Judging
Two major decisions in the courts today, one from the Supreme Court, one an appeals court. The Supreme Court decision, was, as so many are now, 5-4, in deciding that executing someone who committed the crime before turning 18, violates the Constitution. The majority cited the "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibition as the basis. Anton Scalia wrote a scathing dissent in which he said the court had apparently decided the Constituion means something different from three years ago.
I find capital punishment not only abhorrent, but incredible in a country that considers itself a model for the reasonable humanity expected of civilized people. The only legal justification is to prevent the person from murdering again. Life without parole should suffice. And it doesn't put anyone in the terrible position of practicing legal murder, surely a stain on the conscience. I suspect the real reason is revenge, the sense that a wrong needs to be set right. But the glory of our legal system has been its keeping its distance from this motive, because it skews justice by appealing to emotion.
Interviews I have seen with relatives of the murdered allowed to witness the execution of the murderer has left me unpersuaded that it really does set those people at peace.
The other decision was by an appeals court judge who ruled that Jose Padilla, who was arrested in O'Hare airport in Chicago more than two years ago and held without charge, must either be charged with a crime or be released in 45 days. The government says it suspects Padilla of plotting to set off a dirty bomb in an American city. His lawyer says he was picked up in the hysteria following 9/11/01 and there was no basis for the arrest.
Now you and I cannot judge the evidence against him. And which of us would want the government to release someone who might do grevious harm to us? But, as the appeals court judge said, our Constitution requires that a person arrested be told the charges against him and given the opporunity to respond in a court of law. There is no doubt that presuming people innocent until proven guilty presents a risk that holding suspects without charge might prevent.
But, even if that protects us, it turns us into a different country, not the one our Constitution and Bill of Rights established.
I find capital punishment not only abhorrent, but incredible in a country that considers itself a model for the reasonable humanity expected of civilized people. The only legal justification is to prevent the person from murdering again. Life without parole should suffice. And it doesn't put anyone in the terrible position of practicing legal murder, surely a stain on the conscience. I suspect the real reason is revenge, the sense that a wrong needs to be set right. But the glory of our legal system has been its keeping its distance from this motive, because it skews justice by appealing to emotion.
Interviews I have seen with relatives of the murdered allowed to witness the execution of the murderer has left me unpersuaded that it really does set those people at peace.
The other decision was by an appeals court judge who ruled that Jose Padilla, who was arrested in O'Hare airport in Chicago more than two years ago and held without charge, must either be charged with a crime or be released in 45 days. The government says it suspects Padilla of plotting to set off a dirty bomb in an American city. His lawyer says he was picked up in the hysteria following 9/11/01 and there was no basis for the arrest.
Now you and I cannot judge the evidence against him. And which of us would want the government to release someone who might do grevious harm to us? But, as the appeals court judge said, our Constitution requires that a person arrested be told the charges against him and given the opporunity to respond in a court of law. There is no doubt that presuming people innocent until proven guilty presents a risk that holding suspects without charge might prevent.
But, even if that protects us, it turns us into a different country, not the one our Constitution and Bill of Rights established.
posted by Blayney at 10:40 AM
1 Comments:
Finally, I think both opinions are right. I was intrigued by the two very different titles given to stories I saw on the Padilla ruling. Some already want to vilify the judge. Others, largely the ACLU, see him as a hero for bucking the administration. The decision itself is a walking advertisement for lifetime appointments to the judiciary. How embarassing to President Bush that this decision comes from one of his own appointees. His "machine" cannot attack the "liberal" judges appointed by his predecessor.
My only real surprise on the death penalty decision was that it was 5-4 and not 6-3. I had expected Justice O'Connor to be on the other side. I think it is very important to realize how much the court weighed the fact that we are the only "civilized" country in the world that executed minors.
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