Ravenwood - 03/02/05 07:30 AM
The Supreme Court has ruled that people who commit capital murder before reaching the age of 18 can't face the dealth penalty under the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause of the Eight Amendment. Reports CNN, the Justices cited changing "national standards" in their 5-4 decision.
Not only do I fear this is a baby-steps approach to striking down the death penalty altogether, it's also quite shocking that the Justices would choose to base their reasoning on public opinion. Take a public opinion poll and any law in the nation could be struck down using the loose "national standards" definition.
In his dissent, Justice Scalia would seem to agree.
"We must disregard the new reality that -- to the extent our Eighth Amendment decisions constitute something more than a show of hands on the current Justices' personal views (on the death penalty) -- they purport to be nothing more than a snapshot of American public opinion at a particular point in time," he wrote.Illustrating just how bad this decision is, it was praised by both Former President Jimmy Carter and the European Union.
UPDATE: The ruling is actually much more hideous than I first thought. Check out these passages from Justice Kennedy's opinion, where he explicitly relies on foreign laws and international opinion:
"the Court has referred to the laws of other countries and to international authorities as instructive for its interpretation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishments." "The courts are supposed to uphold and apply the laws of the United States, not change them based on public opinion in other nations. Likewise, the power of our government flows from the American people (not foreigners) and is bound by the United States Constitution. Justices like Kennedy (and previously O'Connor) that continue to cite international standards and laws, and changing public opinion in their rulings should be removed from the bench."[w]e have previously recognized the relevance of the views of the international community in determining whether a punishment is cruel and unusual"
"I turn, finally, to the Court's discussion of foreign and international law. Without question, there has been a global trend in recent years towards abolishing capital punishment for under-18 offenders. Very few, if any, countries other than the United States now permit this practice in law or in fact. See ante, at 22-23. While acknowledging that the actions and views of other countries do not dictate the outcome of our Eighth Amendment inquiry, the Court asserts that "the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty ... does provide respected and significant confirmation for [its] own conclusions." "
Category: Fall of Western Civilization
Comments (7) top link me
I would love to add to this, but you have made the point quite clearly.
Posted by: Steve Scudder at March 2, 2005 10:56 AMThere's a great interview in Rush's newsletter with Mark Levin, who wrote a book called, "Men in Black", which deals with exactly how the Supreme Court was able to seize so much power and when it happened.
The interview alone opened my eyes, and I think I'll have to find the book as well. It appears that most poeple, including strict conservatives, have long ago accepted the Supreme Court's nearly untouchable status, even though much of its power appears to be simply declared by the Court itself.
Posted by: roger at March 2, 2005 11:59 AMI've often wondered, What if a state just decided they would ignore one of these Supreme Court rulings? What if, say Montana, said that they were going to go ahead and execute criminals under 18 because the Supreme Court has shown that they are no longer bound by the laws of this nation, so their decisions are hence forth null and void? Maybe this needs to happen.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam at March 2, 2005 12:09 PMThis is the road that a large reading of the 14th amendment has put us on. Once the selective incorporation of rights could be abjudicated and forced on the State constitutions, it became only a matter of time before other "rights" would be discovered and forced in the same way.
This time it's not "rights" found in our Bill of Rights that the 10th amendment used to allow States to decide for themselves when making State law. This time it's the discovery and application of European "rights" that we are not going to get to vote upon ourselves.
You know, the old USSR used to have people like these federal judges who made decisions for everyone, they were called the Central Committee. Does anyone see any difference between the two?
Posted by: kjo at March 2, 2005 5:06 PMIf the Europeans are so great, why did we break off from England and become a separate country? If people want to live as subjects, instead of citizens, they should think about emigrating and living in one of those countries.
Posted by: Robert Garrard at March 2, 2005 6:21 PMRavenwood, you obviously missed Justice Scalia's lament that "It is literally true that the U.S. Supreme Court has entirely liberated itself from the text of the Constitution," and "We are free at last, free at last. There is no respect in which we are chained or bound by the text of the Constitution. All it takes is five hands."
And they got their five hands.
Notice that Scalia's wasn't one of them. HE at least still considers himself bound by the Constitution.
Posted by: Kevin Baker at March 2, 2005 11:03 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
