SCALIA: "Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached." [View all]

[kpete]

Last edited Tue Feb 16, 2016, 12:19 PM - Edit history (1)

TUESDAY, FEB 16, 2016 03:00 AM PST
Shed no tears for Antonin Scalia: Let us not praise the man who gave us Citizens United and Bush v Gore
Scalia let the innocent die, trampled our basic rights, gutted democracy and gave us George W. Bush. Good riddance


If the law does not protect the innocent, then it’s hard to conceive what the law is for. Yet, Scalia—so deeply devoted to the rule of law—repeatedly held that it did not. In his 1993 concurrence in Herrera v. Collins he wrote:

There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding in the Constitution a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction.

Sixteen years later, in the case of Anthony Davis, after seven key eyewitnesses recanted their testimony, some fingering a man who testified against Davis, Scalia wrote:

This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is “actually” innocent.

So you’re innocent? So what? That was Scalia’s “judicial philosophy” in a nutshell. He was the giant of the conservative legal world for three decades—its Ronald Reagan—and that’s precisely what he stood for. That’s what the conservative legal world stands for.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/16/shed_no_tears_for_antonin_scalia_let_us_not_praise_the_man_who_gave_us_citizens_united_and_bush_v_gore/


I believe this denial of stay of execution on Wednesday is the last official action of Antonin Scalia on #SCOTUS.

https://twitter.com/chrisjohnson82/status/698640227645026305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw