I enjoy your work, Charles, and have always admired your thoughtfulness and community spirit. And I agree: If new information comes to light after a criminal conviction, the defendant should have the opportunity to be heard and have the conviction reversed, if appropriate. However, your attempt to distill the testimony presented during this 7-week trial into an abbreviated “case in point" has resulted in an incomplete and misleading picture. I do not think that Judge Souter was stating that he did not agree with the jury’s verdict in the trial. Please consider his other remarks during that hearing:

"The jury had the information to make a reasonable decision and did."

"This does appear to be a deliberate series of premeditated acts of the worst imaginable kind.”.

"This was a fair jury of decent, good people who did their best. They found deliberate, premeditated arson and murder for the basest of motives -- money -- committed by a mother against her own children."