Tag Archives: state sovereignty
Killing the Death Penalty
The death penalty is itself experiencing a slow death. This demise is the product of the same alliance of criminal-defense lawyers and activist judges who have done so much in recent decades to undermine public safety. In few arenas is the success of their joint handiwork clearer that in their effort to slow down executions with endless appeals, to the point that capital punishment is becoming all but meaningless.
Sovereignty and Activist Judges
In its current term, the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on many crucial and emotionally charged issues affecting the nation. These range from voting rights to same-sex marriage to race-based college admissions policies. The intensity of these disputes was on full display on February 27 during the court’s oral argument on the Voting Rights Act. Unusually visceral questioning from Justices Antonin Scalia and Sonia Sotomayor, representing opposite ends of the court’s ideological spectrum, offered a glimpse into the raw conflicts coming to a boil before the high court.