Puppies, The Supreme Court, And Aristotle

S.E. CUPP: Obama’s Wacky Supreme Court Vision

What is “empathy,” exactly? Heinz Kohut, an Austrian-born psychoanalyst, said, “Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.” Does our legal system really hinge on our judges’ ability to think and feel themselves into the inner life of plaintiffs and defendants? Sounds more like a job for Oprah or the dog whisperer.

The word “empathy,” according to its Greek derivation, means “physical affection, passion, and partiality.” I thought Aristotle said the law is reason free from passion? And, if justice is blind, I’m fairly certain she’s also impartial.

But more importantly who is on the receiving end of it by Obama’s definition?

How do we administer an empathy test? Will the Judiciary Committee present potential appointees with a hypothetical empathy stress test? “Box of Puppies: Good or Bad?”

Puppies? Good. Empathetic judges? Bad.

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WE Are The Well Regulated Militia

Supreme Court Says Americans Have Right To Guns

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense in their homes, the justices' first major pronouncement on gun rights in U.S. history.

The court's 5-4 ruling struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns as incompatible with gun rights under the Second Amendment. The decision went further than even the Bush administration wanted, but probably leaves most firearms restrictions intact.

The court had not conclusively interpreted the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791. The amendment reads: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The basic issue for the justices was whether the amendment protects an individual's right to own guns no matter what, or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that an individual right to bear arms is supported by "the historical narrative" both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted.

The Constitution does not permit "the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home," Scalia said. The court also struck down Washington's requirement that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled, but left intact the licensing of guns.

Praise be! Justice Kennedy was (finally) on the correct side of a ruling this term. We're safe again until Monday, October 6, 2008. Favorite parts: Scalia noted that the handgun is Americans' preferred weapon of self-defense in part because "it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police." and ...whatever remains for “future evaluation” about the strength of the right, “it surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.”

You can find the PDF of the opinion at SCOTUSblog: What Congress did in drafting the Amendment, the Court said, was “to codify a pre-existing right, rather than to fashion a new one.”

Gabriel (apparently my new "go to guy" for legalish stuff) has more: The ruling: the Second Amendment protects an individual right to have firearms. The prefatory clause, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,”merely announces the amendment’s purpose, but does not affect the operative clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

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Even Obama Didn't Like The Ruling In Kennedy v. Louisiana

Obama Disagrees With High Court On Child Rape Case

I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes," Obama said at a news conference. "I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution. [...]

He has long supported the death penalty while criticizing the way it is sometimes applied.

As an Illinois legislator, he helped rewrite the state's death penalty system to guard against innocent people being sentenced to die. The new safeguards included requiring police to videotape interrogations and giving the state Supreme Court more power to overturn unjust decisions.

He also opposed legislation making it easier to impose the death penalty for murders committed as part of gang activity. Obama argued the language was too vague and could be abused by authorities.

But Obama has never rejected the death penalty entirely. He supported death sentences for killing volunteers in community policing programs and for particularly cruel murders of elderly people.

"While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes—mass murder, the rape and murder of a child—so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment," he wrote in his book "The Audacity of Hope."

Yeah, yeah, it's an election year. But it seems that Obama is being consistent with his views, not that his SCOTUS appointees would necessarily overturn this bad piece of law.

What the hell is wrong with Kennedy? I thought he was a "swing vote" not a "ding bat" - or have I just not payed close enough attention to him in the past? Gabriel has some thoughts on the ruling.

And just so it doesn't get lost in the brouhaha, Michelle Malkin reminds us exactly what sort of crime was committed. !!!Warning!!! - the details are graphic.

ht: Powerline

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Justice Kennedy's Got Your Nose!

At least that's what it feels like, says Ann Coulter:

Until last week, the law had been that there were some places in the world where American courts had no jurisdiction. For example, U.S. courts had no jurisdiction over non-citizens who have never set foot in the United States. [...]

If Justice Kennedy can review the procedures for detaining enemy combatants trying to kill Americans in the middle of a war, no place is safe. It's only a matter of time before the Supreme Court steps in to overrule Randy, Paula and Simon. [...]

As one law professor said to me, this is what happens when the swing justice is the dumb justice. [...]

The logical result of Boumediene is for the U.S. military to exert itself a little less trying to take enemy combatants alive. The military also might consider not sending the little darlings to the Guantanamo Spa and Resort.

The lady makes a good point. If we simply must take the bastards alive - which has always been an unappealing option in my book - let's send them someplace Justice Kenburgstevouter definitely has no authority. I hear the prisons in Thailand are lovely this time of year.

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Welcome To Ft. Leavenworth Khalid Sheik Muhammad. You'll Be Staying In One Of Our Geneva Convention Suites. Would Like The Turn Down Service?

John McCain must have loved today's Supreme Court ruling; Supreme Court Holds Enemy Detainees Can Petition Civilian Courts for Release:

Terrorist suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have the right to petition US civilian courts to release them, the Supreme Court held in the Boumediene v. Bush opinion released earlier this morning.

In a 5-4 decision that could derail the trials of admitted terrorists including 9-11 planner Khalid Sheik Muhammad, the high court ruled unconstitutional part of the 2006 Military Commissions Act which barred terrorist prisoners from asserting the right to habeas corpus writs in US courts.

The majority opinion was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in which Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter and Stevens concurred. Chief Justice Roberts, along with Justices Scalia, Alito and Thomas dissented.

In the summary of the opinion released by the court says directly that, “Petitioners have the Constitutional privilege of habeas corpus. They are not barred from seeking the writ or invoking the Suspension Clause’s protections because they have been designated as enemy combatants or because of their presence at Guantanamo.’

This ruling may result in the release of some Guantanamo inmates and the transfer of others’ trials into the civilian criminal justice system.

Something John McCain is all in favor of. Just imagine all the enemy combatants making a mockery of our judicial system while luxuriating in the new Geneva Convention Suites at Fort Leavenworth. Which is what will happen under President McCain. For all of you who think John McCain is going to appoint conservatives to the court, justices who might damage his precious McCain-Feingold or have a realistic understanding of the war we are fighting, don't fool yourselves about The McCain Court:

But will the Arizonan make good and usher in a conservative majority on the Court? Unlikely. Republicans hoping to rally their dispirited base in 2008 can find little evidence that John McCain is interested in effecting a judicial counter-revolution. [...]

Given the chance to join conservatives in disarming Democratic opposition to conservative judges, McCain compromised. Lacking incentives to appoint strict constructionists, his attitude toward judicial conservatives runs between indifference and hostility. And while McCain dutifully praises Roberts and Alito in public, he sometimes questions their rulings—particularly when they threaten to overturn his legislative legacy. [...]

Rather than contending with the constitutional question, McCain joined Democrat Ben Nelson to form the Gang of 14. The seven participating Democrats agreed that for the duration of the 109th Congress they would no longer vote with their party to filibuster judicial nominees except in “extraordinary circumstances”; in turn the seven Republicans would refuse to vote with then Majority Leader Bill Frist on the “nuclear option.” For hardcore conservatives, the Gang of 14, though expedient to confirm Roberts and Alito, placed principle second to bipartisan accommodation. Even today, McCain admits that his deal with Democrats ensured that several of Bush’s appointments to federal appeals courts were permanently sidelined. [...]

McCain would be the first president in the modern era to come into office with major legislative accomplishments at the federal level. As conservative legal blogger Illya Somin wrote at “The Volokh Conspiracy”, “a President McCain would face a difficult tradeoff between the goal of appointing conservative jurists and the goal of saving the McCain-Feingold law from invalidation by the Court.”

Protecting a senator’s legacy is rarely the assigned duty of a Supreme Court justice, but it isn’t unprecedented. Franklin Roosevelt, notorious for his conflicts with the High Court, appointed Hugo Black, a Democratic senator from Alabama and key ally on New Deal legislation. Black went on to reverse the Court’s trend of overruling the battery of programs he and FDR championed.

While McCain heaps praise on Roberts and Alito on the campaign trail, he surely realizes these two justices are doing more than any others to erase his proudest legislative achievement, campaign finance reform.

The article goes on to say that McCain may be more interested in his legacy as President than as Senator, and that will cause him to keep his promise about appointing conservative justices. However, given his past record of stabbing conservatives in the back, I don't believe it for a second. Trust him and you'll end up "Gang-o-14-Banged" by the Maverick and his Senatorial disciples.

UPDATE: A little tidbit from the drooling-ruling by the SCOTUS today:

We hold that Art. I, §9, cl. 2, of the Constitution has full effect at Guantanamo Bay.

Here's what that part of the Constitution says:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Surely "Justice" Kennedy read past the comma, right? Right?

UPDATE II: Gabriel has a good post on the ruling. He's all lawyerly and stuff and explains why they're wrong. I just think they're dumbf--ks.

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Supreme Court Gets It Right Again

Supreme Court Says States Can Demand Photo ID For Voting

States can require voters to produce photo identification, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, upholding a Republican-inspired law that Democrats say will keep some poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. [...]

Indiana has a "valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" said Justice John Paul Stevens in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Stevens said that Indiana's desire to prevent fraud and to inspire voter confidence in the election system are important even though there have been no reports of the kind of fraud the law was designed to combat. Evidence of voters being inconvenienced by the law's requirements also is scant. For the overwhelming majority of voters, an Indiana driver's license serves as the identification.

The law does not apply to absentee balloting, where election experts agree the threat of fraud is higher.

The Indiana law was passed in 2005. Democrats and civil rights groups opposed it as unconstitutional and called it a thinly veiled effort to discourage groups of voters who tend to prefer Democrats.

It was in effect during the 2006 elections when Democrats picked up three congressional seats in Indiana and won control of the state House of Representatives.

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed with the outcome Monday, but wrote separately in favor of a broader defense of voter ID laws.

"The universally applicable requirements of Indiana's voter-identification law are eminently reasonable. The burden of acquiring, possessing and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe, because it does not 'even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting,'" Scalia said.

If Justice Stevens - arguably the most liberal member of the Supreme Court - votes to uphold it, along with Scalia and Thomas, then it's safe to say it passes muster. Of course the regular dimwitted empty robes are against it. You know who they are, Ginsberg, Souter, and Breyer.

Indiana's voter ID law "threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of the state's citizens," Souter said.

The targets of the law, he said, are "voters who are poor and old."

I'm sorry, but if it's too much trouble to drag your ass down to the local gubmint' office (where you would gladly appear at the speed of light if your tax rebate check were waiting for you) to get a free (YES FREE!) I.D. card in order to exercise the right you claim to cherish so much, then I really don't want you voting anyway.

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