U.S. Supreme Court blocks Texas execution

[AvalonXQ]

I could care less if the members of the SCOTUS decided to walk down to his jail cell and encircle it. The fact is through the political powers they wield, written and esoteric, they could stop this from happening. Not just them, of course, again i could care less if Obama himself chose to circumvent every law in the land to get there and stop an innocent man from being killed.

And, see, this is precisely the approach I can't justify.

It doesn't bother me if you, in your private capacity, do everything you can possibly do to save the life of an innocent man. And it doesn't bother me if Obama does the same -- including a personal appeal on live TV for the governor to pardon the man.

But as soon as Obama issues an Executive Order demanding the man's release, orders the U.S. Army to break into prison to release the man, or does anything else that exercises his power as President while exceeding his authority under the law, I disagree with that abuse of power. Yes, even if it means that failing to order an air strike on the state capital results in an innocent man being executed. Government officials need to only act within the bounds of the law.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Law is not often so black and white. I tried to explain this when I referenced Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. Scalia isn't an idiot and neither were the justices who decided Plessy. These opinions were not cut from whole cloth but had a basis in the law. Not only did Plessy have a legal foundation but it was precedent. It was law. The law was an ass.

In the case of Scalia he wasn't pulling something out of his ass. He's no slouch. An ideologue but not a drooling idiot. The Supreme Court could have swung his way and set aside the right I'm clamoring for just as Plessy decided against equal rights. It is the basis, the case law that Scalia argued on that I called an ass. Had SCOTUS swung with Scalia their law, like Plessy would have been an ass.

My point is quite simple, when it comes to an inalienable right we don't need to wring our hands over contradictory case law and precedent. If the law that speaks against an inalienable right is an ass then we ought not follow it. Now, you can fault me for not pointing out that there was contravening law the majority used and I will accept that criticism. I was in fact more interested in eviscerating Scalia's position rhetorically and perhaps that made more of this than was needed. I'll cop to that.

Okay, I don't think I have any additional criticism for your position, then. I apologize for misunderstanding/misrepresenting it for a good chunk of the thread.

 

[fitzgibbon]

Scalia isn't saying we should execute innocent men. He's saying that actual innocence is something you have to prove to the state court, not the federal court. I am inclined to agree.

I thought guilt was needed to be proved not innocence. When did the States take up the Napoleonic Code? And seeing as it seems that the most ardent backers of the death penalty are those who most loudly proclaim an ironclad belief in a Supreme Being, why hasten a person meeting his/her maker if we're dickering over "X" number of years in prison vs an eternity in Hell? All that those relatively few years deny is the ability to correct any mistakes that human juries/jurors might make.

Why the haste to save a few dollars? Bit unseemly if you ask me

 

[AvalonXQ]

I thought guilt was needed to be proved not innocence.

Once you've been found guilty, the burden shifts on appeal.

Instead of "the state must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt", it's now "the convicted must prove that no reasonable jury could have found guilt".

This is a simplification, of course.

 

[fitzgibbon]

Simplification perhaps but still given the number of convictions that've been overturned and.....

....seeing as it seems that the most ardent backers of the death penalty are those who most loudly proclaim an ironclad belief in a Supreme Being, why hasten a person meeting his/her maker if we're dickering over "X" number of years in prison vs an eternity in Hell? All that those relatively few years deny is the ability to correct any mistakes that human juries/jurors might make.

Why the haste to save a few dollars? Bit unseemly if you ask me