COMMENTARY: "Recent supreme court opinions suggest there are five votes to abolish capital punishment," by Robert J. Smith, published by 'Slate.' (Robert J. Smith is an assistant professor of law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)
GIST:
"On the surface, the Supreme Court’s opinion in
Glossip v. Gross
appears to give death penalty proponents something to celebrate. After
all, the court allowed states to continue to use the sedative midazolam
as part of a multidrug formula for lethal injections, despite Justice
Sonia Sotomayor’s warning that such executions “may well be the chemical
equivalent of being burned at the stake.” But the bitterly divided 5–4
opinion has implications that extend far beyond the narrow question.
This case may become an example of winning a battle while losing the
war..........The most damning problem is the inability to guarantee the
factual guilt of the people juries send to death row. Justice Antonin
Scalia
once underscored
that lethal injection was an “enviable” death compared with that
suffered by an “11-year old girl raped by four men and then killed by
stuffing her panties down her throat.” Last year,
DNA evidence demonstrated that Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown, the two men sentenced to death for the crime
Scalia used as his poster case
for the death penalty, are innocent. Or consider the case of Paul
House, an inmate sentenced to death who claimed that the scratches on
his arm came from “tearing down a building, and from a cat”—not as the
result of a struggle with the victim. Chief Justice John Roberts
mockingly commented on House’s version of events: “Scratches from a cat, indeed,” he wrote. In 2009, DNA evidence exonerated Paul House.........After Kennedy’s opinion in
Obergefell, the
flashlight is shining brightly on Kennedy’s death penalty jurisprudence.
His road map for considering the evolution of contemporary
societal norms,
coupled with Breyer’s invitation to challenge the death penalty in its
entirety, plausibly heralds the twilight of the death penalty in
America."
The entire commentary can be found at:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/07/death_penalty_at_the_supreme_court_kennedy_may_vote_to_abolish_capital_pun
ishment.html
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/charlessmith
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;
