Legal Analysis
So a few hours after joining the Supreme Court, Alito broke with the terrifying triumvirate of Thomas, Scalia, and Roberts. Surprise!
Intriguingly (since the percentage of Catholics on the Supreme Court is exactly twice the percentage of the U.S. population that is Catholic), he broke with them over the issue of capital punishment. As you know, the Swill very strongly believes that the death penalty is a powerful symbol of illegitimate state power over individuals (and about four hundred other things). This is indeed one of the very, very few positions that we share with the Catholic Church (our reasoning is different, but the results are the same).
Unfortunately, our crack team of legal researchers is on currently on crack, and while we like -- very much like -- this kind of pithy critique, we also want more. After all, as legal historian Michael Klarman has recently demonstrated, the Supreme Court has all sorts of backroom (and frontroom, and courtroom) tactics that are as motivated by Public Relations as by legal scholarship. Perhaps Alito knew that Roberts, et al. were going to lose anyway, and thought he'd kick things off with the appearance of independence.
If you see any good analysis re: Alito's vote, please do share. We're not feeling researcherly today.
Intriguingly (since the percentage of Catholics on the Supreme Court is exactly twice the percentage of the U.S. population that is Catholic), he broke with them over the issue of capital punishment. As you know, the Swill very strongly believes that the death penalty is a powerful symbol of illegitimate state power over individuals (and about four hundred other things). This is indeed one of the very, very few positions that we share with the Catholic Church (our reasoning is different, but the results are the same).
Unfortunately, our crack team of legal researchers is on currently on crack, and while we like -- very much like -- this kind of pithy critique, we also want more. After all, as legal historian Michael Klarman has recently demonstrated, the Supreme Court has all sorts of backroom (and frontroom, and courtroom) tactics that are as motivated by Public Relations as by legal scholarship. Perhaps Alito knew that Roberts, et al. were going to lose anyway, and thought he'd kick things off with the appearance of independence.
If you see any good analysis re: Alito's vote, please do share. We're not feeling researcherly today.
posted by Swill to Power at 11:09 AM
4 Comments:
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/02/alito-casts-first-supreme-court-vote.php
This is just news, squeezy. I want hard hitting analysis from somebody who knows the difference between realism and pragmatism (legally speaking).
Now get your ass on findlaw and find it!
Re: the inriguing percentage of Catholics on the Supreme Court -- why can't we have some Dorothy Day-style justice? Think what a different spin "The Long Loneliness" could have had as a memoir of her life as a Catholic Worker-esque justice on the SC?
Why indeed, and The Swill would unreservedly support Ammon Hennessy's nomination as Chief Justice.
But you may have noticed that Catholicism as practiced by U.S. politicians (and, sadly, a vast majority of Catholic voters) in the U.S. bears no relationship whatsoever to anything that Dorothy Day ever wrote (with the possible exception of her decision late in life to support forced pregnancy quite strongly).
No, Opus Dei is the order of the day, and make no mistake: if she were still alive, Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito would put Dorothy Day in shackles, refuse to charge her with anything, find a way to make money off of her imprisonment, and justify it all with reference to faith.
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