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The current US president, who anyone that isn't raised on a diet of right-wing talk radio would consider a moderate Democrat (not from the left or progressive w

The current US president, who anyone that isn't raised on a diet of right-wing talk radio would consider a moderate Democrat (not from the left or progressive wing of the party at all), locked up lots of people in the 1990s, a period where there was general social and political appetite for widespread incarceration. At approximately the same time, a few years earlier, the last president you mention (then a private citizen) was using his money to take out ads in the newspaper calling for the execution of proven innocent black men. Later, after being elected president, that president (who most would consider pretty politically incoherent on traditional ideological divides, and animated almost entirely on the single issue of defending the American ethnic against "others" without and within, and who spent most of his presidency calling for the broader use of violence against perceived criminals, oversaw a record return to federal capital punishment, expanded the use of paramilitary law enforcement, and directly assumed control of law enforcement using loopholes in the executive branch's authority to do so) signed a bipartisan crime reform bill he had nothing to do with at the urging of a reality tv star who is pretending to become a lawyer and who was briefly married to a mentally ill rapper who for some reason endorsed the president. If we're looking to ascribe an ideological dimension to crime politics in the US, it would be easy: during the entire modern party system, Republicans have consistently been to the right of Democrats on crime (even in periods where Democrats have been, in a global sense, to the right of the median). The bulk of major crime bills have been nearly unanimous consent, including both the 1994 Crime bill and the First Step Act, but the contents of those bills have compromises where the right seeks "tougher" provisions and the left seeks more conciliatory provisions. Court politics has been even more obviously partisan. Of the current Supreme Court justices, Thomas and Alito favour obviously expanding the use of capital punishment and view most litigation related to it a liberal plot to undermine the justice system; Breyer and Sotomayor have signalled they believe the constitution more or less mandates abolition. It's a clear as day divide. Most other criminal justice issues have the same dimensions in the courts, and even lower in the circuit courts as well.

corin_ 5y ago
> Thomas and Alito favour obviously expanding the use of capital punishment and view most litigation related to it a liberal plot to undermine the justice system Have they talked/written about it being a "liberal plot" or is that just a (quite possibly entirely accurate) description of a belief that would explain their actions without their having come out and said that? I'd be interested to learn more if you have any suggested reading on the current members of the SC (not an area I know a huge amount about).
- 542354234235 5y ago
  The words “liberal plot” have not been written or said, as far as I know. However, Justices Thomas and Alito, more so Alito, have consistently ruled against stays of executions, have upheld shorter windows from sentencing to execution, do not find mitigating factors, racial and other biasing, ineffective counsel, or court errors to warrant execution stays. Most relevantly, they have classified many (if not most) execution stay requests as “dilatory litigation” meant to delay without merit, despite other Justices finding merit and, in some cases, granting or upholding the stay, and have given opinions that petitions on the grounds of overly painful execution methods being cruel and unusual as “guerilla war” against capital punishment. I would say it is reasonable to infer that they see “most litigation” as a tactic or “plot” and not legitimate legal concerns. See below for some excerpts, and read [4] and [5] for brief summaries of their crime related opinions. > “Those who oppose the death penalty are free to try to persuade legislatures to abolish the death penalty. Some of those efforts have been successful. They’re free to ask this court to overrule the death penalty. But until that occurs, is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito [1] [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alito-death-penalty-guerrilla-war_n_7175718 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alito-death-penalty-guerrilla... > During his 15-year career on the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, Alito participated in 10 capital cases. Five were decided unanimously by three-judge panels and involved fairly straightforward issues. The other five provoked strong differences of opinion between Alito and his colleagues. In every one of the five contested cases, Alito voted against the inmate and issued an opinion. Individually and especially as a whole, these opinions show a troubling tendency to tolerate serious errors in capital proceedings. > Although O’Connor’s approach to capital punishment has been solidly conservative, she has at times supplied a crucial vote in contentious cases in favor of greater care and fairness in the application of the death penalty. Yet it is precisely in the most contentious cases that Alito has shown an unbroken pattern of excusing errors in capital proceedings and eroding norms of basic fairness. [2] [2] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-nov-27-oe-liu27-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-nov-27-oe-liu27... > In Murphy’s case, Justice Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, accused defense lawyers of “inexcusably dilatory litigation tactics” and complained that “the great majority” of applications for stays of execution “are almost all filed on or shortly before the scheduled execution date … [with] no good reason for the late filing.” Staying Murphy’s execution, Alito wrote, “countenance[es] the dilatory litigation [and], I fear, will encourage this damaging practice.” While acknowledging that “[t]he claims raised by Murphy and Ray are important and may ultimately be held to have merit,” Alito said that “[p]risoners should bring such claims well before their scheduled executions so that the courts can adjudicate them in the way that the claims require and deserve and so that States are afforded sufficient time to make any necessary modifications to their execution protocols.” [3] [3] https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/death-penalty-opinions-expose-deep-divisions-on-u-s-supreme-court https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/death-penalty-opinions-exp... [4] https://www.ontheissues.org/Court/Samuel_Alito_Crime.htm https://www.ontheissues.org/Court/Samuel_Alito_Crime.htm [5] https://www.ontheissues.org/Court/Clarence_Thomas_Crime.htm https://www.ontheissues.org/Court/Clarence_Thomas_Crime.htm

corin_ 5y ago

> Thomas and Alito favour obviously expanding the use of capital punishment and view most litigation related to it a liberal plot to undermine the justice system Have they talked/written about it being a "liberal plot" or is that just a (quite possibly entirely accurate) description of a belief that would explain their actions without their having come out and said that? I'd be interested to learn more if you have any suggested reading on the current members of the SC (not an area I know a huge amount about).

542354234235 5y ago
The words “liberal plot” have not been written or said, as far as I know. However, Justices Thomas and Alito, more so Alito, have consistently ruled against stays of executions, have upheld shorter windows from sentencing to execution, do not find mitigating factors, racial and other biasing, ineffective counsel, or court errors to warrant execution stays. Most relevantly, they have classified many (if not most) execution stay requests as “dilatory litigation” meant to delay without merit, despite other Justices finding merit and, in some cases, granting or upholding the stay, and have given opinions that petitions on the grounds of overly painful execution methods being cruel and unusual as “guerilla war” against capital punishment. I would say it is reasonable to infer that they see “most litigation” as a tactic or “plot” and not legitimate legal concerns. See below for some excerpts, and read [4] and [5] for brief summaries of their crime related opinions. > “Those who oppose the death penalty are free to try to persuade legislatures to abolish the death penalty. Some of those efforts have been successful. They’re free to ask this court to overrule the death penalty. But until that occurs, is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito [1] [1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alito-death-penalty-guerrilla-war_n_7175718 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alito-death-penalty-guerrilla... > During his 15-year career on the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, Alito participated in 10 capital cases. Five were decided unanimously by three-judge panels and involved fairly straightforward issues. The other five provoked strong differences of opinion between Alito and his colleagues. In every one of the five contested cases, Alito voted against the inmate and issued an opinion. Individually and especially as a whole, these opinions show a troubling tendency to tolerate serious errors in capital proceedings. > Although O’Connor’s approach to capital punishment has been solidly conservative, she has at times supplied a crucial vote in contentious cases in favor of greater care and fairness in the application of the death penalty. Yet it is precisely in the most contentious cases that Alito has shown an unbroken pattern of excusing errors in capital proceedings and eroding norms of basic fairness. [2] [2] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-nov-27-oe-liu27-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-nov-27-oe-liu27... > In Murphy’s case, Justice Alito, joined by Thomas and Gorsuch, accused defense lawyers of “inexcusably dilatory litigation tactics” and complained that “the great majority” of applications for stays of execution “are almost all filed on or shortly before the scheduled execution date … [with] no good reason for the late filing.” Staying Murphy’s execution, Alito wrote, “countenance[es] the dilatory litigation [and], I fear, will encourage this damaging practice.” While acknowledging that “[t]he claims raised by Murphy and Ray are important and may ultimately be held to have merit,” Alito said that “[p]risoners should bring such claims well before their scheduled executions so that the courts can adjudicate them in the way that the claims require and deserve and so that States are afforded sufficient time to make any necessary modifications to their execution protocols.” [3] [3] https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/death-penalty-opinions-expose-deep-divisions-on-u-s-supreme-court https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/death-penalty-opinions-exp... [4] https://www.ontheissues.org/Court/Samuel_Alito_Crime.htm https://www.ontheissues.org/Court/Samuel_Alito_Crime.htm [5] https://www.ontheissues.org/Court/Clarence_Thomas_Crime.htm https://www.ontheissues.org/Court/Clarence_Thomas_Crime.htm