Suprisingly, Samuel Alito’s first vote as a Supreme Court justice was to stay the execution of a man that kidnapped, raped, and killed a 15 year-old girl.
When President George Bush nominated Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court he was billed as an arch-conservative. But in his first decision last night, the new justice confounded expectations by voting to stay an execution in Missouri.
A few hours after being sworn in at the White House, where Mr Bush praised him for his “steady demeanor, careful judgment and complete integrity,” Justice Samuel Alito joined the majority in a 6-3 vote to block the execution of Michael Taylor, a murderer, by lethal injection.
The decision will allow an appeals court to hear arguments by Taylor’s lawyers that all executions by lethal injection are unconstitutional. The US Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment”. Lethal injections sedate prisoners before collapsing their lungs and stopping their hearts.
I don’t remember the death penalty coming up in the hearings. I hadn’t considered the possibility that Alito might present us with a vote against the death penalty. And, actually, that still remains to be determined. The stay is for the purpose of allowing an appeals court to decide whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
It’s possible that Alito is opposed to the death penalty. The court had originally signed off on the execution, but Alito, who was assigned responsibility for handling appeals from Missouri, brought it back before the court. Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas voted to kill him. The rest voted to let him appeal.
I think Alito wants the issue, is the death penalty “cruel and unusual,” decided for a generation. With the rest of the conservatives, this provides an opportunity to take that question off the table. Good strategy for a right wing outcome.
it’s possible that he is just a good consistent Catholic.
it’s possible that he is just a good consistent Catholic.
Do you really believe that’s it?
I think it might be the reason.
This guy raped and killed a 15 year old. This isn’t a case of sympathy for a reformed killer, or new evidence. This is about the definition of cruel and unusual. It’s as significant as the right to privacy is to Roe.
He wants to rule on this issue. I guess.
. . . is against the death penalty hasn’t been paying attention.
Each justice is assigned circuits from which they decide if a writ has merit. Then the full court votes on whether to hear the writ or not. Alito did not contravene the full court as they never “signed off on it” to begin with.
Alito tap-danced around & never answered Feingold’s question as to whether or not an innocent defendant had a constituional right not to be executed if his trial had no procedural flaws.
You’re right that he wants to rule on the issue; he wants to decide lethal injection once & for all. Right now, last minute appeals are filed (currently one in CA as well) challenging the legality of lethal injection, specifically around the issue of the second paralyzing drug, which masks any expression of pain & is considered by vets to be too inhumane to use in putting down a dog. JaninSF nailed it; this case will allow them to decide that lethal injection has no constitutional problems.
I’ll post stuff from the confirmation hearings separately.
(wtf is “a case of sympathy for a reformed killer” supposed to mean? are you rejecting the constituional right for the defense to present any evidence that might mitigate during the penalty phase? or confusing a case/trial with the totally separate & different pardoning process?)
all i mean is that this stay goes to the heart of the death penalty, or at least the most popular method of the death penalty, and is not specifically about this defendant.
I was objecting to the speculation “that Alito might present us with a vote against the death penalty.” There’s nothing to support such a possibility.
To be technical only the congress or legislatures can get to the the heart of the issue. The Court has ruled the DP constitutional, subject to certain constraints.
The most abolutionists could expect from a case like this is that lethal injection would be ruled “cruel & unusual.” Other methods would remain.
Not to discount its importance — I’d just like help discussion of such an emotional issue (& the actual process) to be as precise as possible.
Thanks. That explanation makes sense. I understand ruling on specific parts of different procedures but I don’t trust any of them not to have an agenda tainting their actions.
That was one thing I truly admired about the late Pope.
and how much he despised war and let nobody off the hook, how when he spoke of war you could tell he knew of what it was he spoke of, how he insisted on the people seeing him and how somehow he forgave a man who shot him and met him in person and touched his hand and shared his humanity with him! His stand on women uh no…….but I couldn’t miss what was wonderful about him because those things he had in spades. Maybe next time he’ll be born with a vagina and get to figure out the rest!
“it’s possible that he is just a good consistent Catholic.”
That was my first thought. After all, the Vatican has been very consistant of late, they are against abortion, the death penalty and war.
It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.
I think he’s setting up his “Culture of Life” creds.
Wouldn’t it be bizarre though, if he was the vote to end legal abortion AND end legal state killing (“the death penalty”)?
Doubt it will quite go that way, however…
Setting the pro-life foundation was my initial reaction. That was handy for him(them).
If he’s truly for the “culture of life,” then he’s one of the very few anti-abortionists who is actually LOGICAL in also opposing the death penalty….
now he needs to follow through with being pro-prenatal and -postnatal care for all impoverished mothers.
That’s about as big an IF as the one in: “Bush will be vindicated in having invaded Iraq if the US forces can find evidence of Saddam’s nuclear wepaons program before the last units withdraw in 2046.”
(btw & OT — I loved yr essay writing suggestion for boy george, but he doesn’t read that much, does he? đŸ˜‰
Associate Justices, too. Alito, Scalia, Roberts, and Thomas are all conservative or right-wing Catholics. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Pope started making noises in their direction, albeit discreet ones so far.
What may look ‘liberal,’ may be the jumping off point for him to overturn Roe. Because if you are against the death penalty, then you should be against abortion right?
Wrong.
There you go. It wasn’t a big case, it wasn;t setting precedent, it just gave him the opportunity to have a bunch of articles claiming he voted with the ‘moderates and liberals’…excuse me but what liberals? Compared to great, real liberals like say William Douglas, they’re aren;t any. There are 2-4 moderates given the issue and most are conservative. A sure conservative vote just 5 years ago, Kennedy, is now being touted as the moderate swing vote. Spare me the Alito is a surprise motif. Cough cough horse hockey.
If that was MY 15 year old daughter he raped and murdered I’d kill him myself. Then I guess I’d be anti-death penalty. Well, at least more sure about it than I am now.
Dear God,
Tomorrow please let him step out of the closet and declare that all gays must be polygamists now too cuz it says so right there in the Constitution!
this CRAP
Via Talk Left:
Berkeley law professior Liu Goodwin . . . in an LA Times op-ed:
Via Talk Left:
Berkeley law professior Liu Goodwin . . . in an LA Times op-ed:
Feingold’s take:
It’s a shame that wasn’t troubling enough to evoke a fillibuster.
I guess it’s possible to be a very strict constructionist and yet at the same time be very against the death penalty.
Maybe his Catholic tendencies are showing themselves here. If he is as to the letter of the law as we might think (and is suggested by the above commentary by Sen. Feingold), then he might also apply the same philosophy to his religion, i.e. if he is so adamantly against abortion, then he must be consistent and be against the death penalty too.
Although, I just can’t see him ruling that lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment just because he finds the death penalty morally repugnant.
So there’s only two possibilites here: 1)He’s going to help the SC once and for all decide the “cruel and unusual” question for lethal injection (presumably in favor of it not being cruel and unusual), which I think is more likely, or 2) He morally opposes the death penalty and is seeking a clever way to make lethal injection untenable. I can only believe that this would be “allowed” to happen if he’s got an equally clever argument on how to tie this “cruel and unusual” objection to abortion (i.e. that laws permitting abortion are unconstitutional because a) they deprive a “person” of life without due process and b)this deprivation should be considered cruel and unusual.) Which would make sense in light of all this “Dred Scott” talk vis-a-vis Roe v. Wade and the Repugs’ attempts to legally “define” personhood for a fetus in murder of pregnant women charges, health care, etc.
Either way, I can see him writing the opinion of the court for this case.
I am with those who say this vote means nothing. He just wants a good test case to come before the Court, one that would make it easy to vote in favor of lethal injection as not constituting cruel and unusual punishment. This would make a great case for that considering the facts of the crime.
As others have indicated his judicial record is not one to give us much hope that he truly opposes the death penalty.
(I should be horsewhipped for that one)
Actually, I think the matter is more about how much deference the SCOTUS will give to certain procedural decisions of the Circuits. Alito, having spent considerable time as a Circuit Judge is predictably sympathetic to their prerogatives. The Court merely affirmed the stay granted by the Circuit Court, this is no indication of whether (or even if) the Court (and Alito) might hear this case whichever way the Circuit decides it.
Also, deference to the Circuits by the SCOTUS, if one is inclined to read into such an obtuse policy view, would be in keeping with Alito’s declared disdain for the Constitutional powers of the SCOTUS and deference to the Legislatively created and empowered inferior Federal Courts. Yawn.
single action and based whole reports of what it meant upon the small minded rightwing leftwing spinathon, and finally they did it to someone I don’t like! And once again the wingnut freaks are “seriously put out by the actions of their new turncoat evil judge from hell”.