Hullabaloo

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

 
Meanwhile, On The Court

by dday

Two major Supreme Court cases have been heard this week, and on each of them, it does not appear that the side of justice and the Constitution will be victorious. In the Kentucky case opposing the use of the lethal injection method in capital punishment, the conservative block was skeptical:

"This is an execution, not surgery," Justice Antonin Scalia told the attorney who was representing two Kentucky inmates who say the use of the three-drug compound poses "an unnecessary risk of pain" to the dying man.

"Where does that come from, that you must find the method of execution that causes the least pain?" Scalia continued. "We have approved electrocution. We have approved death by firing squad. I expect both of those have more possibilities of painful death than the protocol here."

Yes, where the hell does that come from, this idea that punishment should not be cruel or unusual? What first-year law student pulled that out of their ass?

So, it appears that we'll continue with a process that has been invalidated for the euthanizing of dogs.

In the other big case, the ruling on Indiana's voter ID law, the Court again appeared unswayed by arguments about equal protection and the deliberate efforts to suppress voter turnout.

Only two Justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens — even hinted at the real-world fact that the photo ID law in Indiana is at the heart of a bitter, ongoing contest reaching well beyond Indiana. It is a dispute between Republicans worried over election fraud supposedly generated by Democrats to pad their votes, and Democrats worried over voter suppression supposedly promoted by Republicans to cut down their opposition. The abiding question at the end: can a decision be written that does not itself sound like a political, rather than a judicial, tract? Can the Court, in short, avoid at least the appearance of another Bush v. Gore? [...]

It was apparent from the outset that the Court’s more conservative members were most interested in (a) finding that no one had a right to bring the constitutional challenge, at least at this stage, (b) putting off a challenge until the law has actually been enforced or at least until just before election day, or (c) salvaging as much as possible of the Indiana photo ID requirement on the theory that voter fraud is a problem that states have a legitimate right to try to solve. There was some hand-wringing, particularly by Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., over how difficult it is for a judge to “draw the line” on when a voting requirement would or would not pass a constitutional test [...]

In a notable way, therefore, it appeared that — once more — Justice Anthony M. Kennedy may hold the vote that controls the outcome. He displayed some skepticism about the challenge to Indiana’s law, somewhat impatiently suggesting at one point that the challengers would oppose any kind of voter ID requirement other than a simple signature match at the polling place. Kennedy seemed ultimately to be looking for ways to assure voters who demonstrably would be significantly burdened by the law that they could challenge it, perhaps even before election day came around.

Count me as not sanguine that Alito's handwringing will hold up. And Kennedy appears lost.

As has been said many times, this is a solution without a problem. The Indiana secretary of state, when pressed, could not come up with one documented instance of voter fraud in his state. Never has so much attention been paid to a crime that has not been proven to be committed. The agenda is as transparent as tissue paper.

These two cases reveal just how partisan, and really cowardly, the Court has become, as the arguments showed an unwillingness to engage on the Constitutional questions, while looking to uphold the rulings on narrower, more technical grounds. This has been the Roberts Court agenda since he rose to Chief Justice.

The revolution that many commentators predicted when President Bush appointed two ultra-right-wing Supreme Court justices is proceeding with breathtaking impatience, and it is a revolution Jacobin in its disdain for tradition and precedent. Bush's choices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, have joined the two previously most right-wing justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, in an unbreakable phalanx bent on remaking constitutional law by overruling, most often by stealth, the central constitutional doctrines that generations of past justices, conservative as well as liberal, had constructed.

That article by Ronald Dworkin is important. Go read it. (I'll be here.)

And let's be very clear about what each and every Republican candidate has said, with total unanimity, on the subject of judges.

Rudy Giuliani

"I will nominate strict constructionist judges with respect for the rule of law and a proven fidelity to the Constitution -- judges in the mold of Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito, and Chief Justice Roberts."

Mitt Romney

"I think the justices that President Bush has appointed are exactly spot-on. I think Justice Roberts and Justice Alito are exactly the kind of justices America needs."

Fred Thompson

"I like Roberts and Alito and Scalia and Thomas. One of the best things that I got to do as a private citizen was to help get Justice Roberts through the confirmation process... We're in a heck of a lot better shape because of Roberts and Alito, and one more gain would put us in even better shape."

Mike Huckabee

"My own personal hero on the court is Scalia, not least because I duck-hunted with him."

John McCain

"One of our greatest problems in America today is justices that legislate from the bench, activist judges. I'm proud that we have Justice Alito and Roberts on the United States Supreme Court. ... [When asked whether he admires any Supreme Court justice in particular] Of course, Antonin Scalia... I admire how articulate he is, but I also from everything I've seen admire Roberts as well."

The two parties have more than a dime's worth of difference on this, and the Supremes had better be right at the top of the issues that we talk about in the fall.


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dday 1/09/2008 01:22:00 PM |