The cynic in me saw this decision coming, but I’ve been disturbed about it since learning of it this morning.
And then my wife and I had to field questions about it from our two teenagers.
I’m fundamentally opposed to the creation of special classes of victims (“hate crimes,” e.g.). The one exception I make, however, is the rape of a child.
Yes, let’s see what we can do to put the sword in Justice Scalia’s hands. I’m thinking cage match…
Local Story. Go SC AG!
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8554218
COLUMBIA, SC (AP) - South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster says the state’s law allowing the death penalty for some child rapists is likely overturned by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The nation’s highest court on Wednesday nixed a Louisiana law allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty in similar cases.
But McMaster says South Carolina prosecutors planning death penalty cases against child rapists should proceed. He says by the time that case is appealed, there should be different justices on the U.S. Supreme Court or more states will have passed similar laws.
South Carolina is one of only five states with laws on the books allowing the death penalty for child rape.
-RD62
FUBAR.
While I don’t believe in the “end of days” I do see dark days ahead for the American republic and I fear it will take something catastrophic to correct this course.
Government primarily exists to protect the lives and property of its law abiding citizens, only secondarily the lawbreaker. The Court has slowly undone this hierarchy under the misguided and incorrect belief that protecting the criminal equates to protecting the society. Only a lawyer could believe something that absurd (Todd you’re excepted of course).
Makes me want to scream.
This, specifically, is grounds for death in my little world.
The laws of the land order that we protect them when they are in our custody.
They don’t lock people up for 15 years for simple marijuana possession.
Neither do They give light sentences to child rapists. As I recall from actually reading the opinion (anybody can do so at the SCOTUS site), the statute requires life without parole if the death sentence is not awarded. LWOP as a child molester in prison is an interesting experience, and can be short. [Darth Pelagious]I am sending you my apprentice, Bubba Buttbuddy. He will … take care of you.[/Darth Pelagious]
The opinion brought up a problem with child molestation cases, as in, they often didn’t happen at all, specifically mentioning the Little Rascals witch hunt. Try this experiment: Put a small child in a room with lots of toys and hidden cameras, and have a friendly man play with the toys and talk to the kid, but not touch the kid. Then have the man leave, and have a social worker come in with an anatomically correct doll. “Did that man touch you … there?” And see how many “Uh huhs” you get.
If someone tried to or did hurt anyone of my kids and i got to them before the police there would be nothing for the police or courts to do. I will be the judge, jury and exectioner all in one. And there will be no appeals and will cost the tax payers nothing. I already have the knives, and bears in alaska like bloody meat.
Actually, it’s grounds for death everywhere in the world except, it seems, in our little corner of it. :mad:
That’s a strawman. It’s also completely contrary to the concept of separating trial of fact & law from punishment. If there’s a chance a defendant is innocent then giving him LWOP or even a month in jail is wrong, not just a death penalty.
In the instant case there was no question that the girl had been violently raped. It wasn’t just some social worker’s interpretation of how the kid played with dolls.
One of the greatest problems with our system is that it’s stopped taking into account reality and bases everything off of hypothetical what-ifs. It’s a classic slippery slope fallacy. “Don’t do X today, because then tomorrow you might do X+Y and that would be wrong!”
I am reminded of the Declaration of Independence and wonder if the SCOTUS has recently read it.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Clearly their recent decisions have become destructive to these ends as they undo the very purpose of government:
To protect the life and property of its law-abiding citizens.
thats beyond a stretch…it simply does not follow…in order for that to be the case the decision would have had to say that you cannot prosecute child rapists…it didn’t…you can still prosecute and lock the man away for the rest of his life, with no chance of ever seeing free air again…you just cannot execute without murder…thats hardly denying the citizenry protection for themselves or their property (or progeny for that matter)…
personally I have no problem with the decision from a moral standpoint…I have always been on the fence about the death penalty, it always seemed more like revenge than punishment to me…plus the Catholic in me (and trust me, its a small one, I havent been to church regularly in years) wasn’t raised with this in me…
the biggest issue I had with the decision is the idea that SCOTUS took the decision away from the states…but they do that all the time…in 1955 they denied the states the ability to segregate their schools, and people cried bloody murder then, and thats just the most obvious example…the Supreme Court sits at the top of the chain of the Article III courts AND the State Courts…it is “the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is” after all…
we may not agree with them, and that’s fine…its their job to make the decisions that don’t “sit well” with a lot of us, and to be the moral and Constitutional compass of the nation…in this case it was 5-4, obviously close, and I would imagine if you polled a lot of people in this country you would get a similar breakdown…but I would like to think that, like in the recent 5th and 6th Amendment case, even if 90% of the country felt a decision was wrong, the Court would still decide what was Constitutional…the 6th Amendment says “people”…not “citizen”…they did the right thing…even if it wasn’t the most comfortable or easiest thing…and thats the SCOTUS I want and am counting on later today
What?
Rape has long been a capital crime in this nation…it is only in the last thirty years that this has changed? But we’re not talking about regular rape, we’re talking about child rape.
But if you don’t think a child rapist should be executed, then fine (completely goofy but fine), just know that virtually everyone (including Obama) disagrees with you.
Moreover it’s not just this decision. Boumedienne as well was a slap in the face to the people of the united states.
personally I have no problem with the decision from a moral standpoint…I have always been on the fence about the death penalty, it always seemed more like revenge than punishment to me…plus the Catholic in me (and trust me, its a small one, I havent been to church regularly in years) wasn’t raised with this in me…
That’s fine, unfortunately most people in this country disagree with you.
the biggest issue I had with the decision is the idea that SCOTUS took the decision away from the states…but they do that all the time…in 1955 they denied the states the ability to segregate their schools, and people cried bloody murder then, and thats just the most obvious example…the Supreme Court sits at the top of the chain of the Article III courts AND the State Courts…it is “the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is” after all…
So?
we may not agree with them, and that’s fine…its their job to make the decisions that don’t “sit well” with a lot of us, and to be the moral and Constitutional compass of the nation…in this case it was 5-4, obviously close, and I would imagine if you polled a lot of people in this country you would get a similar breakdown…but I would like to think that, like in the recent 5th and 6th Amendment case, even if 90% of the country felt a decision was wrong, the Court would still decide what was Constitutional…the 6th Amendment says “people”…not “citizen”…they did the right thing…even if it wasn’t the most comfortable or easiest thing…and thats the SCOTUS I want and am counting on later today
Horsephuckey. It’s their job to preserve the lives and property of the citizens of this country. SCOTUS said in the Hamdan decision that standards for military tribunals had to be legislated by Congress…so Congress legislated created just such a system with exactly those standards but then the SCOTUS then said with Boumedienne “nevermind we’re just kidding.” That they took the powers reserved for the legislature and the executive (to create law and prosecute war) is the height of judicial arrogance and directly contrary to the Constitution.
If you think Boumedienne and the Child Rape cases were properly decided, well then we’ll have to agree to disagree, but your analysis remains fairly insipid and ahistoric.
There is NO slippery slope here. The circumstances of the defendants were so narrow that they couldn’t POSSIBLY be applied to the American citizen as a whole. It will do NOTHING to preserve our freedoms and EVERYTHING to make it easier for us to be victimized. You can’t have LIBERTY when criminals are protected by the very people they victimize. It’s completely absurd.
The actions of the SCOTUS are outrageous. They sided with a minority of criminals against the majority of law-abiding Americans. This is antithetical to the spirit and stated purpose of our Constitution.
Moreover, if our citizenry has no faith in our justice system to actually achieve justice, then they will start taking justice in their own hands. For me that slippery slope is far more likely and far more dangerous than any idiotic interpretation of the 8a.
It’s a terrible decision, period. No, I’m not a lawyer, a judge, or a parent. I’m just a guy. I don’t give a damn about revenge, but I do give a damn about making sure that a child rapist doesn’t get another chance to practice his hobby. As long as he breathes, he has a chance.
If the citizens of one state choose to have the death penalty as a tool for their prosecutors, they should be able to do so. If other citizens of other states chose not to, fine.
At the rate the MIB’s are restricting punishment, pretty soon everything will be “unusual”, if not “cruel”. Wonder if Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are busy? I’d just about trade them for Breyer and Ginsberg and take my chances.
bootfoot
[ul][li] It is not the Court’s role to side with the majority. It’s the Court’s role to interpret federal laws and the U.S. Constitution.
[/li][li] SCOTUS does not and cannot rule on matters of state law or state constitutions except insofar as they are violative of U.S. law or the U.S. Constitution. So for example, if the Maryland Court of Appeals decides that it’s lawful for a municipality to remove all the yellow lights on traffic lights and just ding people for going through a red light without a warning, SCOTUS won’t touch that.
[/li][*] The Declaration of Independence, while an important historical document giving insight into the mindset of the Framers of the Constitution, has no legally binding power on the U.S. Government.[/ul]
[/li]
It is the SCOTUS role to interpret the laws that are INTENDED to protect us that have been Constitutionally enacted by the legislature and signed by the executive. Not to undo them except in the case of clear Constitutional conflict. That both decisions would have had NO impact on anyone other than child molesters and a microscopic minority of terrorists captured on the battlefield presents NO Constitutional conflict.
[li] SCOTUS does not and cannot rule on matters of state law or state constitutions except insofar as they are violative of U.S. law or the U.S. Constitution. So for example, if the Maryland Court of Appeals decides that it’s lawful for a municipality to remove all the yellow lights on traffic lights and just ding people for going through a red light without a warning, SCOTUS won’t touch that.[/li]
Exactly. If a state decides to execute sexual predators that pose a danger to the public, SCOTUS has no business touching that.
[li] The Declaration of Independence, while an important historical document giving insight into the mindset of the Framers of the Constitution, has no legally binding power on the U.S. Government.[/ul][/li]
I wasn’t arguing that it should be legally binding on their decisions. My point was that government exists to protect its citizenry and private property, not those that victimize it. Given this I asked the question if SCOTUS decisions have met the historic standard for the DoI especially the notion of "any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.