Anyone under the impression that this country’s judicial system is completely out of whack needs only take a look at these first two items sent me by my good friend Pete, reporting live from the People’s Republic of Massachusetts:

1. Inmate wins case vs. state over diet. And not just any inmate, mind you – a baby killer. Believe it:

Fourteen years ago, Henry K. Boateng was sentenced to life in prison without parole after a Worcester jury convicted him of beating his 5-week-old son to death and viciously attacking the baby’s mother.

Now, Boateng, who has changed his name to Daniel Yeboah-Sefah and identifies himself as a Buddhist, has won a significant legal victory: A federal judge found that the state prison system violated his civil rights by denying him a vegan diet.

…

Although the prison system had offered Yeboah-Sefah a standard vegetarian diet, he has spent nearly a decade unsuccessfully seeking a vegan diet that excludes all animal products, including eggs and milk products.

Hmmm. Seems to me the court might have taken into consideration this vermin’s violation of that young child’s civil rights, wouldn’t you think? But remember, this is Massachusetts we’re talking about here.

2. Pete notes that the same judge in the Boateng – oh excuse me, the Yeboah-Sefah, case is also the same feller who has previously ruled that the state must pay for another murderer to have a sex change operation:

A killer who sued to have a sex change claims her body is becoming more masculine because she’s being denied treatment in prison as she awaits a ruling in her bid for the surgery.

Michelle Kosilek, formerly known as Robert, said that for months she has not been allowed to have court-approved hair-removal treatment or access to a specialist to discuss her testosterone levels.

Robert Kosilek was sentenced to life in prison in the 1990 murder of his wife. Kosilek said the slaying was self-defense after she poured boiling tea on his genitals.

Kosilek, 58, who legally changed her name to Michelle in 1993 and has been living as a woman, first sued the Department of Correction in 2000, saying its refusal to allow her to have sex-change surgery violates the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

You’ve heard of inmates running the asylum? Well Massachusetts is a circus, and the inmates and their cretin lawyers are the ringleaders. Not only is this a ridiculous interpretation of cruel and unusual punsishment (hell, I could say the same thing if being forced to listen to Barbra Streisand’s Greatest Hits), this is an unbelievable waste of taxpayer money.

Why people put up with this crap is beyond me. Now here in Phoenix, we have ol’ Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who knows what the law is all about and is not fond of being compassionate to those who break the law:

Also impressive are the Sheriff’s get tough policies. For example, he banned smoking, coffee, movies, pornographic magazines, and unrestricted TV in all jails. He has the cheapest meals in the U.S. too. The average meal costs about 15 cents, and inmates are fed only twice daily, to cut the labor costs of meal delivery. He even stopped serving them salt and pepper to save tax payers $20,000 a year.

Another program Arpaio is very well known for is the pink undershorts he makes all inmates wear. Years ago, when the Sheriff learned that inmates were stealing jailhouse white boxers, Arpaio had all inmate underwear dyed pink for better inventory control. The same is true for the Sheriff’s handcuffs. When they started disappearing, he ordered pink handcuffs as a replacement. And later, when the Sheriff learned the calming, psychological effects of the color pink—sheets, towels, socks— everything inmates wear, except for the old-fashioned black and white striped uniform, were dyed pink.

Heh. Lots of liberals and activists out here criticize Sheriff Joe for his tough-as-nails stand against those who have entered the country illegally, but he’s not just a one-trick pony. Two weeks ago, to celebrate Father’s Day, Arpaio’s staff conducted “Operation Daddy Dearest” and arrested a slew of deadbeat dads, and this week, Sheriff Joe takes to the city of Mesa for a much-publicized “crime suppression sweep” that has immigrants rights activists up in arms. Pretty funny – these people are accusing Arpaio of “racial profiling”; last time I checked, I didn’t see a lot of Turks, Samoans, and Tahitians hanging around every Home Depot and hardware store each and every morning.

And finally, today’s news that the Supreme Court striking down handgun bans being enacted in a number of cities is not a bad thing. I’m no fan of guns by any means, but if the D.C. ban on handguns were to have been upheld, you would have seen war declared on guns and gun owners everywhere. As the first two headlines above show, liberals have no problem aggressively protecting the rights of convicted killers so they are given all sorts of crazy permissions, but they go nuts when it comes to allowing innocent citizens the right to defend themselves.

It’s a world gone mad.