Iran isn't a role model

Courtesy of Sam Heldman at Ignatz comes a reminder that an abiding respect for leaving the entire Bill of Rights intact doesn't appear to be a prerequisite to teaching constitutional law.

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, perhaps the most influential conservative legal blogger this side of Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds, this week suggested a constitutional amendment to lift a portion of the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment and allow Iranian-style punishment of mass murderers, including flogging and throttling. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty skeptical of arguments that we should abrogate centuries-old constitutional protections of civil liberties to try to make our criminal-justice system more like that of a theocracy.