Scalia says there’s nothing unconstitutional about executing the innocent.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/17/scalia-actual-innocence/

Scalia says there’s nothing unconstitutional about executing the innocent.


Almost two decades ago, Troy Anthony Davis was convicted of murder and sentenced to die. Since then, seven of the witnesses against him have recanted their testimony, and some have even implicated Sylvester “Redd” Coles, a witness who testified that Davis was the shooter. In light of the very real evidence that Davis could be innocent of the crime that placed him on death row, the Supreme Court today invoked a rarely used procedure giving Davis an opportunity to challenge his conviction. Joined by Justice Clarence Thomas in dissent, however, Justice Antonin Scalia criticized his colleagues for thinking that mere innocence is grounds to overturn a conviction:



So in Justice Scalia’s world, the law has no problem with sending an innocent man to die. One wonders why we even bother to have a Constitution.

Thankfully he was overruled:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6328346&mesg_id=6328346

:grr: :nuke:

was Scalia.

was Scalia...
:shrug:

These 'strict constructionists' make a laughing stock of justice.

:eyes:

:eyes:

Too late he found out that the robes were black, not white, and didn't come with some snazzy matching hood.

Something like 'proof of innocence is not grounds to reverse a wrongful conviction'...

not verbatim but it's pretty much what he said...

:shrug:

so I can live another hundred years."

where Scalia actually followed or understood the Constitution?

:thumbsup:

Let me guess, Scalia's a "Pro-Death" Justice.

Morality is the business of those who make laws, not of those who enforce them.

There are two vital things I want from the law: I want to be able to read a big book of what is and isn't legal, and to be certain that a) unless I do one of those things I won't be sent to prison, and b) if anyone does one of those things to me, they will be punished.

Imagine how you would feel if you were accused of a crime of which you were legally innocent, but the judge arranged for you to be found guilty because he thought it was the morally right thing to do, or if someone committed a crime against you and were let off for that reason.

Executing innocent people certainly *is* morally wrong. Because of that, the constitution was drafted so as to make it unconstitutional. And because of *that*, the Supreme court justices were right to rule against it.

But in a situation where the consitution commands that something morally wrong be done - and there are such situations, I think - it is the duty of the Supreme court justices to enforce it, and the duty of the politicians and electorate to change the constitution to make them rule the other way, rather than simply expecting them to do "the right thing" in the face of their duty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Chase

Samuel Chase
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This article is about the Supreme Court justice. For the U.S. Congressman, see Samuel Chase (congressman).
Samuel Chase

Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
In office
February 4, 1796 – June 19, 1811
Nominated by George Washington
Preceded by John Blair
Succeeded by Gabriel Duvall
Born April 17, 1741(1741-04-17)
Somerset County, Maryland
Died June 19, 1811 (aged 70)
Baltimore, Maryland
Political party Federalist
Religion Episcopalian
Signature

Samuel Chase (April 17, 1741 – June 19, 1811), was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and earlier was a signatory to the United States Declaration of Independence as a representative of Maryland. Early in life, Chase was a "firebrand" states-righter and revolutionary.<1> His political views changed over his lifetime and in the last decades of his career he became well-known as a staunch Federalist, and was impeached for allegedly letting his partisan leanings affect his court decisions. Chase was acquitted.

we've got half that equation, don't we? Maybe we could try to work out a bipartisan compromise instead - if we talk nice, the Repubs might allow us to impeach Thomas instead.

That the 8th and 9th amendments might come into play here
----------------------------------------------------------------
Amendment VIII


Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.


Amendment IX


The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Just because it is not stated as a right does not mean that it does not exist.

Ick, what a disgrace to the bench.

The Constitution doesn't expressly forbid dumping Scalia and Clarence Thomas in a sewage treatment plant for
their obscene rulings either. Does that mean they may disagree with our doing it, but will defend to the death
the constitutionality of our right to do so?

a reason to delay execution.

Can't remember the name of the case at the moment, Ramirez, or something like that, but some poor slob had an appeal filed a day or two late and that was the reason for going on with the execution.

Merely having evidence of innocence was not a good enough reason to allow the appeal when the paperwork was screwed up. So saith Scalia, and the poor guy met his fate.

Now, US law has always assumed that the original trial was all on the up and up and all the evidence was in, blah, blah, blah... so normally an appeal has to be based on some legal error in the original trial. That's not as bad as it seems, since appeals lawyers understand how the game is played and quite a few judges are sympathetic, especially when there is new exculpatory evidence.

But, Scalia is not one of them and takes the letter of the law when he feels like it and applies it.

I understand how the game is played, too, even though I'm not a lawyer, and I accept the bad decisions with the good ones. (And most of them are good ones, after all.)

But this isn't just bad law being made by the Court-- these are real people Scalia is ordering to be put to death.

Whether Scalia is right or wong in his interpretation of the constitution (and I think he is wrong), the fact is that for practical intents people can be executed due to a guilty verdict even if they are actually innocent even if the constitution forbids it. There is no way to prove "actual innocence" or "actual guilt" only guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or not as per the standards in a court of law. Thus "actual innocence" doesn't do any defendants any good.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

... gave false, coerced testimony, that they later recanted, suddenly become a "full and fair" trial?

Who cares

we believe that is better for 9 guilty persons to go free than for 1 innocent person be wrongly punished. This is known as Blackstone's ratio.


Fat Tony would be correct in pointing out that Blackstone's formula does not appear in the U.S. Constitution, but nevertheless law students are taught that it informs the Constitution on matters of due process in criminal trials. Scalia isn't violating the letter of the Constitution when he claims that it's OK constitutionally for an innocent person to be executed so long as they've had their trial and appeals, but he is overshadowing the spirit of the Constitution with his own hangman's spirit when he does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrera_v._Collins

Funny how the Catholic majority on SCOTUS is so-pro life over cells....not people.

making shit up like he always does. What a total moran, please Tony just quit and save us all from your horrible opines.

doing anywhere near a judicial system????

See if he agrees with it then.

we can feed his own words back to him before he hangs.

It's 2009 and we're still stuck with this fucking asshole from the '80s. He's 73 so he probably has at least another decade of spewing his hatred and poisonous opinions.

him and Uncle Thomas. I am so thankfully it was overruled. Too bad these two idiots are young and can't be replaced anytime soon.

....so taking away my gun is unconstitutional but killing me for no reason is constitutional?

....fat tony, to my untrained eye, I think we need either a new constitution or a new interpeter....can't you find anything in that old document that would save an innocent man from the gallows?

....you seem to like fucking things up....you have to admit tony, you did fucked-up big-time by appointing bush....hey tony, when's your retirement party?

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

This guy is in a league by himself... He and his lap dog Thomas.

he had a conflict of interest in ruling on the Cheney energy meeting either. He is dick's good ol' duck huntin' buddy.

Scalia is scum. I won't hear otherwise. SCUM!

So many death penalty appeals involve extreme technicalities that have nothing to do with guilt. But this was such an extreme case, involving recanting witnesses, police misconduct, and a possibility that the star witness against him was the guilty party.

This injustice should have been addressed by the state courts and should have never needed to be heard by the US Supreme Ct.

Truly unconscionable.

:crazy:

:hi: i've been calling him that for years.

and end the practice immediately afterwards

which says that no one shall be deprived of 'life' or 'property' (sorry don't have time to look it up right now) 'without due process'.

I guess Tony interprets 'due process' to include tainted evidence and lying witnesses.

I doubt that's what the FFs had in mind, especially someone like John Adams who went to the defense of British soldiers after the Boston massacre making him extremely unpopular at the time. But, he believed in real 'due process' which includes the presentation of exculpatory evidence, which many of his fellow revolutionaries were not too concerned about in that climate, regarding those particular 'red coats'. His point in going to their defense was to live UP to the standards, no matter how difficult, that they claimed to believe in.

Without his defense, those soldiers probably would have been convicted. I imagine if there was an appeal, had he not represented them in the original trial, he would have volunteered to do so if he believed the conviction was tainted by prejudice and ought to be overturned.

Just because it is not stated in the Constitution, doesn't mean we can interpret it to mean that the FFs supported putting someone to death based on lies and tainted evidence.

Scalia should never have been a SC justice. He has shamed the court over and over again and made a mockery of our justice system. For this opinion alone, he ought to be impeached.

If Scalia believes the innocent deserve to die so long as they've received a "fair" trial, then a fair trial has no meaning.

The entire purpose of a judiciary is to punish the guilty, not the innocent by a full and fair trial, if that can't be done and a "Justice," indeed two of them on the highest court in the land believes it's too much of a bother; (just like the determining the will of the people by courting the votes,) the system is broke.

Therefor no individual should be put to death by the state, period, Capital Punishment should be unConstitutional.