Today’s Supreme Court Rulings

Today’s Supreme Court Rulings

The Supreme Court released three rulings today, leaving four before it closes session for 2008. (Those are to be announced tomorrow.) Let’s touch on each of them and what they mean:

No Death Penalty for Child Rapists

The court heard a case brought up against a law in the state of Louisana that allowed for anyone who raped a child under 12 years of age to receive capital punishment. In a 5-4 ruling, with Justice Kennedy writing for the majority, the court has decided that the death penalty is not “proportionate to the crime”, and is in violation of the cruel andunusual punishment clause of the eighth amendment. This overturns similar laws in five additional states.

The court said nothing in regard to the use of capital punishment for murder or treason. (The two most longstanding uses for it.) Earlier this year, the Supreme Court affirmed that the death penalty via lethal injection does not violate the cruel and unusual clause. Further, in 1977, the Supreme Court declared that the death penalty is not an appropriate sentence for the rape of adults. Until this case (had it gone the other way), no one had been executed for any form of rape since 1944 in the US.

Reaction to this seemed to be negative across major political figures:

“The opinion reads more like an out-of-control legislative debate than a constitutional analysis,” said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican. “One thing is clear: The five members of the court who issued the opinion do not share the same ’standards of decency’ as the people of Louisiana.”

The decision resonated in the presidential campaign, too, where Democrat Barack Obama objected to it. Obama said there should be no blanket prohibition of the death penalty for the rape of children if states want to apply it in those cases.

Robert Jindal is, in addition to the Gov. of Louisana, a rising figure of prominence in the Republican party – and likely a future presidential nominee (if not McCain’s VP selection this time). Obama…well, we all know who he is. I’m actually surprised he responded this way – kudos to him for taking what most Americans would consider a more sensible rationale towards this hideous crime.

This case is what it is. I find myself disagreeing with the court on this one, but the implications of the case are obvious. I’m just left with one last hope on this: When Justice Kennedy said that the death penalty was not “proportional to the crime”, do you think he really meant that the convicted should get a life sentence with a 400lb, solid muscle cellmate named “Molly”? Because, I could actually go for that ruling.

In general, I’m conflicted on the death penalty – you could talk me into either way. I don’t like the government having the authority to put people to death; general snowball/hill idea here. However, I think there are some people who simply cannot be rehabilitated under any circumstances, and it does us little good to hold them forever – some crimes are simply deserving of death. If it must be done, then a fair and open trial should be the only way it happens.

Some would argue that the death penalty sets an example to other would-be criminals. While I would normally agree with this, I’m forced to say “Not in our legal system”, where the average death row sentence takes 25+years to carry out.

Court Slashes Penalties for Exxon-Valdez

The Exxon-Valdez oil spill has finally made it to the Supreme Court. Only took a short eternity. Environmental groups were suing Exxon for 2.5 billion, saying they needed to take responsibility for environmental damages. The Supreme Court disagreed, lowering the total penalty to roughly 500 million, saying that the original penalty was far too harsh, given that while Exxon was originally at fault for the spill, their actions after it happened in immediately cleaning it up and repairing the environment negated the majority of their liability.

Is what it is. There’s no precedent setter here, this is just a final ruling. Fascist environmental groups are pissed, I am therefore happy.

Court Rules on Specific Testimony for Murder Case

This one’s a little odd. A man was convicted for murder partly based on a recording of his girlfriend calling the police to claim that he had assaulted and threatened to kill her. The court ruled that the man was to be retried based on the fact that there is a constitutional right to face your accuser, even if you are responsible for that accuser not being present. The ruling was a 6-3, with Justice Scalia writing for the majority, and Justice Breyer for the minority opinion. Further, the ruling does not overrule a previous ruling saying that if you kill someone to prevent them from testifying in court, that testimony need not be thrown out.

I had to do a double-take on this one. My first reaction was to vehemently disagree with the ruling – after all, if you kill someone, it’s pretty hard for them to testify against you. But, two things made me think this one through again: 1) you have a constitutional right to face your accuser. In all cases. 2) In the US justice system, you are innocent until proven guilty (unless it’s a speeding ticket or a traffic camera…that’s another post for later). It is therefore impossible to reconcile the idea that “This testimony can stand because you killed her so she can’t be here” with the idea that “well, you didn’t kill her in the eyes of the law until the jury says so”.

Further, under such circumstances, the recording falls under the same category as a diary entry by the victim – legally such matters can be used to get a search warrant or the like, but in the court room, amount to hearsay at worst and circumstantial evidence at best. In short, a prosecution needs better evidence than this.

This is a case where the decision might be uncomfortable, but for the rights of the accused to remain intact in accordance to our Constitution, it had to be made. Kudos to the majority for a tough decision here.

The fourth and final case announced today had to do with whether or not a tribal court on a Federal Indian Reservation had the right to try non-tribal members. The Supreme Court put extreme limitations on their ability to do so, establishing that the rules are similar to foreign nations trying American citizens. Story is here.

Meh? Don’t steal from casinos?

Tomorrow, they’ll be ruling on the DC gun ban. This one should be fun. There’s been some inside-the-beltway rumors that it’s going to be a plurality ruling… if that’s the case, we have some problems.

–J.L.