STORY: "The Court's emphatic ban on executing the intellectually disabled," by Andrew Cohen, published by The Atlantic on May 27, 2014.
SUB-HEADING: "A divided court doubled down on its 2002 Atkins decision, ruling that Florida can't kill Freddie Lee Hall just because his IQ has sometimes passed an arbitrary mark."
GIST: "The dissent in Hall v. Florida, written by Justice Samuel Alito, is also striking. It is nearly as long as the majority opinion and it presents an argument that Justice Antonin Scalia would surely have ridiculed had he not signed onto it. Florida is free to continue to execute mentally disabled people even though the Supreme Court has prohibited the practice, the dissenters suggest, because when it comes to recognizing and defining cognitive disabilities among death-row inmates the American people in their infinite wisdom know better than “a small professional elite” who have devoted their professional lives to the study of intellectual disability........."But Hall v. Florida is a ruling about science and medicine as much as it is about law and logic, and it is welcome news at a time when there is great partisan conflict between law on one hand and science on the other. Kennedy and his colleagues have filled the void left by Atkins with the information and evidence and knowledge and even perhaps the wisdom the nation’s best medical minds can bear upon the topic. Doctors will now have a larger say in who lives and who dies in these states, and why shouldn’t they? Because prosecutors or judges know better? Because a state or a society benefits from killing a person whose mental capabilities preclude him from fully understanding why?"
The entire story can be found at:
SUB-HEADING: "A divided court doubled down on its 2002 Atkins decision, ruling that Florida can't kill Freddie Lee Hall just because his IQ has sometimes passed an arbitrary mark."
GIST: "The dissent in Hall v. Florida, written by Justice Samuel Alito, is also striking. It is nearly as long as the majority opinion and it presents an argument that Justice Antonin Scalia would surely have ridiculed had he not signed onto it. Florida is free to continue to execute mentally disabled people even though the Supreme Court has prohibited the practice, the dissenters suggest, because when it comes to recognizing and defining cognitive disabilities among death-row inmates the American people in their infinite wisdom know better than “a small professional elite” who have devoted their professional lives to the study of intellectual disability........."But Hall v. Florida is a ruling about science and medicine as much as it is about law and logic, and it is welcome news at a time when there is great partisan conflict between law on one hand and science on the other. Kennedy and his colleagues have filled the void left by Atkins with the information and evidence and knowledge and even perhaps the wisdom the nation’s best medical minds can bear upon the topic. Doctors will now have a larger say in who lives and who dies in these states, and why shouldn’t they? Because prosecutors or judges know better? Because a state or a society benefits from killing a person whose mental capabilities preclude him from fully understanding why?"
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/hall-v-florida/371662/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
I look forward to hearing from readers at:
hlevy15@gmail.com.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
