A signing statement that announces the president's intention to disregard the invalid provision offers a valuable, and lawful, alternative.

The Supreme Court set aside an Arizona man's death sentence today, ruling 8 to 1 that the Arizona Supreme Court had failed to take the necessary precautions to make sure that the sentence was not based on an invalid provision of the state's death penalty law.

He started with the premise that all legislative enactments are presumed to be valid, and may only be struck down in their entirety if the law is unconstitutional in "all or nearly all of its applications," or if the invalid provision cannot be severed from the remainder of the statute.