NPR: Blogger Finds Flaw in SCOTUS Facts

Blogger Finds Flaw in SCOTUS Facts

Filed under: News

A major Supreme Court ruling last week on the death penalty was based, in part, on a factual error.

The New York Times reports this morning that the decision, barring execution for people who rape children, drew on a belief that the convicted would now face capital punishment in only six states and not under the federal government. The Times writes:

This inventory of jurisdictions was a central part of the court's analysis, the foundation for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's conclusion in his majority opinion that capital punishment for child rape was contrary to the "evolving standards of decency" by which the court judges how the death penalty is applied.

But as the folks over at CAAFLOG soon pointed out, Congress added child rape to the list of capital offenses in the Uniform Code of Military Justice back in 2006. So now what? The losing side has 25 days to ask the court to look again at the June 25 ruling.

Laura Conaway

1:00 PM ET | 07- 2-2008 | permalink

Comments

As a consistent pro-lifer, I am normatively opposed to capital punishment. I think that civilized society should not murder the innocent, the pre-born, or, in most cases, the guilty, the child rapist.

However, I also believe that the decision to abolish capital punishment is best done at the state level through the legislative process rather than forced upon society by a divided court. Therefore, I'd welcome a review of this case and possibly have the ruling overturned.

In this manner, the good people of Louisiana can decide if they want to have monsters like pedophiles turned into media martyrs through the long, drawn-out appeals process, forcing the victim and the victim's family to push past courtroom cameras and culminating in the perfunctory candlelight vigil outside the death chamber, or if they would rather have such wastes of humanity wile away in the prison's GP marked with the sign of Cain stamped on them by prison justice. I know where I stand on that issue; having a pedophile get life as a pyriah in prison is a fate much worse than capital punishment, a fate in which only the perpetrator can blame himself and not society as a whole.

Sent by Matthew C. Scallon | 2:17 PM ET | 07-02-2008

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