Actually, if something is an arbitrary judgment any way you look at it, it probably says more about your overinclusive sense of arbitrariness than it does about SCOTUS justices’ sense and standards of reasonableness.
That is downright ridiculous. This means court cases with ambiguous circumstances couldn’t actually be decided. They have to “make shit up” all the time. Most often, I agree with their standards. Sometimes I don’t.
They examined what legislators had decided. Honestly.
Why would you extrapolate that from my comment? i was merely suggesting the likely outcome of a new abortion ruling: an overturning of RvW rather than a unique decision. Much like this case, which overturned a previous ruling based on reasoning from other rulings rather than starting from scratch as apparently you think they did.
What you said was that no right of privacy is found in the constitution. It is terribly difficult to grasp the fourth amendment specifically without relating it to privacy. The right to avoid self-incrimination also entails some kinds of privacy. An explicit statement is not necessary for native English speakers. Perhaps you are of the mind that the government can pass any laws it likes whatsoever without much regard for the constitution; after all, if they can’t pass laws against the constitution, any law they pass must be in line with what the constitution means. That’s absurd. Same with John Mace’s pining for a time when the court system wasn’t an arbiter of constitutionality. Without such a mechanism in place, the constitution is a window-dressing. If the legislature bans political speech against a sitting president, obviously political speech against a sitting president wasn’t what the first amendment was supposed to protect. How is that better than deferring to judges who are not bound by political pressure? --Indeed, that is why the court system is a good arbiter of constitutionality: because they are not subject to the whims of democratic power. This does not mean I like tyranny. It means I recognize that without an independent body being the judge of constitutionality, constitutionality is a completely arbitrary standard: it means whatever it has to for whatever law to take effect. Who is to say otherwise? Why amend the constitution when its intent is only found in the laws decided by simple majority?
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. I explicitly said I was OK with having the SC be the arbiter of constituionality, and that I was simply correcting a misstatement of fact about that authority being DERIVED from the constitution. Please be more careful in restating other people’s positions in the future.
:shrug: That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose. Another would be to note that, just a couple of years ago, there was not just consensus but *unanimity * against it. Now, there is a growing movement, as evidenced by MA and VT , toward change. There’s no sign that those states are going to “come back into the fold”, and numerous signs that others (CT is next) will take the same step. What is this “consensus” to the contrary you see as “emerging”?
Oh, and AQA? The SC found foreign laws to be persuasive to them in this case, not “binding” in every or even any case. Don’t undercut yourself any more than necessary if you want to be convincing.
Moto: While I share your disagreement about the consensus claimed in this SC majority opinion, I don’t think your gay marriage analogy stands up to scrutiny. The court is talking about a consensus of opinion wrt the 8th amendment (cruel and unusual punishment). While there seems to be a growing consesus to legislate against SSM, the constitution is completely silent on the matter of marriage, either straight or gay. Therefore, the court would have no constitutional issue on which to rule about a consensus.
Those 13 states that have explicitly banned same sex marriage through constitutional amendment, and the even greater number that have done so through legislation. Not to mention the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
And if state-by-state trends are to be the new yardstick, guess who falls short?
It was just sloppy rhetoric. I knew you weren’t suggesting it was necessarily bad. I really am sorry. You don’t deserve that kind of treatment. But it is fair to say that I was not claiming the judiciary was explicitly granted that authority, either. The question I asked, rhetorically, was what other standard was outlined. Implicitly answered in the negative by suggesting, “Who but” etc.
Mr. Moto, the states you mention haven’t actually changed a damn thing. They merely affirmed their stati quo. The actual *changes *, the things that would indicate a trend, have all been *against * your asserted “emergence”.
I never said that the Supreme Court found foreign laws to be “binding.” I said that the Supreme Court relied on foreign sources of law and unratified treaties in creating law that’s binding on the US.
Read the posts to which you’re responding more carefully if you want to be convincing.
I don’t deny that the Supreme Court is free to overrule precedent or set new precedents. My point was this decision was not – as suggested by laigle – mandated by precedent.
In response to your point, there is an inherent value in precedent that I doubt I need to explain to you. So there are reasons for following prior decisions even when the justices themselves disagree with those decisions. However, if the Supreme Court thinks they just got it wrong, then they are (of course) free to overrule their prior decision. But this Court didn’t say they got it wrong. They referred to evolving standards of what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. I find it hard to believe that people’s opinions have changed so drastically in the last 16 years. It appears that they haven’t; the Supreme Court has merely changed whose opinions it considers vital to determining what “shocks the conscience and offends fundamental notions of human dignity.” Americans are simply less important than (for example) the French and Canadians in determining what rules Americans live by. And I find that inherently undemocratic.
Just because there are sides to this issue doesn’t mean you know for certain what side I’m on, now do you?
And something did change in those states. A retrenchment of the status quo to make it harder to overturn is a change, which is why those amendments were resisted by a good many people.
Better find out who borrowed your screenname to say this, then:
and this:
It’s silly to pretend you didn’t say things that are right there in this same thread, but if it makes you feel better anyway, go right ahead. Now:
Assuming that’s what you mean now, still, so what? The Court can be persuaded by anything it finds persuasive. Anything at all. From *any * source. So what?
Read your *own * posts more carefully before you try to change positions while pretending you haven’t.
Despite the expressed opinion of the Court that “[T]he overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty is not [emphasis added] controlling here, but provides repsected and significant confirmation for the Court’s determination that the penalty is disproportionate punishment for offenders under 18[?]” That doesn’t sound as if the French and Candians opinions are vital to determing what shocks the conscience. And in trying to follow a strict constructionist argument I have to assume that the Court’s words mean expressly what they say, without any interpretation needed.
Despite your desperate attempts to read what I said in some sort of sinister light, neither of those quotes say that the foreign laws were binding on the US without the Supreme Court’s intervention. From your first quote of me:
And the second quote, only I’ve included the part which you cut off (innocently, I’m sure):
The acting force in both of those quotes is the Supreme Court, not the foreign law.
That its interpretation should not be guided by anything or any source. I’ve been over this above.
Nobody says it does.* The issue is whether the ban was a legitimate legal decision or not, and as you’ve now admitted it is.
*Except, of course, the US Supreme Court, which has binding say in the matter.
And now the SC has reversed itself. They’re allowed to do that. Did you have some other point you were trying to make, or was this just more obfuscation?
No, it requires that the court be required to ignore the question of whether a given execution policy violates the “cruel and unusual” clause. Which, of course, is bollocks.
Unless the SC decides that executions of those under 18 violate the “cruel and unusual” clause.
No, unlike you I don’t get my legal news from Rush. That’s why I’m able to argue the matter.
As someone who’s gotten called for jury duty several times… well, you’re so wrong it’s actually hilarious. The best way to get kicked off a jury is to have education above a high school diploma.
Oh, and I’m not even going to dignify the DNA jibberish with a response. “Generally confirms almost all?” Why didn’t you just slip in “weapons of mass destruction related program activities?” DNA tests have overturned dozens of death row cases. How many innocent people have to be executed by the state to make you lose faith? For someone who whines so much about central authority you sure do seem cozy to it when it’s killing someone.
Right, that’s why I have an argument and you’ve got nothing but hot air. But, since you asked:
High school literacy test for all potential jurors.
Short comprehension test on any technical evidence to be presented.
Attorneys are only allowed to dismiss jurors based on certain (very) limited criteria such as evidence of bias.
There, I’ve improved the system already. Wasn’t even hard, I didn’t have to mute the TV or anything.
Yes. They considered the guidance of other courts in other lands, considered it as relevant to US law, and saw that certain principles shared in both sets of law applied. If they’d quoted Plato, would you be accusing them of trying to force Socratism on us?
They didn’t, and I see you’ve since tucked your tail between your legs and run away on this one so there’s not much point debating it further.
The USSC can reverse precedent. Or didn’t you know that?
Oh, and nice strawman, but I never said the decision was mandated by the Constitution. I said they made a valid decision based on their interpretation of the Constitution and the weight they gave to various issues in Constitutional jurisprudence.
Not only are they nitpicks, you’ve since pretended you didn’t raise them and dismissed them as hyperbole.
No they don’t. It’s just obfuscation, hot air, and bile in an attempt to cover up the fact that there isn’t a sound legal reason to deny the Court’s role in making these decisions or in the Constitutional groundwork for their decision.
I’m going to cut you off there. I did no such thing. Two of your paragraphs ran together because the backend dropped the quotation between them. I meant to seperate them out and respond seperately, but I forgot to break out the second point. They were both sections of post #11, not seperate posts as you say. My apologies for not inserting a line break, but this is a bit over the top, even for you.
Sure it did. You said we should weigh the issues each time. I’ve already pointed out that when the question is whether a given penalty is cruel and unusual in a given set of circumstances, individual discretion is not generally seen as the highest good. As I said, I forgot to include a response to your second point, so here it is:
Irrelevant. You’re responding to the ramifications of denying the question to begin with. The current jurisprudence doesn’t do so, and with good reason.
I’ll let the logic of your response stand on its own, but in the interests of combatting ignorance, I should respond to a few of the more outlandish, factually inaccurate statements you’ve made.
Cite please? Because I’ve participated in a few dozen jury trials, and there have been more individuals on those juries with college diplomas than without.
You can start with one. Please provide me with a cite of one individual who was executed and later proven innocent.
You’ll be happy to know that jurors can be struck for cause if they can’t read and the case will involve documentary or other written evidence.
There is currently no comprehension test on technical evidence because that would predispose individuals to the evidence in the case. But you’ll be happy to know that the attorneys are responsible for explaining such evidence to the jurors, and jurors can be struck for cause if it can be demonstrated that they will not be able to comprehend the evidence presented.
Currently, each attorney gets a few peremptory strikes, but you’ll be happy to know that such strikes are typically very limited both in number and in reason. And anyway, how exactly does getting rid of peremptories avoid the problem of “put[ting] twelve people too dumb to avoid jury duty in a room together”?
Ahhh, now the logic of your response makes more sense. Maybe you should concentrate a bit more on the task at hand while posting.
