http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060202/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_death_penalty


Alito Splits With Conservatives on Inmate
By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON - New Supreme Court Justice    Samuel Alito split with the court's conservatives Wednesday night, refusing to let Missouri execute a death-row inmate contesting lethal injection.

Alito, handling his first case, sided with inmate Michael Taylor, who had won a stay from an appeals court earlier in the evening. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices    Antonin Scalia and    Clarence Thomas supported lifting the stay, but Alito joined the remaining five members in turning down Missouri's last-minute request to allow a midnight execution.

Earlier in the day, Alito was sworn in for a second time in a White House ceremony, where he was lauded by    President Bush as a man of "steady demeanor, careful judgment and complete integrity."

He was also was given his assignment for handling emergency appeals: Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. As a result, Missouri filed with Alito its request for the high court to void a stay and allow Taylor's execution.

The court's split vote Wednesday night ended a frenzied day of filings. Missouri twice asked the justices to intervene and permit the execution, while Taylor's lawyers filed two more appeals seeking delays.

Reporters and witnesses had gathered at the state prison awaiting word from the high court on whether to go ahead with the execution.

An appeals court will now review Taylor's claim that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment, a claim also used by two Florida death-row inmates that won stays from the Supreme Court over the past week. The court has agreed to use one of the cases to clarify how inmates may bring last-minute challenges to the way they will be put to death.

Alito replaced    Sandra Day O'Connor, who had often been the swing vote in capital punishment cases. He was expected to side with prosecutors more often than O'Connor, although as an appeals court judge, his record in death penalty cases was mixed.

Scalia and Thomas have consistently sided with states in death penalty cases and have been especially critical of long delays in carrying out executions.

Taylor was convicted of killing 15-year-old Ann Harrison, who was waiting for a school bus when he and an accomplice kidnapped her in 1989. Taylor pleaded guilty and said he was high on crack cocaine at the time.

Taylor's legal team had pursued two challenges

Not a big deal at all.  Alito has always waffled on the death penalty.  He voted to uphold a stay that will soon expire and I'm willing to bet the house that Alito lets the execution go through.

Anyone thinking a federalist society member with a 15 year long conservative paper trail is going to be another Souter is either extremely paranoid or delusional.

Not a big deal at all.  Alito has always waffled on the death penalty.  He voted to uphold a stay that will soon expire and I'm willing to bet the house that Alito lets the execution go through.

Anyone thinking a federalist society member with a 15 year long conservative paper trail is going to be another Souter is either extremely paranoid or delusional.


Which is exactly the reason he should have never been appointed in the first place.  Someone with strong political views has no place on the highest court of the country.

Which is exactly the reason he should have never been appointed in the first place.  Someone with strong political views has no place on the highest court of the country.


Exactly.

Besides, is the Left really against the death penalty? I'm Left and not a huge fan of it, but it seems to me the Left's stance against it arises primarily from it's unfairness to minorities and the chance of executing someone who's not guilty, not to the pratice itsefl.

Which is exactly the reason he should have never been appointed in the first place.  Someone with strong political views has no place on the highest court of the country.

No, no--someone with strong political views in favor of human rights, personal privacy, civil liberties, or restitution from the powerful to the wronged, has no place on the highest court in the country. 
Corporate fascists and religious right-wing crazies are all fine and dandy!
::)

No, no--someone with strong political views in favor of human rights, personal privacy, civil liberties, or restitution from the powerful to the wronged, has no place on the highest court in the country. 
Corporate fascists and religious right-wing crazies are all fine and dandy!
::)


Is this like Kennedy pretending that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a moderate while Rehnquist, when alive, was some far right nut?

yeah... pretending...

No, no--someone with strong political views in favor of human rights, personal privacy, civil liberties, or restitution from the powerful to the wronged, has no place on the highest court in the country. 
Corporate fascists and religious right-wing crazies are all fine and dandy!
::)


I believe the job description calls for somebody who will "Support and defend the constitution of the United States".  A member of the SCOTUS must hold that obligation well above any other viewpoint that he or she has.

Who wants a SCOTUS member who does not have strong political views (liberal or conservative for that matter)?  Show me a justice who does not have strong political views (in either direction) and I will show you someone with a lazy mind.

In the end it is how the CONSTITUTION IS ENFORCED that counts.

yeah... pretending...


Off the top of my head I can think of at least one split supreme court decison where Rehnquist broke with Scalia and Thomas, and that was the 7-2 Lawrence vs. Texas decision.

Can you think of any split decisions where Ginsburg sided with the conservative wing of the court?  Any?

Fact is, Ginsburg is the resident left wing nut on the court.  As much as I dislike Breyer, he is at least a sane liberal.

Off the top of my head I can think of at least one split supreme court decison where Rehnquist broke with Scalia and Thomas, and that was the 7-2 Lawrence vs. Texas decision.

Can you think of any split decisions where Ginsburg sided with the conservative wing of the court?  Any?

Fact is, Ginsburg is the resident left wing nut on the court.  As much as I dislike Breyer, he is at least a sane liberal.


also before he was Chief Justice Rehnquist didnt side with the conservative side all the time. 

and Im trying to remember which side Rehnquist was on for the major flag burning case in the late 80s (Johnson v Texas I beleive).  I know Scalia sided with the liberals saying that flag burning is legal...I think Rehnquist did as well.  As did O'connor.  And of all of them I think it was the liberal Stevens that sided with the conservative side.

I think...my memories slightly fuzzy....someone double check me. 

[quote author=�y

The legislative branch shall tear down the New Deal, the judicial branch shall tear down Civil Rights!


Didn't the judicial branch strike down a good portion of the new deal?  Seems I remember hearing about that, that was when FDR decided to attempt to pack the supreme court and was shot down by his own party, which had something like 70 of 90-something senate seats.

Didn't the judicial branch strike down a good portion of the new deal?  Seems I remember hearing about that, that was when FDR decided to attempt to pack the supreme court and was shot down by his own party, which had something like 70 of 90-something senate seats.

Yup, you're right there.  FDR also tried to "pack" the Supreme Court with his boys, but it didn't work.  There a couple of myths about the Nude Eel I wish to point out, but not expand upon, 'cuz I'm too darn tired:

1.  The New Deal was a welfare state.  No, the New Deal projects were work-for-pay.  You had to show up and pick that roadbed or type those memos, or whatever you were doing.
2.  The New Deal was anti-capitalist and unfavorable to big business.  This is the one I'm a bit too hazy for at the moment...

Yup, you're right there.  FDR also tried to "pack" the Supreme Court with his boys, but it didn't work.


It was packing.  FDR, sick of the conservative supreme court striking down parts of his new deal, suddenly decided that nine members on the supreme court just wasn't enough.  Under the constitution, congress gets to decided how many members the supreme court will have.  So FDR tried to get congress to raise the number of supreme court seats from nine to 15.  Who do you think would get to pick those six new justices?

It was packing.  FDR, sick of the conservative supreme court striking down parts of his new deal, suddenly decided that nine members on the supreme court just wasn't enough.  Under the constitution, congress gets to decided how many members the supreme court will have.  So FDR tried to get congress to raise the number of supreme court seats from nine to 15.  Who do you think would get to pick those six new justices?

I know, but it didn't work, I don't agree with what FDR tried to do, and anyway, it was seventy years ago so the issue is kind of a non-starter!
::)

I have no problem with a Justice having strong political views, either Liberal or Conservative.

I simply have a problem if they let those views interfere with making a fair and impartial judgement.  A good Justice (at any court level) should put such things out of their mind, and simply judge a case on it's merits, based on the law, and in keeping with the Constitution.

Some of the best Justices have been the ones that have made a judgement that is opposite of their political beliefs.  And even if I disagree with them, I at least feel comfortable if they give a solid reason, not simply say "Because this is right/wrong".