State District Judge Kevin Fine
Posted on 03/06/2010 8:12:24 AM PST by JoeProBono
It’s either one of the more brazen and courageous judicial rulings we’ve heard of in a long time, or one of the most ill-considered examples of judicial activism we’ve heard of in a long time.
Your take on it will likely depend on your take on the death penalty. The news is this, and it’s pretty striking:
A state district judge in Houston granted a pretrial motion declaring the death penalty unconstitutional.
The ruling, made by State District Judge Kevin Fine, came in response to a motion filed by lawyers for a man accused of fatally shooting a Houston woman and wounding her sister on June 16, 2008. The lawyers had argued the procedures surrounding death-penalty jury instructions in the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure violate the Eighth and 14th Amendments prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment and guaranteeing the right of due process.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
State District Judge Kevin Fine
Kevin Fine is also an admitted former cocaine addict, and how Texans could have elected him to the bench is beyond me. Look at the eyes on that guy. He is lost.
Judges who subsitute their own opinions for the law in such an obvious manner should be quickly removed from office.
...nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
The day that my congregation was led to pray for the end of the death penalty was the day I left my church.
bttt
He claims that because he was a drug addict he is a better judge regarding drug trials.
As one contributor to the comments said:
Ergo: Muderers would be better judges in homicide trials, pedophiles better judges in child molestation trials.
Yeah...really makes a lot of sense....but then Judge Fine is a democrat.
Perfect. Next we’ll be hearing he’s on Obama’s short list to replace Justice Ginsburg.
He’s a Soetoro sanctioned plant.
What a horrible joke on the justice system. And Judge Fine is most certainly misnamed, there is nothing fine about him.
when the founders were still around they had the death penalty, therefore it is obviously “constitutional” since the orginators of the document did not object to the practice.
What Tattoo parlor does he work for. That looks to me like the only thing he is probably expert on.
His ruling should be held null and void by a Judicial panel and he should be removed from the bench, and placed as the Tattooed man in a Circus where he belongs.
Cruel and unusual punishment? Try the chair with a dry scalp, guillotine, or firing squad.
Muscle relaxants are most certainly not cruel and unusual. It’s definitely the most humane way to be put to death.
Also can’t be sentenced to death without................... a hearing and fair trial.
Texas Supreme Court wil smack him down on this, guaranteed.
The due process argument is to be expected, as it is invoked virtually every time a law is vitiated. And whenever it isn’t, its 14th amendment cousin in elasticity, “equal protection,” is. What is puzzling is the 8th amendment argument, which I’d think would be a non-starter, given the fact that the very same constitution that outlaws “cruel and unusual punishment” implicitly accepts death as a normal punishment.
What with cultural evolution and changing mores, it could come to pass that at some time in the future execution will become unusual. But, you know, executions have to actually stop, at some point, for that to happen. I don’t remember a recent death-free interim, do you?
Well for God's sake, he had due process. It's called a TRIAL...duh
I pray that this "Judge" never experiences a personal tragedy that is known by this family....and now he is heaping it on trying to keep their loved one's killer alive?? Insanity...
Calling Judge Howard, Judge Fine, Judge Howard...
Goodness. I can smell him from here.
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