Showing posts with label Justice Antonin Scalia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Justice Antonin Scalia. Show all posts

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Justice Antonin Scalia should be Donald Trump's running mate


Senate minority leader Harry Reid said it best, "The only difference between the ideas endorsed by Trump and Scalia is that Scalia has a robe and a lifetime appointment. Ideas like this don't belong on the Internet, let alone the mouths of national figures." This is in reaction to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's comments re. admission practices at the U. of Texas:

"There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less — a slower-track school where they do well. One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them."

NBC News quoted Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus who called the comments "disgusting, inaccurate, and insulting to African Americans."

If we ever wondered just how deep seated racism is in America, here is a prime example from the highest court in the land, coming from an individual that is supposedly well educated, though perhaps that is no cornerstone for common sense. Scalia should resign his seat on the Court and this demand should also be coming from fellow colleagues on the Court. 

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

DNA Has Completely Changed the Death Penalty


Henry Lee McCollum, a black man age 50, had been on death row for 30 years for the 1983 rape and killing of an eleven-year-old girl. He didn't do it. DNA evidence finally "implicated another man, a known sex offender the police had not investigated, despite the fact that he lived next to the crime scene," according to Slate. McCollum, who was 19 at the time, confessed after police pressure along with his half-brother, Leon Brown, who was 15 then. Both recanted several times but Brown ended up serving a life sentence, McCollum went on death row. They were both freed from prison back in 2014.

Conservative Supreme court Judge Antonin Scalia used this very case to dismiss Justice Harry Blackmun’s concerns about the death penalty some 20 years ago. He pointed to convicted killer Henry Lee McCollum as an obvious example of a man who deserved to be put to death. Scalia used McCollum as the perfect illustration of a heinous crime that "stood as a testament to the merit of capital punishment itself." Well, on June 4, 2015, the two men were pardoned by No. Carolina's Gov. Pat McCrory.
Each man now qualifies for $50,000 for each year they were imprisoned, up to a maximum of $750,000. They needed a gubernatorial pardon in order to collect the compensation.
Steve Benen, who wrote the MSNBC article commented, "As best as I can tell, Scalia has not yet commented."

Donald Trump Says He Will Be Indicted On Tuesday

  THAT'S TODAY... Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has brought the case to this point, now looking at a possible indictment. Trum...