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BAZAAR DEATH PENALTY RULING (THE SOOPREMES AND SOUTER)
Sierra Times ^ | 9/29/2005 | Gerald McOscar

Posted on 09/29/2005 5:26:06 AM PDT by ElCapusto

The Supreme Court issued several bazaar rulings this past term, but none more so than its June 20 decision reversing a Pennsylvania death sentence.

In the under-reported case of Rompilla v. Beard, the Court by a 5-4 margin ruled that defense lawyers were remiss for not digging deeply enough for mitigating factors that might have spared Ronald Rompilla, now 57, the death penalty for the 1988 murder of an Allentown tavern owner. Curiosity prompted me to dig deeper.

Writing for the majority, Justice David A. Souter begins with a disturbing account of Rompilla’s violent life. On the morning of January 14, 1988, James Scanlon’s body was discovered lying in a pool of blood in his Allentown bar. He had been stabbed multiple times, including 16 wounds around the neck and head. He also had been beaten with a blunt object, and his face had been gashed with shards of broken liquor and beer bottles found at the scene. After he had been stabbed to death Scanlon’s body had been set on fire. Rompilla was convicted of murder and related offenses and sentenced to death.

Nor was Mr. Scanlon the first victim of Rompilla’s murderous impulses. At sentencing, the prosecution offered his “ significant history of felony convictions involving the use or threat of violence...” as an aggravating factor in justifying a death sentence, including the 1974 brutal robbery, slashing, mutilation and rape at knife point of a female tavern owner.

I felt my intellectual curiosity turning to hostility as Justice Souter labored to rationalize reversing Rompilla’s death sentence, a decision so outrageous that it ’s hard to believe it wasn’t decided in advance.

Rompilla is chock-full of junk science, wishful thinking, second guessing, and in the words of dissenting Justice Anthony Kennedy, “ misguided analysis. ” Bereft of common sense, critical thought and sound judgment, it is a textbook example of all that is wrong with the American justice system.

Justice Souter first chides Rompilla’s defense attorneys for failing to uncover what he deigns to be “ a range of mitigating leads ” about Rompilla’s childhood, mental capacity and health, and alcoholism hidden deep in the 1974 rape file. He cavalierly dismisses their commonsense strategy to seek mitigating material by interviewing the defendant, members of his family and consultation with three mental health experts before opting to beg for mercy rather than risk drawing the jury’s attention to his violent past.

Next, Souter anoints these purported “ mitigating factors” with a weight far disproportionate to their relevance. A guilty verdict establishes beyond reasonable doubt the degree of culpability underlying a crime. Once guilt is established, it’s fair to ask what further investigation is necessary. Sentencing is a time for accountability, not for excuses about someone’s “ childhood, mental capacity and health, and alcoholism.” It is the time when equal justice under the law is meted out to men who are created equal.

Turning this Constitutional principle on its head, Justice Souter suggests that justice demands that the Rompillas of the world be less accountable for their conduct than those from good homes, good schools and supportive parents. Furthermore, with fewer “ mitigating factors ” in their backgrounds, his skewed logic suggests that the “ privileged” are more deserving of death sentences for capital crimes than their less fortunate brethren.

Souter bends over backwards to slather Rompilla with gobs of misplaced compassion while wholly ignoring Rompilla’s victims and will of the people of Pennsylvania. He also stigmatizes the vast majority of men and women from similar backgrounds who choose to live productive and law abiding lives rather than use their hardships as excuses to rob, rape and murder. Rompilla himself called his background “ unexceptionable.”

The majority’s concerted effort to turn Rompilla’s irresponsibility, immaturity and depravity into “ mitigating factors ” that if known might have steered the jury away from the death penalty is a dazzling display of legal legerdemain, wishful thinking, or both. Essentially, it is a measure of the majority’s deep-seated animus toward the death penalty and their far remove from reality.

Rompilla marks a low point in the annals of American jurisprudence. Justices Souter, Sandra Day O’Connor, John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer should be ashamed to call this justice.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: judicialstupidity; leftistsupreme; souter
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...Souter first chides Rompilla’s defense attorneys for failing to uncover what he deigns to be “ a range of mitigating leads ”...

The supercilious Souter obfuscates behind his smoke screen of nonsense with the end result being a slap in the face of justice!

1 posted on 09/29/2005 5:26:07 AM PDT by ElCapusto
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To: ElCapusto

bizarre headline, threw me off a bit.


2 posted on 09/29/2005 5:27:50 AM PDT by palmer (Money problems do not come from a lack of money, but from living an excessive, unrealistic lifestyle)
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To: ElCapusto

What a bizarre bazaar! And what an idiot reporter who doesn't know the difference between the two words!


3 posted on 09/29/2005 5:28:05 AM PDT by MortMan (Mostly Harmless)
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To: ElCapusto; Admin Moderator
BIZARRE, not bazaar...


4 posted on 09/29/2005 5:28:26 AM PDT by pageonetoo (You'll spot their posts soon enough!)
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To: All

Souter, the perfect jackass, pontificates in his robes and gushes over a brutal and heinous killer! He is beyond contempt and totally without benefit of the title or the meaning of "justice."


5 posted on 09/29/2005 5:28:29 AM PDT by ElCapusto (For ENGLISH, press one.)
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To: ElCapusto
Your link goes nowhere.

What kind of editor lets the word "bazaar" through?

One without a dictionary, or a brain, I guess.

6 posted on 09/29/2005 5:28:50 AM PDT by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: ElCapusto

Bazaar??????? Who edits this stuff?


7 posted on 09/29/2005 5:29:17 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: pageonetoo

I posts them as I sees them. The reporter may be a lousy speller, but the story is dead nuts on.


8 posted on 09/29/2005 5:29:31 AM PDT by ElCapusto (For ENGLISH, press one.)
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To: palmer

Guess they couldn't afford a word processor with a spell-check and usage button............


9 posted on 09/29/2005 5:29:34 AM PDT by Red Badger (In life, you don't get what you deserve. You get what you settle for...........)
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To: AppyPappy
Bazaar??????? Who edits this stuff?

Is his name Harper?

10 posted on 09/29/2005 5:30:16 AM PDT by SlowBoat407 (The best things happen just before the thread snaps.)
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To: palmer
bizarre headline, threw me off a bit

Me too, made me wonder if the Supreme Court was looking into Arab-style public executions in the bazaar. But then I realized that was just too bizarre.

11 posted on 09/29/2005 5:31:36 AM PDT by shhrubbery! (The 'right to choose' = The right to choose death --for somebody else.)
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To: ElCapusto

Sorry. I followed the nowhere link, and assumed... and we all know about assuming. Anyway, the guy doesn't use an editor?


12 posted on 09/29/2005 5:31:58 AM PDT by pageonetoo (You'll spot their posts soon enough!)
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To: ElCapusto
Try this link if you wish:

http://www.sierratimes.com/05/09/28/141_158_37_102_27359.htm

13 posted on 09/29/2005 5:31:59 AM PDT by ElCapusto (For ENGLISH, press one.)
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To: ElCapusto


http://www.sierratimes.com/05/09/28/141_158_37_102_27359.htm

TRY THIS LINK.........


14 posted on 09/29/2005 5:32:00 AM PDT by Red Badger (In life, you don't get what you deserve. You get what you settle for...........)
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To: MortMan

Souter - the consummate Liberal Leftist American betrayer.


15 posted on 09/29/2005 5:32:12 AM PDT by RoadTest (Peace! Peace! where there is no peace. Beat your plowshares into swords.)
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To: ElCapusto

Justice Souter’s “mitigating factors” of Rompilla’s “childhood, mental capacity and health, and alcoholism” seem to be very good reasons to enforce the death penalty.


16 posted on 09/29/2005 5:32:14 AM PDT by R. Scott (Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your Intelligence to buy a drink.)
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To: ElCapusto
The Supreme Court issued several bazaar rulings this past term, but none more so than its June 20 decision reversing a Pennsylvania death sentence.

I think the word the author had in mind is bizarre, meaning "involving sensational contrasts or incongruities."

17 posted on 09/29/2005 5:32:35 AM PDT by Logophile
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To: pageonetoo

We don't need no steenking editors!........


18 posted on 09/29/2005 5:32:55 AM PDT by Red Badger (In life, you don't get what you deserve. You get what you settle for...........)
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To: MortMan

It's very series and hugh.


19 posted on 09/29/2005 5:33:57 AM PDT by OKSooner
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To: palmer

In the bazaar of criminal attorneys, some bizarre rulings are expected.


20 posted on 09/29/2005 5:34:50 AM PDT by R. Scott (Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your Intelligence to buy a drink.)
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