On television Justices Thomas and Scalia lavishly praise extremist liberal activists. For those who eviscerate the Constitution such praise is unjustified on the merits as well as contradicted by the scathing writings of Thomas and Scalia themselves. CONTINUED FROM Part II
NOTE: It is the readers choice whether to consult or disregard the links below. The main goal here is to be easily understood while providing proof for those who might think that what follows is fiction. This is written to enable easy reading without looking at the links.
III. Specific Value and Policy Judgments: Capital Punishment
Few subjects exemplify the themes discussed here better than the crusade to protect murderers and rapists.
For decades various justices have virulently and surreptitiously (43) opposed capital punishment. For example with outright contempt for the Constitutions clear language Justices Brennan and Marshall asserted that it bans capital punishment altogether. Justice Blackmun later joined them (1147) although most of the public seems to desire and the Constitution appears to permit the penalty of death." Pretending to adhere to precedent when his vote made no difference but having relied on my own experience" Justice Stevens asserted (17) the death penalty is patently… violative" of the Constitution." Justice White (joined by Stewart Blackmun and Stevens) arrogantly declared that the document empowered justices to force upon society their own judgment" regarding the acceptability" of capital punishment.
The judicial stranglehold on self-government was tightened in 2008 when Justice Kennedy (joined by Breyer Ginsburg Stevens and Souter) boasted that the Constitution gave any five justices the power to impose their independent judgment" regarding any punishments acceptability" a boast that Justice Scalia declared would have been laughed to scorn" by the Framers. Although politically unable to completely abolish the death penalty this quintet hijacked from the People the power to decree a value judgment nowhere in the written Constitution that capital punishment must be limited" by a fantasized necessity to constrain" its use.
Among the conjurers tricks" Thomas complained of (and contrary to judicial pretensions of clarity) has been what Justice Scalia called the fog of confusion" used in the campaign against the death penalty." Just as in the national security case Scalia long ago denounced other justices who cause state legislators to pull their hair" by disparaging what previously they had encouraged if not indeed coerced … administering a bait and switch" capital sentencing jurisprudence." Scalia also has criticized the hollow … assurances" of justices who purport" to make narrowly confined decisions fully realizing they have sweeping implications that will be applied in future cases (a point validated incredibly by The New York Times). Last year Scalia (joined by Thomas) berated fellow justices for insulting the readers intelligence" by claiming their radical … creation of a monstrosity" was limited" which no one really believes." Indeed Scalia has not hesitated to declare I-told-you-so."
A few examples show how bait and switch" justices gradually expanded their limited" rulings.
After declining to protect allegedly retarded murderers from execution they did. They banned the death penalty for nearly 18-year-old murderers after refusing to do so. Then they barred life-without-parole sentences for under-18 recidivists who commit depraved violence short of murder. Next they banned not just the death penalty but mandatory life-without-parole for murderers under 18. After negating capital punishment for rape of adults" they banned it for repeatedly raping little girls.
And they created an unimaginable constitutional right" to commit punishment-free murder and rape!
All this without a single word alteration in the written Constitution!
In addition to the bait-and-switch rusethe dishonesty of these justices includes their endless pretense of deciding cases based upon an alleged national consensus heedless of likely recidivism to keep alive convicted murderers and rapists while simultaneously proclaiming the existence of a consensus to be irrelevant to their own superior independent judgment" i.e. personal values.
When majority justices usurped the power of the states by granting protection to allegedly retarded rapist-murderers at the expense of victims Scalia (joined by Thomas and Rehnquist) spotlighted
what really underlies todays decision: pretension to a power confined neither by the moral sentiments originally enshrined in the Eighth Amendment (its original meaning) nor even by the current moral sentiments of the American people. … (The unexpressed reason … is presumably that really good lawyers have moral sentiments superior to those of the common herd whether in 1791 or today.) The arrogance of this assumption of power takes ones breath away. And it explains of course why the Court can be so cavalier about the evidence of consensus. It is just a game after all."
Answering five justices assertion of an irreversible" consensus to ban capital punishment for nearly-18-year old convicted murderers who abduct tie up and throw terrified women off bridges to drown while conscious Scalia (joined by Thomas and Rehnquist) charitably characterized the consensus claim as flimsy"; and accused the majority of only pretending to care about consensus because the real driving force" is these justices own judgment" that murderers younger than 18 must never be executed. (Of course in saving murderers lives these justices stripped from the law-abiding the right to decide how best to protect their own lives.) Scalia suggested that for the majority justices words have no meaning." He added that they had usurped role of moral arbiter" and asked: By what conceivable warrant can nine really five lawyers presume to be the authoritative conscience of the Nation?"
Later justices gave enhanced occupational protections to those they care about most by proscribing not just capital punishment but even life without parole for any violent non-homicide recidivist under age 18. In response to the claim that such punishment violated their independent judgment" as to what was acceptable" Thomas (joined by Scalia) declared: I am unwilling to assume that we as members of this Court are any more capable of making such moral judgments than our fellow citizens. Nothing in our training as judges qualifies us for that task and nothing … gives us that authority."
Just last year five pro-murderer justices further upped the ante by suddenly announcing that their values would not tolerate mandatory life-without-parole sentences for any murderers under age 18. (Those objecting to terming justices pro-murderer" should read this.) Thomas (joined by Scalia) again protested: nothing in the Constitution grants the Court the … even less legitimate … authority it exercises … based on nothing more than the Courts belief that its own sense of morality pre-empts that of the people and their representatives."
In this vein contemptuous of little girls and deeply devoted to the welfare of the most brutal murderers and rapists a bare majority of justices concocted an unlimited Constitutional right" undreamed of by the Framers for huge powerful men to rape little girls as brutally and as often as possible without facing the death penalty based on a purported national consensus to protect these men. Thomas and Scalia joined Justice Alitos outcry against justices who
prohibited … the death penalty for … raping a child … no matter how young … no matter how many times … no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes no matter how sadistically … no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted and no matter how heinous the perpetrators prior criminal record may be.
Later Scalia resignedly added: to tell the truth … the views of the American people … were … irrelevant to the majoritys decision…." Thats a polite way of accusing the majority of not telling the truth considered lying" by the gauche. Regarding justices solicitude for the most violent juvenile" convicted criminals Thomas (joined by Scalia) declared that the Court does not even believe its pronouncements" supported by mere window dressing that accompanies its judicial fiat." Finally last year Scalia joined Alito who declared that all consensus pretense" had been discarded."
Some justices are so protective of brutal killers that they invented rights" which most Americans would consider unthinkable for foreign terrorists on foreign soil. Scalia (joined by Thomas Alito and Roberts) protested that this will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." Earlier Scalia (joined by Thomas and Rehnquist) denounced his colleagues judicial adventurism of the worst sort" in creating a monstrous scheme in time of war … in frustration of our military commanders reliance upon clearly stated prior law."
Torturing Victims to Protect Premeditated Rapist-Murderers
Shortly before expressing high praise for fellow justices Scalia (joined by Thomas) objected to their resort to lawlessness" and license" in order to effectively reduce death sentences giving defendants many more years to live beyond the lives of the innocent victims whose lives they snuffed out." Earlier five justices employed an utter absurdity to save Marcus Wellons who did not dispute" committing rape-murder in 1989. Scalia (joined by Thomas) noted that Wellons has already outlived his 15-year-old victim by 20 years." (And thats on top of the 34 years of life he had before the rape-murder!)
Thus after they commit murder barbarians are often kept alive for periods longer than their victims even had a chance to live. To achieve this as noted fanatic justices have no qualms about torturing victimized loved ones to protect torturers.
Anyone finding this language too harsh should consider Mark Moseley. He was a star National Football League kicker for sixteen years a pro-bowler a most valuable player and a record holder. That did not spare him. If justices can torture a man of such prominence is any ordinary person safe from their predations?
In 1979 at the height of his fame Moseleys sister Pamela Moseley Carpenter was brutally selected stalked raped beaten and murdered by a recidivist parolee repeat rapist Johnny Paul Penry whose life was saved by multiple justices. To do so they subjected the Moseley family to 28 years of agony including three trials three death sentences endless appeals and two Supreme Court reversals by pro-murderer justices.
Following a Supreme Court execution stay 21 years after the rape/murder Moseley bitterly expressed how angry" he was at the system letting us down" adding: this is killing my mom and dad." After another seven years of torture the Moseleys and prosecutors surrendered agreeing to keep alive this brutal barbarian sentenced to death by not one not two but three juries who had considered the evidence.
Key facts must be emphasized.
- Penrys guilt was never in doubt.
- Outside the world of pro-murderer fanaticism there can be no question that interminable delays to spare the lives of the clearly guilty cause severe additional agony for victimized surviving loved ones in effect cruelly punishing them for the crime" of already having been traumatized by an unspeakably savage loss. They have been needlessly and repeatedly compelled to relive the barbarity and to fear that the barbarian will be released or escape to commit new barbarity. Shockingly it is far from unusual for cases to drag on for twenty thirty and even forty years.
- Unlawful torture as defined by federal statute includes the intentional infliction of severe…mental pain or suffering." The Supreme Court itself has declared that a punishment is barred by the Eighth Amendment even when there is no physical mistreatment no primitive torture if it subjects the individual to … ever-increasing fear and distress." While it cannot be said that the primary objective of the pro-criminal justices is to torture victims they surely have shown a depraved indifference" to the victim agony they cause. Indeed some have openly expressed lack of concern amounting to disdain for suffering victims.
- Pro-murderer and virulently anti-victim justices understand the mental cruelty of inflicting inhumane delay." However their resulting concern astonishingly is to reward the brutal murderers who themselves most successfully resort to all ploys to seek endless delay.
- Penrys retardation claim was given credence despite uncontested evidence that he was a repeat paroled rapist who had made a premeditated well-reasoned intentional decision to (1) rape Carpenter and (2) murder her to avoid being squealed on" and sent back to the pen." Penry clearly and fully understood his brutal crime and how to try to avoid being caught. Yet justices contemptuous of victims spent years professing to take seriously the claim that Penry was mentally retarded." If getting it right" means using any deceptive pretext to impose unpopular judicial values perhaps retardation" usage applies. But if getting it right" means applying clearly understood language then the retardation" claim is grossly disingenuous illustrative of the shams resorted to by honest" anti-death penalty justices.
- Mark Moselys fame was unique. Not unique at all tragically is the last 40 years ruthless torture of victims loved ones by callous self-righteous justices devoted to murderers.
Torturing victimized survivors by needlessly but deliberately stretching out cases for multiple decades is not the only cruelty inflicted by Justices devoted above all else to the welfare of barbaric rapists and murderers. Even worse than torturing survivors of barbarity already committed these justices have invented a so-called constitutional" right for the most depraved violent criminals to murder and torture new victims free from the fear of being punished at all thus virtually guaranteeing preventable violent crimes.
Although the most fanatically pro-criminal justices and their acolytes would certainly disagree few crime victims are likely to dissent from the view that one of the great unreported and largely unknown scandals of what is called the justice" system is the brutal torture of violent-crime victims by the very recipients of lavish public praise as good" and honest" by Justices Thomas and Scalia.
Significantly the victims are tortured by justices hypocritically claiming to act in the name of compassion" and mercy" for convicted murderers of course!
Shameless judicial hypocrisy deserves separate treatment in Part IV.
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Lester Jackson Ph.D. a former college political science teacher views mainstream media truth suppression as essential to harmful judicial activism. His recent articles are collected here.
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Copyright ©: 2013 Lester Jackson Ph.D.