JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA’S OPINION, ONCE AGAIN HOLDS NO WATER



 

…The conservative and activist Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia

 

It’s classic that Judge Scalia had wanted to execute an accused rapist that was recently exonerated due to new DNA evidence.

 

I have always been against the death penalty.  I guess I have always felt that hard labor with no possibility for parole was much more punishment , than to relieve them through their death of any responsibility for their heinous acts.  In addition, with so many individuals being released today due to new DNA evidence, the fact that they had a so called, “fair trial”, just proves that mistakes about being found guilty are still being made. 

 

If you add that to the fact that today, you can now sit on death row for decades before you are finally given your lethal injection, that cost to the tax payers for housing that prisoner is over $60k per year for all those years.  That in itself is a good enough reason to not have a death penalty.

Another issue is that prior to some peoples belief, people that are not guilty of a crime, do sometime plead guilty.  In fact, according to a recent University of Virginia report, nearly 20% of defendants who have been exonerated by DNA evidence had all falsely confessed to their crimes.  Sometimes, this is due to hours of police grilling and overall mental fatigue.  Or in some recent cases, where the accused were eventually exonerated, the accused individuals had IQ levels below 70, and they had been badgered into a position of pleading guilty.

The reason for this particular article on the death penalty is that in a North Carolina, there was a case where two men served 30 years, but were recently exonerated, for a murder that they didn’t commit.  Yes, this is another case where new DNA evidence showed that another man, that went on to destroy the lives of other innocent people, was the real guilty individual.  For 30 years, the 11 year old girl that was left in a field after being raped and suffocated, she did not get her appropriate justice. 

This was the exact case I was referring to, as both of these innocent men, who both have IQ’s below 70, had falsely confessed to the crime after many hours of being locked in a room under pressing questioning.

The additional issue that made me write this article, was about how the current conservative Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, who does believe in the death penalty, became so involved with this case.

Back in 1994, Justice Harry A. Blackmun, an opponent of the death penalty, had voted to hear the case referenced above.  However, unfazed by Justice Blackmun's concerns, Justice Scalia proceeded to accuse Justice Blackmun of attempting to “thrust a minority’s views upon the people.”  Scalia had strongly maintained that society needed the death penalty as an appropriate punishment for the most heinous of crimes.  But Justice Blackmun had noted that Mr. McCollum had the mental age of a 9-year-old and Blackmum had stated that “this factor alone persuades me that the death penalty in this case is unconstitutional.” 

 

…The house where Supreme Court Justices reside

As evidence for his opinion, Scalia then wrote about two cases that were currently before the Supreme Court, which he believed made death by lethal injection look, from his point-of-view, “enviable.”  One of those two cases concerned the brutal rape and murder of an 11-year-old Sabrina Buie, of Red Springs, North Carolina.  That case, one that Justice Scalia found to be the most deserving of the death penalty,  that is the murder for which the two men I mentioned were recently exonerated of their guilt.  

One of the exonerated men was Henry McCollum.  He was 20 years old when he was sentenced to death for committing the heinous crime Scalia had described. Today, Mr. McCollum is out of prison a free man.  As with most of those who are exonerated, Mr. McCollum is now looking forward instead of backward.  

But whether or not these two men may or may not forgive and/or forget, that does not mean that we should ignore the fact, contrary to the opinion of Justice Scalia, that neither of these men deserved a day in prison, much less execution.

It isn't often that a Supreme Court Justice is shown just how utterly wrong his opinions are, and Justice Scalia has a real track record of being wrong, more than being right. Fortunately, this time, these two men have overcome a system designed to convict and kill the accused, but it has proven once again just how fallible our highest court, and therefore its justices, can be.

But knowing how Justice Scalia usually reacts, this will probably make no difference in his attitude about his poor opinions, or about the death penalty.

Copyright G.Ater  2014