Posted on 02/03/2006 1:05:52 PM PST by FerdieMurphy
Imagine yourself in the stands at the Kentucky Derby. A new horse by the name of President's Choice, a strong thoroughbred that racing aficionados have been talking about, is favored to win. "And they're off!"
Now imagine everyone's shock when the gates fly open and the odds-on favorite starts running the wrong way. We saw something similar last night.
Samuel Alito, the "conservative" judicial nominee over whom all good little Republicans were drooling, cast his first vote as the nation's newest black-robed oligarch. This morning's edition of the Washington Post reported: "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.
"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. ..."
Is this what "conservatives" were hoping for when President Bush nominated Alito to the Supreme Court? I doubt it. But perhaps I'm rushing to judgment (pardon the pun). Who is this Michael Taylor anyway? As a Jan. 27 article in the Columbia Missourian explains, Taylor was "sentenced to death after being convicted of the rape and murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison on March 22, 1989."
Okay, so the defense must have discovered some new DNA evidence that casts a reasonable doubt on Taylor's guilt, right? Not really. The article continues: "A federal judge last week issued a stay of Taylor's Feb. 1 execution in response to his lawyer's request for a hearing to present evidence challenging the lethal injection process. …Taylor's lawyer, John William Simon of St. Louis, has since filed a federal court action arguing that the three drugs the state uses in executions create a risk of gratuitous pain that is not necessary to carry out "the mere extinguishment of life."
Let's see if I understand this. The case before the Supreme Court yesterday had nothing to do with using the normal appeals process to examine new evidence that had come to light. In fact, it had nothing at all to do with determining Taylor's guilt or innocence. It was all about the method of execution? Was Taylor's lawyer able to interview death row inmates who had been executed by lethal injection to see what they had to say?
Michael Taylor has already spent the last 17 years living on taxpayer expense. That's two years longer than the girl he kidnapped, raped and killed had her entire life. Now, the Supreme Court of the United States wants to stand in the way of justice simply because the drugs used to carry out an execution may not provide the condemned murderer with the comfort he expects when paying the price for his brutal crime.
I find this rather odd. When this country was young, no one questioned the constitutionality of death by hanging or firing squad. But now, in the 21st century, we find ourselves debating whether or not the act of sedating murderers before executing them is cruel and unusual punishment.
At the very least, that should be left for the states to decide. After all, not every state has the death penalty, so there is obviously still some consideration given to the concept of states' rights. I think it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that if individual states are able to decide whether or not they will implement capital punishment, then they should be allowed to determine the means of execution.
The fact that Samuel Alito chose to side with the liberals on the Court in a ruling that tramples on states' rights is cause for concern. Those who threw their enthusiastic support behind George W. Bush's nominee may wake up one morning to find that they have been duped yet again, and the nation's highest court has another Souter on its hands.
Your inference that I am ignorant shows that you know nothing about proper discourse between FR members.
But, on the other hand, you are a nurse even though you are naughty.
Let's both have a martini and chill out.
Why?? Doesn't he have his own mind?? Just another duck following a line of ducks, I guess.
As an aside, I'm very torn on the death penalty myself. It's someting that I have been trying to resolve for nearly 20 years since I was interviewed for a jury in a capital murder case. (I didn't get picked so I didn't have to decide then.)
The following orders from the SCOTUS..... for what it's worth....
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/orders/courtorders/020106pzr.pdf
The murderer should have died at midnight.
This vote merely means that the case will be reviewed. It's not a ruling on the constitutionality of the law.
It's not a matter of interpreting the law. It a mater of saying that with someone's life on the line, if 4 of the justices believe that there is something that needs looked into, he feels that's convincing enough that it should be looked into.
and you are STILL wrong from the other thread fool.
ANY judge being dumped into a capital punishment case with no background in the case and eight hours to make a judgment shouldn't uphold the execution. That's just not enough time.
I don't think there are.
sweetie pie, i was talking to your face, your name is on the ping line along with nautinurse. the decision was not about whether the scumbag should have died at midnight, it was a procedural vote. have your martini and read up on stuff, kay?
You apparently haven't heard about the incorporation clause of the 14th Amendment that requires that federal protections also apply to the states. The overarching result of the Civil War and of the subsequent Amendments was to largely abolish the distinction between state and federal. Indeed, Lincoln even tried to justify the war by claiming that it wasn't the states that gave rise to the Union but that the Union gave rise to the States.
Would have been 5-4 anyway with the way Kennedy votes.
Correct.
That is NOT the rule of law; that is NOT being an "originalist". That is NOT following the Constitution.
Being that Ginsberg and her Marxist crony Stevens are on the other side of reality in these case, Alito is saying he will be "courteous" to two flaming anti-Constitution radicals. So goes the nickname "Scalito"--we can toss that in the dumpster. Scalia would never be "courteous" in his votes and neither would Thomas.
It won't be Soutered again but the result of being Freepered. I don't think Freepers can blame anyone else or Alito for his decisions. I remember the hue and cry, no one else would do. Freepers have only themselves to blame or congratulate. I suspect the first few to criticize him were also of the first to demand him.
It won't be the same without you. One or two olives?
Four others?? Just four??
So he'd be the decidin vote ? WTF?
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