Merged Scalia is dead

[Mader Levap]

In an amusing twist, Scalia's death has caused Dow Chemicals to settle an ongoing lawsuit for price-fixing for US$835 million fearing that the lack of a conservative majority on the Supreme Court would cause it to lose it's appeal against the judgement.

I think there is more interesting consequence of Scalia's death.

Death of Scalia may save planet (this is how this article was clickbaited for me).

The immediate and easily foreseeable impact is staggering. Last week, the Supreme Court issued a stay delaying the implementation of Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The stay indicated that a majority of the justices foresee a reasonably high likelihood that they would ultimately strike down Obama’s plan, which could jeopardize the Paris climate agreement and leave greenhouse gasses unchecked. Without Scalia on the Court, the odds of this drop to virtually zero. The challenge is set to be decided by a D.C. Circuit panel composed of a majority of Democratic appointees, which will almost certainly uphold the regulations. If the plan is upheld, it would require a majority of the Court to strike it down. With the Court now tied 4-4, such a ruling now seems nearly impossible.

 

[catsmate]

I think there is more interesting consequence of Scalia's death.

Death of Scalia may save planet (this is how this article was clickbaited for me).

Fascinating. Maybe a time-traveller from the dystopian future killed him?

 

[quadraginta]

Fascinating. Maybe a time-traveller from the dystopian future killed him?

Probably not. If that had been the case they would have picked a much earlier date.

 

[sunmaster14]

Probably not. If that had been the case they would have picked a much earlier date.

Especially if they were pro-abortion.

 

[Childlike Empress]

Didn't follow the thread but from a basic search it seems it wasn't mentioned that the creep died in company of fellow members of a "secretive society" of hunters "called the International Order of St. Hubertus, an Austrian society that dates back to the 1600s" with the (latin of course) motto "Honoring God by honoring His creatures". WP not Prison Planet.

Eeeeew.

 

[Tony Stark]

Probably not. If that had been the case they would have picked a much earlier date.

Yeah, beginning of Bill Clinton's first term would serve the best utility.

 

[catsmate]

Today (11MAR) would have been his 80th birthday. It's also the 98th anniversary of the first recognised case of Spanish flu.

 

[quadraginta]

Today (11MAR) would have been his 80th birthday. It's also the 98th anniversary of the first recognised case of Spanish flu.

Do you think there's a connection?

 

[catsmate]

Do you think there's a connection?

Obviously.... We're through the looking glass, people.

 

[Beerina]

..

 

[catsmate]

Bump.

In a measure that prevents one deeply deserved tribute to the justice Scalia the law school at George Mason University will not be celebrating the life and achievement of the late judge by naming itself the Antonin Scalia School of Law due to the "unforeseen and unfortunate" wordplay involving the logical acronym. It will instead be just the Scalia Law School.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I really am glad he's gone. I feel like he was such a bad person. How could you possibly say it was OK to execute an innocent person as long as they had had due process? What happened to the principle of letting a few bad guys go so that you didn't incarcerate the innocent?

 

[newyorkguy]

How can you say it's okay to execute an innocent man if he's had due process? Probably because Scalia put more value on the system than the life of an individual. That as long as the person got their Constitutionally guaranteed rights the result was irrelevant. That what was important was the system, the process.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she asked him once, did he really believe we should do everything the way the Founding Fathers did. She asked him about punishing people by putting them in stocks. Did he think we should punish people that way today? She said he didn't answer.

Someone in one of these threads got it right, I think. That Scalia was a very conservative person with a political agenda. That he wanted to remake the laws, move them to the right. That he could always go back to the early writings of the law and the Constitution and find some way to rationalize whatever he wanted to do.

In some of the cases we discuss here it is very dismaying to find how often Scalia was willing, actually eager, to overturn previous Supreme Court decisions. In the California State Teachers case the legal people say the conservatives on the court signaled they were ready to overturn the legality of fee payers, what are called "agency shops" in the public sector. Thus the libertarian group Center for Individual Rights found some plaintiffs and financed a legal challenge. The same thing in Citizens United. The original issue in the case was a narrow one. But Chief Justice John Roberts manipulated the case to expand it so he and the conservatives on the court could throw out the parts of the McCain-Feingold Act that they didn't like.

Like the cop on TV told someone, "It ain't justice, it's just us."

 

[sunmaster14]

I really am glad he's gone. I feel like he was such a bad person. How could you possibly say it was OK to execute an innocent person as long as they had had due process? What happened to the principle of letting a few bad guys go so that you didn't incarcerate the innocent?

Process is important. First of all, the Supreme Court is not a trier of fact, so it is inappropriate, in theory, for them to decide on the probative value of new evidence, or even whether or not the so-called evidence is new. And if they just accept, as a default position, that new evidence has probative value, there will be a flood of appeals to reopen adjudicated cases based on "new evidence." So there is a cost-benefit calculation at work - weighing the small probability that an innocent man will be saved versus the undermining of a criminal justice system that has helped bring the murder rate down by a factor of 100 versus what it would be in the wild. Second, there is already a process to handle appeals of final judgments. That is what the pardon power of the executive branch is for.

How many bites at the apple do you want a condemned person to have? In theory, every time there is a new governor or president, that person has another chance for a pardon. This is in addition to the multiple appeals on a variety of grounds that had already been exhausted in the courts.

Perhaps you should try to understand Scalia's argument a little better before condemning him for it. In fact, given my claim that new evidence is available to exonerate Scalia from being a "bad" person, will you grant him a new trial?

 

[mumblethrax]

Bump.

Jesus, don't do that. My heart skipped a beat thinking he wasn't dead anymore.

 

[Beerina]

Life is the most fundamental basic inalienable right, called out in the Declaration of Independence separate from and prior to Liberty itself. I get the frustration with the abuse of delaying tactics, but there is no coming back from a mistake.

Is not new exculpatory deserving of examination part of the due part of due process?

I like his bannings of government using new tech to "get around" the 4th amendment, rejecting the government's arguments, but on this issue not so much.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Is not new exculpatory deserving of examination part of the due part of due process?

No. To be more specific, that has been asked and answered "no" many times since ratification of the Constitution. These are the exact situations that deserve an amendment.

 

[fuelair]

Process is important. First of all, the Supreme Court is not a trier of fact, so it is inappropriate, in theory, for them to decide on the probative value of new evidence, or even whether or not the so-called evidence is new. And if they just accept, as a default position, that new evidence has probative value, there will be a flood of appeals to reopen adjudicated cases based on "new evidence." So there is a cost-benefit calculation at work - weighing the small probability that an innocent man will be saved versus the undermining of a criminal justice system that has helped bring the murder rate down by a factor of 100 versus what it would be in the wild. Second, there is already a process to handle appeals of final judgments. That is what the pardon power of the executive branch is for.

How many bites at the apple do you want a condemned person to have? In theory, every time there is a new governor or president, that person has another chance for a pardon. This is in addition to the multiple appeals on a variety of grounds that had already been exhausted in the courts.

Perhaps you should try to understand Scalia's argument a little better before condemning him for it. In fact, given my claim that new evidence is available to exonerate Scalia from being a "bad" person, will you grant him a new trial?

If they are actually guilty with no legal or scientific question unanswered no more bites.

If there are any questions, all needed until absolute guilt can be established.

 

[sunmaster14]

If they are actually guilty with no legal or scientific question unanswered no more bites.

If there are any questions, all needed until absolute guilt can be established.

There are always questions. If you're afraid of executing an innocent person, then you should be against the death penalty. Which is a perfectly reasonable position to have. End of story.

 

[newyorkguy]

As a criminal defense lawyer said on a PBS special about the criminal justice system: "Most Americans agree that at the end of the day the criminal justice system is supposed to ensure the guilty are punished and the innocent go free. Just about everyone would agree with that...except people who actually work in the criminal justice system."

How many bites at the apple? Since we know -- and this isn't based on ideology, this is based on reality -- reasonable people know the criminal justice system is flawed, is in places corrupt, in some places is a perversion of justice, so how many bites? As many bites as it takes to ensure someone who seems obviously not guilty gets the right result.

Cases where someone finally confesses to a crime, their DNA matches evidence collected at the scene (that the prosecutor could never explain), yet someone else is serving a sentence for the crime. Someone who possibly had no criminal background, had an alibi (which the jury rejected) etc etc. How many bites at the apple should that someone get?