Alito Splits With Conservatives on Inmate

Yahoo! ^ | 02.01.06 2 minutes ago | GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

[definitelynotaliberal]

WASHINGTON - New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito split with the court's conservatives Wednesday night, refusing to let Missouri execute a death-row inmate contesting lethal injection.

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Alito, handling his first case, sided with inmate Michael Taylor, who had won a stay from an appeals court earlier in the evening. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas supported lifting the stay, but Alito joined the remaining five members in turning down Missouri's last-minute request to allow a midnight execution.

Earlier in the day, Alito was sworn in for a second time in a White House ceremony, where he was lauded by President Bush as a man of "steady demeanor, careful judgment and complete integrity."

He was also was given his assignment for handling emergency appeals: Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. As a result, Missouri filed with Alito its request for the high court to void a stay and allow Taylor's execution.

The court's split vote Wednesday night ended a frenzied day of filings. Missouri twice asked the justices to intervene and permit the execution, while Taylor's lawyers filed two more appeals seeking delays.

Reporters and witnesses had gathered at the state prison awaiting word from the high court on whether to go ahead with the execution.

An appeals court will now review Taylor's claim that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, a claim also used by two Florida death-row inmates that won stays from the Supreme Court over the past week. The court has agreed to use one of the cases to clarify how inmates may bring last-minute challenges to the way they will be put to death.

Alito replaced Sandra Day O'Connor, who had often been the swing vote in capital punishment cases. He was expected to side with prosecutors more often than O'Connor, although as an appeals court judge, his record in death penalty cases was mixed.

Scalia and Thomas have consistently sided with states in death penalty cases and have been especially critical of long delays in carrying out executions.

Taylor was convicted of killing 15-year-old Ann Harrison, who was waiting for a school bus when he and an accomplice kidnapped her in 1989. Taylor pleaded guilty and said he was high on crack cocaine at the time.

Taylor's legal team had pursued two challenges — claiming that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment and that his constitutional rights were violated by a system tilted against black defendants.

The court, acting without Alito, rejected Taylor's appeal that argued that Missouri's death penalty system is racist. Taylor is black and his victim was white. He filed the appeal on Tuesday, the day that Alito was confirmed by the Senate.

[Hieronymus]

This particular instance isn't one of defying the hierarchy, though many members of the hierarchy might wish the death penalty to be declared immoral, they can't actually change the teaching.

There are Catholics out there who study and largely grasp the whole of the intellectual tradition of the Church--these would be distinguishable from Americans in general, but they are so diluted by those who are not well formed as to be statistically negligible in most instances--SCOTUS excepted. Scalia and Thomas definitely fall into this category (grasping and participating in the tradition). Hopefully Roberts and Alito are also so formed.

[HiTech RedNeck]

And he would be a loner.

[Tall_Texan]

I'd write this off as a case of the "yips".

Nobody wants his first day on the Supreme Court remembered as the day he signed off on somebody's execution - unless, of course, it was Ted Kennedy's execution being discussed.

He'll settle in with the rest of the conservatives soon enough.

[Steve_Stifler]

Let's just say that your view on how the commerce clause should be interpreted is at odds with your view of the eighth amendment.

[Torie]

OK. I also don't think Alito's reluctance to rush to judgment on this one matter, is much of a leading indicator about his constitutional view of cruel and unusual, and the death penalty in general, qua the death penalty, rather than qua being cautious, and letting the lower courts do their thing. I would be shocked, totally shocked, if he finds the death penalty cruel and unusual, unless and until a majority of the states, and Americans, do.

[Hieronymus]

The modern Catholic Church is (a) pro-life on both abortion and execution; (b) pro-life on war - i.e., anti-war; (c) traditionalist with regard to family and sexuality; (d) quasi-monarchist with regard to government - i.e., ambivalent with regard to populist movements; (e) socialist with regard to economic affairs.

---

This is a bumper-sticker presentation of the issues.
Two of the three "pro-life issues" in a and b are quite nuanced (abortion isn't unless you want to get into life-of-mother stuff, when the question becomes what constitutes an abortion). (d) being ambivalent about popular movements isn't the same thing as monarchist--Church teaching recognizes that there are a variety of legitimate forms of government; (e) socialist in that it teaches that capitalism could sometimes use some work; simultaneously capitalist in teaching that socialism could sometimes use some work

[Revenge of Sith]

Opposing execution isn't a "doctrine" of the Catholic Church. John Paul II (who isn't even pope anymore) said he personally didn't like the death penalty, but he acknowledged that he couldn't change church doctrine.

[Republican Wildcat]

What? You can't "abstain" from giving yourself time to look over a case.

[AntiGuv]

It's worth noting, however, that Alito's vote was not required in this instance. It was already a 5-3 decision without him. Seems to me he clearly felt adequately cognizant of the issues at hand because he felt competent to vote on the issue. He recused himself in the motions relating to the Rutherford appeals in Florida.

And, might I note that most of these preliminary capital punishment motions are decided with no more information than what Alito had to work with. You know that. The motion is made and the justice or the court rules the same day or perhaps the next day. Oftentimes, they rule within a few hours.

So the idea that Alito voted as he did because he wanted to get 'up to speed' or whatever strikes me as daft. He was as much up to speed on this particular Missouri case as was any other justice on the Supreme Court.

[Republican Wildcat]

So the appeals court wants to hear the case and the SCOTUS is letting them. I don't see what the controversy is here, really.

More people going out of their way to feel miserable, I guess. We win - but they want to insist that we lost because they have no other existence but misery - real or imagined. Beyond pathetic. Oh well, I'm off to bed.

[babygene]

"That was quick."

Maybe he's pro-life?

[Torie]

Yes, clearly Alito is not a wing it kind of guy. Those comments were silly.

[AntiGuv]

This is the Roman Catholic Church's position on capital punishment:

2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.

2266 "The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and the duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.

2267 "Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm--without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself--the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity 'are rare, if not practically non-existent.' "

So, there you have it.

[Howlin]

Well, you know dang well what the controversy is: some of these people are just DYING to trash this man.

[AntiGuv]

PS. And might I add that my own view on execution is 100% consistent with that of the Catholic Church.

[Torie]

For the record, I don't agree with Catholic Church teachings on this matter. I am more into old testament "justice," and retribution, and balancing the scales. I favor the death penalty, even if it is not a deterrent; indeed, that would be my view, even if it were not a deterrent if the executions were far swifter than they are now, the delays attending which may enervate the deterrent effect. That is just my personal point of view.

[kellynch]

That's exactly the way I looked at it. They'll do anything to make us look bad.

Which reminds me, yesterday, MSNBC.com had a story on Supremes who "evolved." Talk about Barf alert!

[hispanichoosier]

it is about Alito needing more time to decide, since he has been on the Supreme Court for just few hours!

Exactly. A stay is not a reversal of the defendant's conviction and sentence, no matter what some paranoid FReepers may think. It merely gives the court some more time to consider the case. Given the fact that Justice Alito probably hasn't even moved his stuff into his offices yet, I think it's perfectly reasonable for him to ask for a little more time to review this case.

[wally-balls]

"Also, isn't Alito a strong Catholic, and the Catholic Church is strongly opposed to the death penalty?"

So if he's being guided by his faith in this instance then we should be encouraged the next time an abortion case comes before the court

[Just mythoughts]

Review the case? The appeal was not about whether the perp did it or not, was about whether or not the decision was "racist". Guess you had to live in the area where a 15 year old girl was snatched from a bus stop and murdered.