High Court Overturns Death Sentences

AP ^ | 6-24-2002 | ANNE GEARAN

[rwfromkansas]

I am beginning to think they won't rule on the school vouchers case at the end of this session. The local news said they would. I guess they may want to wait till the very last second to announce their decision on it.

If nobody says so by Thursday, there won't be any retirements either. It has been a very long time since the last retirement.

[Sandy]

The voucher decision will be out on Thursday for sure. About 10 AM. Count on it. I can't wait. It's going to be one of the most important SC decisions in years.

[rwfromkansas]

I have been ancy, awaiting it. Can you tell....:)

I am helping out with social science summer school at the high school here. It will make my liberal former history teacher upset if the SC rules in favor of vouchers. The intersting thing is, the social science department here is now majority conservative. There is only one other liberal.

[Sandy]

It will make my liberal former history teacher upset if the SC rules in favor of vouchers.

And that's an understatement. Liberals will be howling throughout the nation if they lose this. This really is going to be huge.

[Huck]

The earlier Apprendi ruling "had a severely destabilizing effect on our criminal justice system," O'Connor wrote in a dissent joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist "The decision today is only going to add to these already serious effects."

Is it just me or this a lame rationale? Something like saying "juries are too much of a hassle sometimes."?

[Huck]

Your comments are interesting, but I am not sure I agree ( I know, who asked me?). Are you are saying that anytime the SCOTUS rules on the constitutionality of any law, at any level of government, that that is judicial activism?

I am sure you are familiar with Article VI of the US Constitution:

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

Through the process of judicial review, the SCOTUS is tasked to be the finalarbitor. I don't believe that that power "infantilizes" the state legislatures or courts. It merely provides a process whereby they are held accountable to the general government.

My understanding of the phrase "judicial activism" is that it refers to the courts inventinglaw where there is none. Deciding cases on what you think ought to be the law, rather than on what is. An example of this would be Justice Marshall predetermining to vote against any death penalty in a case before the court because he opposed the death penalty. But to rule that a state law is unconstitutional because it denies a right clearly enumerated in the US Constitution seems to me quite conservative and not activist at all.

As Bill O'Reilly says, where am I wrong?

[Sandy]

It's totally lame, imo. She doesn't like upsetting the apple cart, even though the apples are rotten. That's the way I interpret her, at least. In Apprendi, she complained, "[T]he number of individual sentences drawn into question by the Court's decision could be colossal... [T]he Court's decision threatens to unleash a flood of petitions by convicted defendants seeking to invalidate their sentences in whole or in part on the authority of the Court's decision today." And now she's saying, See I Told You So, pointing out the thousands of appeals that Apprendi unleashed.

"juries are too much of a hassle sometimes."

LOL. That's Rehnquist's line, actually. Check this out, from his and Breyer's Apprendi dissent:

This rule would seem to promote a procedural ideal--that of juries, not judges, determining the existence of those facts upon which increased punishment turns. But the real world of criminal justice cannot hope to meet any such ideal. It can function only with the help of procedural compromises, particularly in respect to sentencing. And those compromises, which are themselves necessary for the fair functioning of the criminal justice system, preclude implementation of the procedural model that today's decision reflects.

[Huck]

This rule would seem to promote a procedural ideal--that of juries, not judges, determining the existence of those facts upon which increased punishment turns.

Facts determined by juries is an ideal? Call me crazy, but I thought that is what juries do. If not, what do they do?

But the real world of criminal justice cannot hope to meet any such ideal. It can function only with the help of procedural compromises, particularly in respect to sentencing.

Good grief. The sentence, it seems to me, is the output of the entire process. Isn't that the end result? The sentence is the justice, isn't it? How do you compromise that?

And those compromises, which are themselves necessary for the fair functioning of the criminal justice system, preclude implementation of the procedural model that today's decision reflects.

This is judicial activism. This is it in a nutshell. The Constitution says X, but I say X is too idealistic, so forget X. Wow.

[Sandy]

Pretty awful, ain't it. Rehnquist is great when it comes to matters of Federalism and state sovereignty and such, but when it comes to individual rights, he comes down in favor of the government way too often.

[Huck]

Well, heck. What do I know? But it just doesn't make sense. How can you have a judge accepting as facts things which have not been decided by a jury, and then apply those "facts" to a sentence? That seems to be trial by judge. It also seems to be plainly unconstitutional. And then to base that decision on some sort of pragmatism, to the effect that trial by jury is an unattainable ideal? Where did that come from? It makes no sense at all.