Alito Votes to Stay Mo. Execution

Rich, yes it is the same guy.

The 8th Circuit granted the stay, contingent upon the SCOTUS cert and resolution of the Hall case. The legal reasoning is that since MO uses the same chemical cocktail as Florida, if Hall is decided that this is cruel and unusual, then Talyor would have been executed contrary to current interpretation.

This is pretty standard stuff, when one Circuit has an appeal pending before SCOTUS and another Circuit has much the same case. Can't fault the 8th Circuit for being cautious with a mans life, can we?

Ultimately, the Supreme Court will have to find either the death penalty is lawful or it is "cruel and unusual" by the standards of todays society. The 8th amendment is vague enough to be interpreted by such standards, as the standards evolve.

My personal stand is that if you are going to take a mans life, then do so in a manner that will be effective as a deterrant to crime. Public Execution by means most dreadfull, is my motto! (Public hanging; beheading; firing squad) Hiding the execution away, to keep certain sensibilities from fainting, does nothing to deter crime. What with the long appeal process, might as well keep them locked up till they die of natural causes.
 
Thanks, Anti.
Been searching all morning, but it looks like all that's out there is a standard AP report....not much substance; and the usual factual errors.

I agree that the 8th Circuit was acting prudently. Taylor needs to be killed and will be killed...after due process is concluded. I would have it no other way and I question how Roberts, Thomas or Scalia could rationalize intervention in a lower Court stay with Hall on the table (no pun intended).

Interesting to me that so many in this nation just can't wait for facts to start moaning. Alito (and 5 other Justices) certainly didn't "refuse to allow Missouri to execute Taylor" as is being reported and whined about; what they did was to refuse to overturn a lower Court that had already made the decision. Hardly the stuff of the oft cited "Judicial Activism" from what I can see so far.

When might we see written opinion and dissent on this? I, for one, would like to know the arguments...and the facts.
Rich
 
It does seem that people are ready to jump down Alito's throat for every little thing he does. Does this happen every time a Justice is confirmed?
 
Last edited:
I believe it is a good start for all to know

That he is not a yes man and never has been. I find it very refreshing and enlightening. Good for him. He has just proved himself to me.

HQ
 
Rich, I'm not sure just how long to wait for all the facts. I think I have all I need.

We're not commenting on an airplane crash where the cause is unknown and the sequence of events are still a mystery.

It was a vote. A vote on whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual, even if was a vote by proxy (voting to leave the decision in a lower court). On that vote, all the facts are in. At best, Alito has enough doubt as to whether lethal injection is C&U to let somebody else decide.

Since there seems to have been a separate vote on inadequate representation, which is related to whether he was properly found guilty, there was no reason for Alito to use doubt about C&U as a sly way to perhaps save a possibly innocent man. This vote was purely on lethal injection's cruelty/unusalness and it's a done deal.

I don't see a way for Alito to wiggle out of being perceived as having his doubts about the death penalty itself.

First, I'll dispose of the apparent cruel and unusual nature of lethal injection we've heard about. Look around. These are few and far between. Most "botched" LI executions are vein location problems. Well, cry me a river. Where was Alito when I was having an endoscopy and the nurse couldn't find a vein in my upper hand, so had to use my thumb? That was certainly cruel and unusual. So, in actual fact, the cruelty that most frequently happens during LI is no worse than just the preparation for surgery.

In the apparently-fewer cases where there was reaction akin to convulsions, which I will assume to indicate pain for the sake of this commentary, the guesses all seem to be unusual reactions to the drugs involved. Y'know, sometimes totally innocent people step into a doctor's office or hospital and have equally bad drug reactions. It comes from getting yourself involved with the medical community, and it can't be helped.

So what I see is that we've tried to take a systematically visibly barbaric method for execution (electric chair in most cases) and replace it with what ends up being a very peaceful method when done properly. I won't comment on the wisdom of that, but that's what we've done. And sometimes it goes wrong. Sometimes driving on I-95 goes wrong. Alito? Help me! C&U! Sometimes flying in an airplane goes wrong. Alito? C&U! Sometimes being a 15-year-old girl goes wrong. Alito?

You might argue that there's a difference between things medical, automotive, and aeronoatical, young girlical and things punitive. And I certainly agree with that one.

People suffering from the sometimes C&U results of the former type are nearly always innocent of setting out to create a victim. People suffering from the sometimes C&U results of the latter type are guilty of setting out to create a victim.

The sum of all this is that Alito looks like he's thinking that the death penalty itself, even in today's normally peaceful form, is not a risk that should be faced by a murderous criminal who (by definition) couldn't care less how his victims died.

Not a good start.
 
At best, Alito has enough doubt as to whether lethal injection is C&U to let somebody else decide.
Click to expand...
Sigh.
How does one possibly make this jump in logic without reading the opinion? [Don't answer that...it frightens me. ;)]

The lower court has not ruled that LI is Cruel and Unusual. They've simply deferred to the fact that Hall is working its way to SCOTUS, at which time the question will be settled.

As Anti has pointed out, it appears that Alito is simply deferring to that very logic. Now, you can explain to us how humane LI really is, after making the leap of faith that Alito is "against it"; but your only result is a rather lengthy non-sequitur. He hasn't "voted against the Death Penalty" or even LI.

Fact is this:
No matter how badly you want Taylor dead; no matter how badly I want him dead; no matter how badly Alito may want him dead....none of that matters in a nation of laws. This issue is working its way thru the Courts (which is as it should be). We may or may not be happy with the end result, but nothing I've heard of yesterday's ruling gives me the slightest inkling of how Alito will come down....unless, of course, you're arguing that he's already internally ruled on Hall and his mind is closed. That would be an even greater leap of logic than your last....and all prefaced by your rather startling admission:
I'm not sure just how long to wait for all the facts. I think I have all I need.
Click to expand...
Rich
 
invention 45 said:
First, I'll dispose of the apparent cruel and unusual nature of lethal injection we've heard about.
Click to expand...
Equating a voluntary medical procedure with Judicial Punishment is a new low. Let's get it straight. The 8th amendments third clause, (nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.) is about criminal punishment. It has no bearing upon anything non-criminal. Particularly, it has no bearing upon procedures or medications prescribed by a Doctor. Your analogy is not only flawed, it is false.

I see that Rich has addressed the rest of your post (#26), so I shall resist commenting further.

There is another disturbing fact to this, which was alluded to by Rich in post #22. It appears that Roberts, Scalia and Thomas have already made their minds up on Hall without ever hearing the case! That IS Judicial activism at its basest level. A judge, especially a Justice on the Supreme Court should not hold an opinion nor telegraph their findings before the case is heard.
 
For Good or bad Alito

Is Following his own moral upbringing. He is Catholic. Bottom line.
He realized that if he voted the way they expected him the other side would have a hissy fit.

The man is a poker player, did not want to begin the long term he expects, with everyone knowing he is a bluffer (slick as in teflon). IMO

Said, he (Alito) would uphold Sandra Day court record. And the way she would vote. Or something like that.:confused:



HQ
 
Um, did I read the count on the vote correctly? 6-3? If that's the case, then the headline of the OPs article is silly and sensational. Because even if Alito voted the other way, it's still 5-4, so someone else "broke with the conservatives" too.
 
I wonder just how many of those who now go to great length to "justify" Alitos' vote would have thought he would vote that way on that particular case, beforehand????:confused:
 
BJ-
Some of us who "defend" him now, were hardly cheerleaders for him before. I'm in that camp, though I'd not have been surprised at this vote. I'm more interested in reading the three dissenting opinions, though. On the face of it, those are the "surprise" here.

But onto your point: did you predict Alito's vote somewhere? Or did you not have a point other than misdirected dissatisfaction with all about you...again? :D
Rich
 
I didn't much like O'Connor. Yet I defended her opinion in Raich. Also in Kelo.

One doesn't have to "like" someone in order to see what the facts of a case are and the logic of a decision. That is what is worth defending. If you don't understand that, then by what criteria do you defend someone?
 
RL:did you predict Alito's vote somewhere?
Click to expand...

No I did not. However I did state that one never knew how a SCJ would vote until he did so and I will say again that this vote was a surprise to me. I personally think he will eventually be considered a constitutionalist and will be somewhat dissappointing to the expectations of both political parties. Especially those who are so deep into the pockets of the oil industry and other big business, that a cough yields lint.:eek:


RL: Or did you not have a point other than misdirected dissatisfaction with all about you...again?
Click to expand...

Sometime misdirected but occasionally in the main stream. :D
 
will be somewhat dissappointing to the expectations of both political parties. Especially those who are so deep into the pockets of the oil industry and other big business, that a cough yields lint
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm sure that the "oil industry" and "big business" are happy about the appointment of Judge Alito. I'm sure you can point us to the decisions by Judge Alito which improperly benefited the oil industry and big business.

I'd appreciate the cites to these cases. Or perhaps you are just speculating about Justice Alito....
 
Rich: as I have already said, I'm going on the information I have, not the information that I haven't. The former is the article. The latter would include the actual decision. I might change my thinking when I see it.

Anti: I was not making an analogy. I was describing the procedure. I'm quite aware that the end result of LI, known to the condemned, is death, whereas the same result is not necessarily expected after medical anesthesia. It's a little like you are arguing that the difference is that in the case of LI, you expect to die and therefore it can be cruel and unusual.

I'm sorry, but if there were a totally guaranteed painless method for execution, then that sort of thinking is trying to say that the death penalty itself is C&U, in that the condemned knows the procedure is intended to kill him.

Maybe it's too early, but it looked to me like BIGJACK was trying to imply that big oil will not necessarily be happy with Alito, not that he had made decisions in the past favoring them and that he expects them to be happy with him. Did I get that wrong?
 
Not neccessarily the oil industry but some of those who are deep into the pockets of the oil industry, re, gwb and his crowd, who in my opinion thought he would blindly take what appeared to be the "bible thumping-rigth wing-radical" stand on every issue. JUST MY OPINION!:D
 
Alito did the prudent thing, defering judgement on a case, until a judgement on a separate but relevant case was rendered.


Not neccessarily the oil industry but some of those who are deep into the pockets of the oil industry, re, gwb and his crowd, who in my opinion thought he would blindly take what appeared to be the "bible thumping-rigth wing-radical" stand on every issue. JUST MY OPINION
Click to expand...


An opinion based on some factual evidence, or personal prejudice?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top