You're forgetting who publishes Readers Digest, and who their target demographic is.
1. Publisher is a Right Wing Conservative Christian organisation: they believe in:
Right To Life, i.e. Pro-Life, Anti-Abortion E.g. I read an article once about a baby girl born without a brain (like Jodo, only it was due to water on the brain, as the water was drained, the brain grew and adapted: she ended up having about 60% of normal brain functioning with about 20% of the normal mass of an average brain by the time she was old enough to go to school).
Death Penalty for criminals. Zero tolerance. They see no contradiction between these two tenets.
2. Target demographic is old and conservative. My mother reads it (she's over 70). Don't write anything that will scare the horses.
This idiot attention-whore (not Jodo, Thompson) is trying his best to become the most reknown lawyer for this class-action-in-Posse, so that he gets to cream off the lucre if it hits paydirt.
Sensationalism sells media. It doesn't win over high court judges, and the way this is shaping up (with born-again conservative presidential candidate 2008 Hilary Clinton already on record saying that violent video affects violence in society) it will go all the way to the Supreme Court before it is defeated.