Black robes and betrayal

Washington Times ^ | Wednesday, March 2, 2005 | Tony Blankley

[JohnHuang2]

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck again -- this time overturning by a 5-4 decision, all statutes that apply the death sentence to 16- and 17-year-old murderers. As a former prosecutor, I am convinced that from time to time juries find before them 16- or 17-year-old defendants who understand full well the vicious nature of their murders, and deserve -- after receiving the full panoply of due process -- to be fried, gassed, hanged, shot, injected or otherwise sent promptly to Hell.

[kingattax]

how many death warrants of decent, innocent people were in effect signed by these black-robed idiots ?

[Miss Marple]

I could accept this decision if they had cited the Constitution. But NOOOO, they cited public opinion and FOREIGN opinion.

If this doesn't galvanize Republicans for fights on court appointments, I don't know what will.

[Texas_Jarhead]

From the last paragraph, "After Justice Kennedy used five pages of his logically incoherent majority opinion to cite a hodge podge of foreign laws, he limply and defensively concluded his opinion: "It does not lessen our fidelity to the Constitution or our pride in its origins to acknowledge that the express affirmation of certain fundamental rights by other nations and people simply underscores the centrality of those same rights within our own heritage of freedom." When a Supreme Court justice feels it necessary to write as the closing words of his opinion that he still holds fidelity to the Constitution, it is more than reasonable to assume he knows he has just betrayed that sacred document. But at least he has vouchsafed his popularity at liberal cocktail parties for another year."

[Texas_Jarhead]

IMO most run-of-the-mill Republicans are already "galvanized' on the issue. The party leadership though is sorely lacking.

[John Lenin]

Are you talking about Roe v Wade ? Lots of innocnets are still dieing today because of these morons.

[Miss Marple]

The Congressional Republicans was whom I was referring to. I should have been more clear.

[DirtyHarryY2K]

"The germ of destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body — working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdication, until all shall render powerless the checks of one branch over the other and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."

--Thomas Jefferson (1821)

[TNCMAXQ]

Every headline says juvenile DP abolished. The media of course make it sound as if the barbaric USA is killing children. What garbage. Instead however, killers of children will now be spared. So much for "justice."

[Dawgreg]

Miss Marple, if the Congres has the guts to do it, they can argue that this is a states rights issue, that the Supreme Court IS NOT the final decision, nor was it meant to be. We CAN turn the tide on these courts and I'm all for having a COMPLETE over-haul of the Federal Court system in this country. These life-time appointments with no one to answer to, activist judges, etal, have to be re-considered. Enough already. I'm also sick and tired of going the "way of the world", so to speak. This is America, with it's own laws and to heck with how the "world" deals with issues.

[billclintonwillrotinhell]

how many death warrants of decent, innocent people were in effect signed by these black-robed idiots ?

To be exact, an infinite number.

[DH]

UNCONSTITUTIONAL! That's all I have heard for the past 24 hours. The MSM cites the fact that it was UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

I'm really having trouble finding anything in the constitution that applies to the death sentence. I believe it's in the UN constitution but not in ours.

Our spineless political prostitutes better get up off their asses and start to do something more than line their own pockets with "dirty" money.

[Racehorse]

The germ of destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body  . . . Thomas Jefferson.

Do you suppose Thomas might have been a bit resentful because George Washington appointed all those Federalist judges to the judiciary?

Our debate over the political character of federal courts began with Washington's first appoint, methinks.

[MarkL]

Hey, you know what? Isn't abortion illegal in Ireland? Maybe Kennedy will accept that Roe v Wade is invalid, and that abortion really isn't a Constitutional right, since courts in Ireland must have ruled against that too!

Mark

[Don'tMessWithTexas]

Yes, but Mr. Justice Kennedy would counter that abortion is legal and very effective in China and that, with deference to the evolving opinion of a majority of the peoples of the earth, China trumps Ireland. Of course in doing so, we still continue to assert our fidelity to the Constitution of the U.S.

BLECH!

[G L Tirebiter]

There doesn't seem to be much that can be done regarding the current court's leanings on foreign law vs. US law.

However, this is clearly an area that needs scrutiny during confirmation.

Unlike questions on a specific issue ("How would you rule on Roe?")this goes to the heart of a nominee's judicial temperament.

I smell an oncoming litmus test.

[DirtyHarryY2K]

The underlying problems, are these: that passing laws in areas where laws should not be passed will first bring disregard, and, then, will come contempt for the law followed by social disorder. We must make judges electable.

Judges are never elected, theirs is the worst closed shop of all. They dispense Alice in Wonderland justice – where the words mean exactly what they want them to mean.

No one knows what the rules are and they are so clouded and blurred by contradictory case law (not to mention foreign law, a blatant disregard for the U. S. Constitution)that anything goes.

[nicollo]

By design the political curve of the Courts follows the national trend by half a generation, sometimes more. Just about every political movement, once in power, has been checked by the Courts, which were appointed by the older order. Jackson faced it. Lincoln faced it. TR faced. FDR faced it. Same goes now.

All these cries on our side for democracy and rule of the people ring hallow to me, for back in the 1930s the people got exactly what they wanted when FDR put in his kind of activist judges. We're still weeding out of the system the long, long run of liberalism. Conservative judges are slowly taking over, and they'll run the courts well beyond the next political swing.

Nicollo unmasked: Bromleyisms here

[Jim Noble]

What would happen if a State went ahead and carried out a warrant of execution on one of these scum, defying the Supreme Court "decision"?

Since the decision has no basis in Constitutional law, logically it is void. Why be deferential to it?

[beyond the sea]

In support thereof they cited, inter alia, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child

The same treaty that the U.S. blew off, the same treaty that allows children to sue their parents for not letting them hang out with a bad crowd. The country is dying with these decisions based on these other parameters.

****

Hillary loves this kind of thing, she was writing about these "rights" of children 30 years ago!