Posted on 03/16/2005 11:19:13 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
"By what conceivable warrant can nine lawyers presume to be the authoritative conscience of the Nation?" So asked an incredulous Justice Antonin Scalia in response to the latest outrage by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Five activist justices (not even nine) just imposed their personal social preference on every American voter, state legislator, congressman, and juror. Adding insult to injury, the supremacist five used foreign laws, "international opinion," and even an unratified treaty to rationalize overturning more than 200 years of American law and history.
Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in Roper v. Simmons is a prime example of liberal judges changing our Constitution based on their judge-invented notion that its meaning is "evolving." He presumed to rewrite the Eighth Amendment.
The murder involved in this case was particularly heinous. Christopher Simmons persuaded a fellow teenager to help him commit a brutal murder after assuring him they could "get away with it" because they were both under age eighteen.
Simmons met his pal at 2 a.m. and they broke into Shirley Crook's home as she slept. Simmons and his fellow teenager bound her hands, covered her eyes with duct tape, put her in her own minivan, and drove to a state park.
There they hog-tied her hands and feet together with electrical wire, wrapped her entire face in duct tape, and threw her body from a railroad trestle into the Meramec River. Mrs. Crook drowned helplessly, and her body was found later by fishermen.
Showing no remorse, Simmons bragged about his killing to his friends, declaring that he did it "because the bitch seen my face." He confessed quickly after his arrest and even agreed to reenact the crime on video.
A jury of his peers listened to his attorney's argument that youthful indiscretion should mitigate punishment; the jury observed Simmons' demeanor at trial and heard from a slew of witnesses. After an exhaustive trial and full consideration of age as a factor, the jury and judge imposed the death sentence as allowed by Missouri law.
The American system allows a jury to recommend life-or-death following due process and the applicable law enacted by the representatives of the people of the state. Nothing in the text or history of the Eighth Amendment denies Missouri juries and state legislatures the right to make this decision.
The Supreme Court's main argument was the "trend" since 1989 that seven countries (Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, Congo, and China) have banned juvenile capital punishment. Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens and Souter changed U.S. law so we can follow the lead of those seven countries.
Only four U.S. states have legislated against the juvenile death penalty since 1989 (but none of them was executing juveniles anyway). On the other hand, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia all allow the death penalty for a seventeen-year-old who commits a particularly shocking murder.
The supremacist five claimed that most other countries don't execute seventeen-year-olds. However, most other countries don't have capital punishment at all, so there is no distinction between seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds.
Furthermore, most other countries don't allow jury trials or other Bill of Rights guarantees, so who knows if the accused ever gets what we would call a fair trial? Over 90 percent of jury trials are in the United States, and we certainly don't want to conform to non-jury-trial countries.
The supremacist five must think they can dictate evolution of the meaning of treaties as well as of the text of the Constitution.
They cited the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which our Senate year after year has refused to ratify. They also cited the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which we ratified only with a reservation specifically excluding the matter of juvenile capital punishment.
DC sniper Lee Malvo was seventeen during his infamous killing rampage, so now serial killers like him won't have to worry about the death penalty. The terrorists and the vicious Salvadoran gangs will be able to assign seventeen-year-olds as their hit men so they can "get away with it."
We recall that the Supreme Court ruled in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992 that it could not overturnRoe v. Wade because that might undermine "the Court's legitimacy." But in the Simmons case, the Court flatly overturned its own decision about juvenile capital punishment in Stanford v. Kentucky only 16 years ago.
As Justice Scalia pointed out in dissent, the Court's invocation of foreign law is both contrived and disingenuous. The big majority of countries reject U.S.-style abortion on demand, so the supremacist justices conveniently omitted that "international opinion."
Our runaway judiciary is badly in need of restraint by Congress. A good place to start would be a law declaring it an impeachable offense for justices to rely on foreign law in overriding the U.S. Constitution or congressional or state law.
You will notice that although our Founders looked to Roman Law (among others), laws passed by the Roman Senate and enforced by the Tribunes and Emperors ARE NOT law in the United States.
Up until recently we depended on Congress and the various state legislators to inform us of the state of American law.
Now, arch traitors like Justice Kennedy want us to bow down to foreign potentates and satraps.
It is time to remove the traitors and return to our own ancient traditions, and laws, and have our Congress and the legislatures debate and pass laws for our use.
I've read the decision and the dissents several times and because I have I know just how much balogna you are trying to pass off as roast beef.
And what everyone is ignoring the fact that in their ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Missouri Supreme Court that executing Simmons was cruel and unusual.
And what you're ignoring, or purposely withholding, is the fact that the Missouri court based it's holding on Atkins, you guessed it, another law made by SCOTUS while the Simmons case was being litigated.
How can the Supreme Court be accused of making laws when it is upholding a lower court ruling?
Not only is the SCOTUS making law, so did the Missouri Supreme Court. Missori legislatore, duly elected by the people of Missouri, had laws on their books. The Missori judges, using SCOTUS' erroneous reasoning in Atkins, found a way to negate those laws and then the same SCOTUS upheld the Missouri courts relaince on, you guessed it, SCOTUS.
Most states in this country (60%)have already determined that offenders under 18 should not be executed.
I'm pretty good with numbers so I can make them dance every bit as good as you. 37 states have the death penalty, that would be the sample we are working with. Of those, 18 states have the legislating against the death penalty for people under 18. But that means 19, a majority, do not have laws prohibitng same. IOW's, SCOTUS' claim that there is a consensus is a damn lie.
AS for the rest of your "analysis", states make all the laws you cited. That is the power assigned to them by the Constitution, as is who getss the death penalty.
But admittedly, a terrible typist.
It is impossible for a person to determine whether or not a punishment is "cruel and unusual" without that person relying on his "personal bias."
great post. Yes, they should be impeached and "conservative" Republicans who can't see the judiciary is out of control are part of the problem.
The Supreme Court decision was erroneous because you said it was. Well, glad we got that straightened out. </sarcasm>
Not just me but the three conservatives on the court and the one moderate. The lefties and the libertarian trending toward insanity all voted with you.
And BTW, sarcasm isn't an argument. I take it you've waived the white flag.
The Constitutional threads die a quick death these days. Maybe even quicker than SS. :-}
It irritates me when I am provoked to sound like a red meat right wing antagonist. But, well, facts are facts. One must call them as one sees them.
You're the man! Honest as the day is long.
That makes sense, I guess. I'll take your word for it. Perhapsd I was thinking of the "circuit" judges - I could swear that was William, but perhaps it was there with the Celts, I don't know.
I have a rule in my practice against representing ancient Celts, so how was I to know?
I read it. Did you read Scalia's dissent?
Yes, as well as O'Connor's.
You should read Scalia's dissent. First, the majority of states with the death penalty DO allow execution of minors. This is highly relevant to the legal standard (bogus though it is) in question, that of "evolving standards od decency" which is examined in reference to a "national consensus". How is a minority opinion equated to a national consensus? As for how it is that the Court is making law, I won't presume that I could articulate it better than Scalia. His dissent is marvelous.
Doesn't the justices to UPHOLD AND DEFEND the Contitution of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA? sorry for screaming, that was for emphasis.
When people post me, I like internet shouting [perhaps not nonstop caps lock], especially when it's the Great Schlafly discussing impeachment of judges. Glad to see it. Passion and brains. Powerful combination.
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