Hullabaloo

Tuesday, August 07, 2012

 
Rogue Justice

by digby

Dday writes:

The Supreme Court justices have jurisdiction over various regions of the country when it comes to injunctions, particularly when it comes to stays of execution. In the case of Marvin Wilson, the mentally retarded man with an IQ of 61 and an intelligence level of a 6 year-old, set to die today in Texas in conjunction with a murder conviction, that appeal had to go through none other than Justice Antonin Scalia.

Justice Scalia wrote a dissent in the case of Atkins v. Virginia, which established the ban on executing the mentally retarded (Texas, like other states, got to set their own standards for what constitutes “retarded,” and as such plowed ahead with the execution of Wilson today). Scalia wrote that, because “Only the severely or profoundly mentally retarded, commonly known as ‘idiots’, enjoyed any special status under the law” in 1791, around the time of the establishment of the Eighth Amendment, he disagreed with the ruling. And so it should come as no surprise that he submitted this short response to the stay of Marvin Wilson today.

The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Scalia and by him referred to the Court is denied. The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

Well of course he did. Unless we can find a medium to channel the founders and get a precise meaning of the word "idiot" there's nothing he can do. (I have a sneaking suspicion that if we could, he wouldn't like the answer.)

Why in the hell did they leave it up to a bunch of blood thirsty yahoos to decide what "retarded" is? This is yet another triumph of our corrupt and immoral "states' rights" doctrine for which the suppression of human rights and basic decency has been it's most lasting legacy.

This is barbaric. But then, our entire death penalty system is barbaric. After all, Rick Perry has signed off on nearly 250 executions since he's been in office. That's a hell of a body count. Lucky for him he's barely sentient himself so I suppose he hasn't lost any sleep over it.

In fact, he's proud of it:



I can imagine that Perry and Scalia will both toast to their respective kills tonight, proud as can be.


*By the way: is there a good reason why there isn't an impeach Scalia movement? Even a tiny one?


Update: This was not decided by Scalia, but by the whole court. They pretty much nullified their own decision.

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digby 8/07/2012 06:00:00 PM