Posted on 03/16/2005 11:19:13 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
"By what conceivable warrant can nine lawyers presume to be the authoritative conscience of the Nation?" So asked an incredulous Justice Antonin Scalia in response to the latest outrage by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Five activist justices (not even nine) just imposed their personal social preference on every American voter, state legislator, congressman, and juror. Adding insult to injury, the supremacist five used foreign laws, "international opinion," and even an unratified treaty to rationalize overturning more than 200 years of American law and history.
Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in Roper v. Simmons is a prime example of liberal judges changing our Constitution based on their judge-invented notion that its meaning is "evolving." He presumed to rewrite the Eighth Amendment.
The murder involved in this case was particularly heinous. Christopher Simmons persuaded a fellow teenager to help him commit a brutal murder after assuring him they could "get away with it" because they were both under age eighteen.
Simmons met his pal at 2 a.m. and they broke into Shirley Crook's home as she slept. Simmons and his fellow teenager bound her hands, covered her eyes with duct tape, put her in her own minivan, and drove to a state park.
There they hog-tied her hands and feet together with electrical wire, wrapped her entire face in duct tape, and threw her body from a railroad trestle into the Meramec River. Mrs. Crook drowned helplessly, and her body was found later by fishermen.
Showing no remorse, Simmons bragged about his killing to his friends, declaring that he did it "because the bitch seen my face." He confessed quickly after his arrest and even agreed to reenact the crime on video.
A jury of his peers listened to his attorney's argument that youthful indiscretion should mitigate punishment; the jury observed Simmons' demeanor at trial and heard from a slew of witnesses. After an exhaustive trial and full consideration of age as a factor, the jury and judge imposed the death sentence as allowed by Missouri law.
The American system allows a jury to recommend life-or-death following due process and the applicable law enacted by the representatives of the people of the state. Nothing in the text or history of the Eighth Amendment denies Missouri juries and state legislatures the right to make this decision.
The Supreme Court's main argument was the "trend" since 1989 that seven countries (Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, Congo, and China) have banned juvenile capital punishment. Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens and Souter changed U.S. law so we can follow the lead of those seven countries.
Only four U.S. states have legislated against the juvenile death penalty since 1989 (but none of them was executing juveniles anyway). On the other hand, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia all allow the death penalty for a seventeen-year-old who commits a particularly shocking murder.
The supremacist five claimed that most other countries don't execute seventeen-year-olds. However, most other countries don't have capital punishment at all, so there is no distinction between seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds.
Furthermore, most other countries don't allow jury trials or other Bill of Rights guarantees, so who knows if the accused ever gets what we would call a fair trial? Over 90 percent of jury trials are in the United States, and we certainly don't want to conform to non-jury-trial countries.
The supremacist five must think they can dictate evolution of the meaning of treaties as well as of the text of the Constitution.
They cited the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which our Senate year after year has refused to ratify. They also cited the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which we ratified only with a reservation specifically excluding the matter of juvenile capital punishment.
DC sniper Lee Malvo was seventeen during his infamous killing rampage, so now serial killers like him won't have to worry about the death penalty. The terrorists and the vicious Salvadoran gangs will be able to assign seventeen-year-olds as their hit men so they can "get away with it."
We recall that the Supreme Court ruled in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992 that it could not overturnRoe v. Wade because that might undermine "the Court's legitimacy." But in the Simmons case, the Court flatly overturned its own decision about juvenile capital punishment in Stanford v. Kentucky only 16 years ago.
As Justice Scalia pointed out in dissent, the Court's invocation of foreign law is both contrived and disingenuous. The big majority of countries reject U.S.-style abortion on demand, so the supremacist justices conveniently omitted that "international opinion."
Our runaway judiciary is badly in need of restraint by Congress. A good place to start would be a law declaring it an impeachable offense for justices to rely on foreign law in overriding the U.S. Constitution or congressional or state law.
We the People. We gave them that power. We can take it away. Impeach them. Petition the new Court to re-hear the case.
I dunno.
Let's ask ol' "Not Proven/Scottish Law" Snarlin' Arlen Spector...
So, you're down with the US Supreme Court using current, "progressive", European laws as a basis to overturn state laws enacted by the duly elected representatives of the people of that state?
If it is the same one, does anyone know the exact words that the oath contains?
I see the distinct probability that some Supreme Court Justices have repeatedly broken their oath of office, and then added insult to injury in their subsequent explanations.
On the contrary what I said was "it is not a good idea" period, no exceptions.
Section 3331 of Title 5 of the U.S. Code requires high-ranking officers, including Supreme Court justices, to take this oath: "I, ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
I am sorry, but what am I missing?
The only way to prevent activist judges is to hold them accountable. Who would they be accountable to? The people. The constitution was written for the U.S. and hence the people.
Judges can be held accuntable directly by the people voting for or against them. Appointments by the president and governors and approval by the elected officials is not working.
Let the people decide who should be judging them.
Maybe we should give Sharia law a little try over here. Especially for killers and thieves.
No.
Dumb decisions are not impeachable.
Steve, no we are based on English Common law. Even though we use many terms from Roman Law it isn't the basis of our law.
bingeing = beginning
If we are going to be rules by the Supremes, maybe Diana Ross and two other bewigged black sistahs can do a more interesting job LOL
Ronald Reagan speaking of the Soviet Politiboro in 1982
that is true.. and where did they get theirs from?
Does your reply mean that you believe roman law did not influence english common law?
So Phyllis is full of crap. The Court did not rely on international law for their decision, but mentioned that law in the course of their majority ruling. The Court, as it should have, relied on precedent from U.S. Supreme Court and lower court rulings. There is nothing to impeach over.
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