Posted on 03/04/2005 10:42:55 PM PST by Former Military Chick
So now the U.S. Supreme Court is writing decisions based on what Our Betters in Europe think is best. That's what the Big Bench did Tuesday when it issued a 5-4 decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, overturning the death penalty for crimes committed by minors.
Let me stipulate. The outcome -- an end to executions of those who committed crimes as minors -- isn't what bothers me here. There is an argument to be made that, as per the Eighth Amendment, it is "cruel and unusual" to execute those convicted of crimes committed when they were minors. Minors, as Justice Kennedy put it, are "categorically less culpable than the average criminal."
But the court didn't limit its guidance to the U.S. Constitution. Justice Kennedy wrote that the court can and should consider "the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty," including opposition among "leading members of the Western European community."
Be afraid, America. Be very afraid. European Union countries don't simply oppose capital punishment; they also oppose life without parole and mete out notoriously short sentences for heinous crimes. In recent years, a German court essentially sentenced a man who killed and ate another man -- the killer was so proud he videotaped everything -- to 81/2 years in prison. He is expected to walk free after five years.
The International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia found a Bosnian Serb colonel guilty of aiding and abetting the genocide that resulted in thousands of deaths. His sentence: 18 years.
Don't blame European juries. Judges made the above rulings. On the Continent, juries get little respect.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Under the Constitution it would, but apparently our government doesn't work under it anymore
Should the Supreme Court justices who considered "The overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty" as one of the deciding factors in their decisions be impeached?
I suppose the Hitler Youth division in Normandy should have been given a pass also.
Deborah Saunders normally writes for the SF Chronicle. In many cases she comes across as a RINO, like almost any story involving firearms.
She is usually solid on economic issues and government, but is a sea of blue (SF, ya know) she doesn't have to be too conservative to be considered hate speech.
She is often on KSFO 560 in the mornings.
Here is her archives:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/search/columnists.cgi?waisdbname=/chronicle/&byline=Debra+Saunders
That was the first thing that came to my mind after reading this garbage(aka:opinion). I believe at the very least he violated the oath he swore when he became a Justice.
I'm afraid the media is too consumed with Michael Jackson/Martha Stuart/Robert Blake to pay the whole issue any lip service. Our nation was very much undermined this week by the SCOTUS, and virtually no one knows.......
"Shouldn't this be an impeachable offense?"
Yes.
Apart from not wishing to anger a special interest group, I don't understand why Congressional impeachment of judges is limited to felonies.
Why the reluctance to fire a judge? Regular, everyday people face such a possibility every day.
Abuse of power should be the first and foremost basis of firing a tyrannical judge. Consideration of foreign law as a basis for US law is abuse pure and simple.
Second should be judicial opinions based on falsehood or nonsense. Kennedy cited evolving standards and that state law was stacked against death for minors. These arguments are factually false.
The Supreme court was supposed to be supreme among courts, not supreme over the two other branches of goverment.
We Americans almost all descend from people who fled the rotten governments of foreign lands for good reason.
Too many of these robes were invited on junkets to visit foreign capitals. They were treated like royalty. They obviously came back with the attitude "Gosh. These are the sweetest rulers on earth. We must forgive them the atrocities of the past."
In other words, they come off like they have been bought off by the international crowd. And now they aim to normalize our laws to coincide with the laws of those same foreign lands that our forebears had good cause to spit upon.
No Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is needed as long as these robes can pretend they are the arbiters of what is "compelling government interest" for our government to exceed the limitations explicitly placed upon it.
The constitution places LIMITS on government and all its institutions. That includes SCOTUS. Every time the majority of the SCOTUS invokes compelling government interest or, even worse, points to either law or case law in foreign lands as all the adequate excuse they need to overrule our laws as passed by our elected representatives, they are going outside the limits placed upon THEMSELVES. They are, in effect, making themselves illegitimate.
Each justice who admits in their own written opinion that they "don't respect any limits on themselves" is creating a constitutional challenge. IMHO, with each invocation of arguments that kind they seem to be begging to be impeached.
It is Congress' obligation to take up the challenge. And Congress won't do it unless they feel the heat from their voters.
That makes it the citizens' obligation to scream loud and long.
Bottom line: Help build good arguments that will convince a sizable number of our fellow citizens (other than the choir here at FR) to throw out any self-made illegitimus of a justice who is begging for impeachment.
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