Left wing pinkoes control america

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Winston
Especially since I provided the service of naming them two posts above.

Sorry, I skip your posts. It has to do with you being a right wing cretin.

[SpencerH]

Just another sickening example of the judicial autocracy we now live in.

Kennedys (the majority) opinion

"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child,"

The Eighth Amendment must reflect the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society," Justice Kennedy said. He added that a national consensus had emerged against capital punishment for child rape.

"The rule of evolving standards of decency with specific marks on the way to full progress and mature judgment means that resort to the penalty must be reserved for the worst of crimes."

"In most cases justice is not better served by terminating the life of the perpetrator rather than confining him and preserving the possibility that he and the system will find ways to allow him to understand the enormity of his offense."

To avoid the arbitrary application of the death penalty, Kennedy said it is necessary "at this stage of evolving standards" to limit capital punishment to only those crimes that take the life of the victim.

Alito's (the minority) opinion

In a dissent, Justice Samuel Alito said the majority justices were usurping the work of state lawmakers. "The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapists is grave. It is the judgment of the Louisiana lawmakers and those in an increasing number of other states that these harms justify the death penalty," he wrote.

In his dissent, Alito questioned whether there aren't crimes even worse than murder. "Is it really true that every person who is convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death is more morally depraved than every child rapist?" he asked.

Alito said it was a question for state lawmakers, not Supreme Court justices. "The Court is willing to block the potential emergence of a national consensus in favor of permitting the death penalty for child rape because, in the end, what matters is the Court's 'own judgment' regarding the 'acceptability of the death penalty,' " he wrote.

"The court provides no cogent explanation why this legislative judgment should be overridden," Justice Alito wrote. "Conclusory references to 'decency,' 'moderation,' 'restraint,' 'full progress,' and 'moral judgment' are not enough."

my bold

[Imran Siddiqui]

Actually what matters is the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, which includes non-proportional punishment, but keep blabbering on, Alito

[SpencerH]

What matters is that judicial activism must be stopped. There is no definition of cruel and unusual punishment, it is a moral choice. As such, more weight should be given to the choices of a freely elected state government representing their constituents than 5 unelected autocrats.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Actually what matters is the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, which includes non-proportional punishment, but keep blabbering on, Alito

Wasn't it Scalia who said that cruel punishment is OK as long as it isn't unusual.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by SpencerH
What matters is that judicial activism must be stopped. There is no definition of cruel and unusual punishment, it is a moral choice. As such, more weight should be given to the choices of a freely elected state government representing their constituents than 5 unelected autocrats.

Isn't the point of having a constitution that freely elected state governments can't legislate things like torture, the rack or burning?

[Elok]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
You're an ass for suggesting that anyone thinks raping children is controversial; no one holds the position that it's OK except the perverts that do it. The controversy is whether or not the death penalty is appropriate punishment.

Psst...I think he was being facetious.

[DRoseDARs]

Damn it, my sarcasm detector is on the fritz this week so I wouldn't know. The smoke from the 800+ wildfires in Northern California is getting dumped into the Truckee Meadows. I've had a headache for three days straight now.

[chequita guevara]

judicial activism = ruling I don't like

[Fake Boris]

Not that I disagree, but it's fairly obvious...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by SpencerH
What matters is that judicial activism must be stopped. There is no definition of cruel and unusual punishment, it is a moral choice. As such, more weight should be given to the choices of a freely elected state government representing their constituents than 5 unelected autocrats.

As che pointed out:

judicial activism = ruling I don't like

That's basically all it means when people say "judicial activism". "Cruel and unusual punishment" is listed in the Constitution. So what you are saying is that the Supreme Court shouldn't be deciding on portions of the Constitution which are vague. Which basically means you think the concept of judicial review in general is wrong because nothing in the Constitution is clear cut.

The founders made it vague for a reason. So it could advance with time.

Do you really believe that there are portions of the Constitution that the courts have no role interpreting at all? Btw, who decides what those portions are? Your "state government"?

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


As che pointed out:

judicial activism = ruling I don't like

That's basically all it means when people say "judicial activism". "Cruel and unusual punishment" is indeed in the Constitution. So what you are saying is that the Supreme Court shouldn't be deciding on portions of the Constitution which are vague. Which basically means you think the concept of judicial review in general is wrong because nothing in the Constitution is clear cut.

The founders made it vague for a reason. So it could advance with time.

Do you really believe that there are portions of the Constitution that the courts have no role interpreting at all? Btw, who decides what those portions are? Your "state government"?

I'm not gonna bother with Che's red herring.

"Cruel and unusual punishment" is indeed a part of the Constitution. Just what does it mean? From reading I've done, I'd guess it refered to the British habit of hanging petty thieves. It was a policy that Jefferson disagreed with and I think most people in the USA today agree with that position.

At no time did the framers of the constitution envision that 5 supremes would be setting law. But that is what these autocrats have done. "Cruel and unusual punishment" is not defined in the constitution. Obviously, someone has to to define what it is and we have two choices of whom will do that. In this case a legislative branch of government has in essense decided that the states killing of a child rapist is not cruel and unusual punishment while 5 unaccountable autocrats have decided that it is. I know who I'd rather make these decisions and it's not members of any star chamber.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by SpencerH
I'm not gonna bother with Che's red herring.

"Cruel and unusual punishment" is indeed listed in the Constitution. Just what does it mean? From reading I've done, I'd guess it refered to the British habit of hanging petty thieves. It was a policy that Jefferson disagreed with and I think most people in the USA today agree with that position.

At no time did the framers of the constitution envision that 5 supremes would be setting law. But that is what these autocrats have done. "Cruel and unusual punishment" is not defined in the constitution. Obviously, someone has to to define what it is based upon the morays of the people and we have two choices of whom will do that. In this case a legislative branch of government has in essense decided that the states killing of a child rapist is not cruel and unusual punishment while 5 unaccountable autocrats have decided that it is. I know who I'd rather make these decisions and it's not members of any star chamber.

It isn't a red herring. I believe it myself. Those who clamor against "judicial activism" for the most part have NO problems when the judiciary is being activist for what they believe the Constitution says (Scalia, for one, is quite an activist on the bench, and really doesn't care for precedent as much as some of the others on the bench).

What does "cruel and unusual punishment" mean? Whatever the society believes it to mean. There are PLENTY of founders who took the Constitution to be a living document... hence the reason for the vagueness of the language. So future societies wouldn't be bound by the beliefs of one time. Not everyone was like Jefferson, who believed in revolutions every 20 years. They wanted a bit more stability... and that requires a flexible Constitution. This is readily apparent from the early years of the Republic as Presidents Washington, Adams, and Jefferson did things well outside the Constitution's strict textual dictates (a cabinet, the Alien & Sedition Acts, the Louisiana Purchase, etc).

5 esteemed justices have overturned the unconstitutional dictates of autocratic state legislatures who believe they can overturn decades of Constitutional precedent by simple strokes of their pen. I'm sure if the liberty loving justices weren't standing in the way, the mob rulers would love to start instituting torture to start interrogating brown people who speak Arabic.

(Two can play at this name calling game)

The interpreters of the Constitution are NOT the state legislatures and haven't been since John Adams' administration. As Marbury v. Madison established (and since no one strenuously objected, I assume they agreed this should be the case) the courts interpret the Constitution. That INCLUDES the language within the sacred document that autocratic mob wishes to mangle at every opportunity.

I'd rather have 5 learned members of the law decide on the interpretation of the law rather than a bunch of bought and paid for inbred moron politicians who want blood to satisfy the blood thirsty drooling mob who cares not a whit for the rights enabled in the Constitution.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

The founders made it vague for a reason. So it could advance with time.

There's a terrible presupposition of omniscience here. Maybe they made it vague because they didn't quite know what they were doing, or perhaps some terms in their idiolects no longer have the same meaning.

To me, it seems pretty clear that the Cruel and Unusual punishment restriction is aimed at things like burning, racking and so on, which aficionados of the Enlightenment loathed. The problem is that burning and suchlike weren't particularly unusual, so to me it makes most sense to read this as a demand that punishments not be cruel (in the sense of wantonly sadistic) and that punishments be consistent (no special punishments are to be handed out by whim of a judge).

What do the scholars say, Imran?

[Imran Siddiqui]

The scholars can't really agree. After all there are quite a number of "founders" and most of them disagree on terms which were in the Constitution. For example, the First Amendment... it went through 18 drafts. And afterwards, you still have a divergence of opinion such that some factions believed something like the "Alien & Sedition Acts" were ok with free speech.

Now, granted that's my view, that the founders made it vague so that it could advance. But that is what makes sense to me. There were quite a number of founders who believed in a living document Constitution.

On cruel and unusual punishment, wikipedia says thus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_and_unusual

What these words mean in practice is the subject of much legal argument.

In general the interpretation of each of the two words is in keeping with the basic legal maxim that the "punishment should fit the crime".

The term "cruel" is necessarily flexible according to the circumstances, since all punishments are inherently cruel to some greater or lesser degree. The "unusual" provision has proven easier to interpret: providing that persons will not be subjected to arbitrary, humorous, or capricious punishment outside the normal course of the law (for example, tarring and feathering). Another way to make the punishment usual is to simply use it more often.

Though it has been a part of the law in the United States of America since its inception,[1][2][3] by the twentieth century many people in the U.S. came to consider capital punishment per se to be a cruel and unusual punishment.[4] As of 2006, twelve U.S. states have legislatively abolished the death penalty,[citation needed] and others have specifically prohibited certain methods of execution, e.g. by electrocution, by hanging, etc. The Supreme Court has ruled that the application of the death penalty, in certain circumstances — such as the execution of a minor under the age of 18, or of a mentally handicapped person, is unconstitutional, regardless of the existence of other aggravating circumstances. The Court also ruled in 1983 that the imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment without parole for a non-violent felony may constitute cruel and unusual punishment, although a subsequent decision represented a partial retreat from that position.[citation needed]

At the time the Eighth Amendment was written, capital punishment was in common use, in America, in Great Britain, and in Western Europe. There also existed punishments that were generally considered cruel and unusual, such as hanging, drawing, and quartering; burning at the stake; and impalement.

In the European Union, on the other hand, prohibition of the death penalty has been made a fundamental condition which must either be passed into the law of states hoping to join, or, as in the case of Latvia, its use be subject to a moratorium. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (which currently carries no legal standing) states in its second article that "Everyone has the right to life. No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed."

So aside from the punishment fitting the crime, there is little else to guide the court in its duties in interpreting that provision.

Btw, what is "wantonly sadistic"? Hanging? Burning at the stake? As stated (of some), they were in use at the time.

Now, as even the Bible says "an eye for an eye", I can't see why rape should lead to a punishment of state sponsored killing. That's more like an eye for a hand or something.