No Comments! Be The First!
Conservative legislation from the bench?
Posted By katie allison granju
Silence isn’t Golden says conservative justices are engaging in the same kind of judicial activism they frequently claim to abhor in considering the fate of lethal injections as a method of execution:
Justice David Souter urged his colleagues to take the time necessary to issue a definitive decision about the three-drug method in this case, even if it means sending the case back to Kentucky for more study by courts there.Scalia, however, said such a move would mean “a national cessation of executions. We’re looking at years. We wouldn’t want that to happen.”
In other words, even as other justices want more information about the method of executions in order to fully determine whether or not it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, Scalia wants it to go ahead so that the implementation of the death penalty will not be hindered. Justice Scalia, if you don’t think that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, then say so, that’s what the case is asking!
If this isn’t a clear-cut case of attempting to legislate from the bench, I don’t know what is. What say you, conservatives who like to whine about “liberal activist judges”?
Jan 8th, 2008
