling, of the lawyer. This will be a new defense throughout the legal system, as other inmates try to do the same. But in a country like Iceland that has no death penalty, and no advocacy legal system (where an accused is defended by a lawyer), I am unsure what the interest is here.  One of the radio stations had the DJ's chatting about this story, and in their conversation it seemed the main point of interest was in how fat this poor man is. I know I'm very far from Berkeley this morning. 

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