Saturday, April 2, 2011

Judicial cruelty

Dahlia Lithwick analyzes the recent SCOTUS decision in Connick v. Thompson and comes to this conclusion:

The law awards no extra points for being pitiless and scornful. There is rarely a reason to be pitiless and scornful, certainly in a case of an innocent man who was nearly executed. It leads one to wonder whether Thomas and Scalia sometimes are just because they can be.

Yes it does. But I suspect Scalia and Thomas were just off their game owing to the disappointment over someone in their precious capital punishment system being exonerated. They know just as well as anyone else that enough cases like this will eventually turn the public irrevocably away from execution. Is it hard to imagine that a century from now, Americans might look at decisions like this the way we today look at Dred Scott and Buck v. Bell? If I were a betting man, I know where my money would be, and it wouldn't be with Scalia and Thomas.

No comments:

Post a Comment