Conservatives must be partying hard, celebrating their court decisions in the last few days. Now THAT’s how you turn back the clock to “better times” … friendlier to business, white folks and patriarchs everywhere.
Indeed, the Supreme’s have been busy bee’s — look what they’ve given us today. In case you’re curling your lip at Kennedy, the moderate conservative swing vote, I’ll offer gratitude to him that we won’t be killing a clearly delusional prisoner, an opinion that may hold sway in other state cases … Thomas, Scalia, Roberts and Alito think that would be fine and dandy. Fine and dandy – and these are the representatives of Justice in the United States of America.
The god of the Old Testament looks down and laughs.
Jude
Toles ‘toon
Supreme Court overturns race-based school admissions
Nick Juliano, Raw Story
Thursday June 28, 2007
In a narrowly divided opinion handed down Thursday, the Supreme Court overturned school district policies that made race a factor in admissions, CNN reported.
The 5-4 decision backed parents in Seattle and Louisville who argued that their children were unfairly denied positions in “magnet” public schools because of their race. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which found the school districts failed to show that classifying students on the basis of race was the only way to maintain racial diversity.
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Roberts wrote, according to SCOTUSblog.
The decision could affect racial integration plans in hundreds of school districts, according to the Associated Press.
In another 5-4 decision released Thursday, the court ruled Texas cannot execute a mentally ill prisoner. Scott Panetti was convicted of murdering his in-laws 15 years ago, but his lawyers argued he should not face the death penalty because he does not understand why he is facing that punishment.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in that case. Justices found the Eighth Amendment prohibited putting to death a person who “is so lacking in rational understanding that he cannot comprehend that he is being put to death because of the crime he was convicted of committing,” according to the Associated Press.
Thursday’s decisions represented the extent to which Kennedy remains a pivot-point on the court. In the death penalty case, he sided with the court’s liberal wing — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, David Souter, John Paul Stevens and Stephen Bryer.
In the school decision he wrote a concurring opinion joining with conservative Justices Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito. Although Kennedy upheld the majority decision that the Seattle and Louisville school districts went too far in using race as a factor, he did not eliminate all possibilities it could be a factor in the future. ++
Court Limits Schools Considering Race
MARK SHERMAN, AP
Jun 28
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected integration plans in two major public school districts but left the door open for using race to assign students in limited circumstances.
The decision in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it further restricts how public school systems may attain racial diversity.
The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court’s judgment. The court’s four liberal justices dissented.
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Roberts said.
Yet Justice Anthony Kennedy would not go as far as the other four conservative justices, saying in a concurring opinion that race may be a component of school plans designed to achieve diversity.
To the extent that Roberts’ opinion could be interpreted to foreclose the use of race in any circumstance, Kennedy said, “I disagree with that reasoning.”
“A district may consider it a compelling interest to achieve a diverse student population,” Kennedy said. “Race may be one component of that diversity.”
He agreed with Roberts that the plans in Louisville and Seattle violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection.
Justice Stephen Breyer, in a dissent joined by the other liberals on the court, said Roberts’ opinion undermined the promise of integrated schools that the court laid out 53 years ago in its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
“To invalidate the plans under review is to threaten the promise of Brown,” Breyer said.
While Roberts said the court was being faithful to the Brown decision, Justice John Paul Stevens in a separate dissent called the chief justice’s reliance on Brown to rule against integration “a cruel irony.”
Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s only black member, wrote a separate opinion endorsing the ruling and taking issue with the dissenters’ view of the Brown case.
“What was wrong in 1954 cannot be right today,” Thomas said. “The plans before us base school assignment decisions on students’ race. Because ‘our Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens,’ such race-based decisionmaking is unconstitutional.”
The two school systems in Thursday’s decisions employ slightly different methods of taking students’ race into account when determining which school they will attend.
Federal appeals courts had upheld both plans after some parents sued. The Bush administration took the parents’ side, arguing that racial diversity is a noble goal but can be sought only through race-neutral means.
The Louisville case grew out of complaints from several parents whose children were not allowed to attend the schools of their choice. Crystal Meredith, a white, single mother, sued after the school system turned down a request to transfer her 5-year-old son Joshua Ryan McDonald, to a school closer to home.
Louisville’s schools spent 25 years under a court order to eliminate the effects of state-sponsored segregation. After a federal judge freed the Jefferson County, Ky., school board, which encompasses Louisville, from his supervision, the board decided to keep much of the court-ordered plan in place to prevent schools from re-segregating.
The lawyer for the Louisville system called the plan a success story that enjoys broad community support, including among parents of white and black students.
Attorney Teddy Gordon, who argued that the Louisville system’s plan was discriminatory, said, “Clearly, we need better race-neutral alternatives. Instead of spending zillions of dollars around the country to place a black child next to a white child, let’s reduce class size. All the schools are equal. We will no longer accept that an African-American majority within a school is unacceptable.”
Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson said he was disappointed with the ruling because Louisville’s system had provided “a quality education for all students and broken down racial barriers” for 30 years.
He said he was confident school leaders effective new guidelines.
The Seattle school district said it used race as one among many factors, relied on it only in some instances and then only at the end of a lengthy process in allocating students among the city’s high schools. Seattle suspended its program after parents sued.
The opinion was the first on the divisive issue since 2003, when a 5-4 ruling upheld the limited consideration of race in college admissions to attain a diverse student body. Since then, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who approved of the limited use of race, retired. Her replacement, Justice Samuel Alito was in the majority that struck down the school system plans in Kentucky and Washington.
The cases are Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 05-908, and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 05-915. ++
Execution of Mentally Ill Killer Blocked
PETE YOST, AP
Jun 28
WASHINGTON (AP) - A divided Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the execution of a Texas killer whose lawyers argued that he should not be put to death because he is mentally ill.
The court ruled 5-4 in the case of Scott Louis Panetti, who shot his in-laws to death 15 years ago in front of his wife and young daughter.
The convicted murderer says that he suffers from a severe documented illness that is the source of gross delusions. “This argument, we hold, should have been considered,” said Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion.
Panetti’s lawyers wanted the court to determine that people who cannot understand the connection between their crime and punishment because of mental illness may not be executed.
The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution bars “the execution of a person who is so lacking in rational understanding that he cannot comprehend that he is being put to death because of the crime he was convicted of committing,” they said in court papers.
In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said that Panetti had petitioned the federal courts twice in his case, but that the law allows only one petition.
“The court bends over backwards to allow Panetti” to bring his current claim, despite no evidence that his condition has worsened, or even changed, since 1995, Thomas wrote.
One of Panetti’s lawyers, Scott Hampton of Austin, Texas, said he was relieved.
“Executing Scott Panetti would have been a mindless, meaningless, miserable spectacle,” said Hampton.
Siding with Kennedy in the majority were Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
Joining Thomas in dissent were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito.
Texas said the court should reject Panetti’s appeal on procedural grounds. But it also argued that the court should set a tougher standard for mental illness exceptions to capital punishment. Only if a Death Row inmate “lacks the capacity to recognize that his punishment both is the result of his being convicted of capital murder and will cause his death” should his execution be halted, the state said. Panetti is competent on that basis, it said.
The killings took place in September 1992.
A former ranch hand and native of Hayward, Wis., Panetti had a history of mental problems before his conviction, recording 14 hospital stays over 11 years.
Four courts have said he was competent when he fired his trial lawyers. A jury and two courts rejected his defense of not guilty by reason of insanity. He personally argued that only an insane person could prove the insanity defense, dressing in cowboy clothing and submitting an initial witness list that included Jesus Christ and John F. Kennedy.
Then-Justice Lewis Powell said 20 years ago that a person may not be put to death if he cannot perceive “the connection between his crime and his punishment.”
The case is Panetti v. Quarterman, 06-6407. ++
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
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June 28th, 2007