SCOTUS says Americans have right to guns

Supreme Court says Americans have right to guns

LaShawn Barber will start bearing.

La Shawn also has the full text of the decision.

The Supreme Court's ruling on Thursday that a District of Columbia ban on handgun ownership is unconstitutional appears to be solidly in step with public opinion.

Share on Facebook

"Isn't Brutally Raping an Eight-year-old More Cruel Than Lethal Injection?"

Eighth Amendment Question: Isn't Brutally Raping an Eight-year-old More Cruel Than Lethal Injection?, asks Andy McCarthy.

The answer, of course, is yes.

But the dishonesty of the judges is what shines through in this decision. As McCarthy points out,

Wouldn't it be refreshingly honest if activist justices just bluntly us: "We don't like the death penalty and we can stop it because there are five of us." Sure, it would be tyrannical, but at least it would be accurate, and not nearly as nauseating as what passes for reasoning in these cases.

I wonder if the same kind of perverse reasoning will apply one day and would not give the death penalty to someone who takes justice into their own hands and kills a child rapist rather than have the rapist go through the system and benefit from the Justices' "reasoning".



Share on Facebook

McCain Slams The Supreme Court's Habeas Decision

McCain Slams The Supreme Court's Habeas Decision (emphasis added):

The United States Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country. Sen. Graham and Sen. Lieberman and I had worked very hard to make sure that we didn't torture any prisoners, that we didn't mistreat them, that we abided by the Geneva Conventions, which applies to all prisoners. But we also made it perfectly clear, and I won't go through all the legislation we passed, and the prohibition against torture, but we made it very clear that these are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens, they do not and never have been given the rights that citizens of this country have. And my friends there are some bad people down there. There are some bad people. So now what are we going to do. We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called, quote, Habeas Corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material. And we are going to be bollixed up in a way that is terribly unfortunate, because we need to go ahead and adjudicate these cases. By the way, 30 of the people who have already been released from Guantanamo Bay have already tried to attack America again, one of them just a couple weeks ago, a suicide bomber in Iraq. Our first obligation is the safety and security of this nation, and the men and women who defend it. This decision will harm our ability to do that.

As Ace pointed out yesterday,

The Court holds that not only do the terrorists have a habeas right, but they have a Super Special Celebrity Killer Habeas Right, entitling them to judicial "review" -- pre-review, actually, as there's nothing yet to review -- of the entire scheme of the once-upcoming process before it actually unfolds.

Flopping Aces quotes Justice Roberts,

Today the Court strikes down as inadequate the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded aliens detained by this country as enemy combatants. The political branches crafted these procedures amidst an ongoing military conflict, after much careful investigation and thorough debate. The Court rejects them today out of hand, without bothering to say what due process rights the detainees possess, without explaining how the statute fails to vindicate those rights, and before a single petitioner has even attempted to avail himself of the law's operation.

This is probably the worst decision the Supreme Court has made in my lifetime.



Share on Facebook

Court gives detainees habeas rights

UPDATED
As background info, habeas corpus means,

A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody.

Wikipedia:

Also known as "The Great Writ," a writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is a summons with the force of a court order addressed to the custodian (such as a prison official) demanding that a prisoner be brought before the court, together with proof of authority, allowing the court to determine whether that custodian has lawful authority to hold that person, or, if not, the person should be released from custody.

I just got home and haven't had the chance to read the actual (lengthy) Supreme Court decision, but, according to SCOTUS blog,
Court gives detainees habeas rights

In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion.

That is, the government cannot deny the Gitmo prisoners habeas corpus rights unless it suspends them under the Suspension Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

From the sound of it, the Court has granted citizens' rights to terrorists who are not citizens of the USA, who are not on US soil and therefore are not subject to US laws.

Another part of the decision appears to apply only to American citizens,

In a second ruling on habeas, the Court decided unanimously that U.S. citizens held by U.S. military forces in Iraq have a right to file habeas cases, because it does extend to them, but it went on to rule that federal judges do not have any authority to bar the transfer of those individuals to Iraqi authorites to face prosecution or punishment for crimes committed in that country in violation of Iraqi laws.

My question is, in either case, are they considered criminals, or are they prisoners of war? If they are POWs, why grant them rights under criminal law?

James Joyner has a great roundup on the decision, and I agree with Lean Left:

If these people are prisoners of war, then treat them as such. If they are not, then they are criminals and should be treated the same as every other criminal in the care of the federal government.

And if the death penalty applies, then indeed, go ahead.

UPDATE
Taranto:

It's possible that Scalia is wrong when he predicts more Americans will die as a result of this ruling. It may be that al Qaeda is a weak enough enemy that America can vanquish it even with the Supreme Court tying one hand behind our back. Anyway, keeping future detainees away from Guantanamo should prevent them from coming within the reach of the justices' pettifogging.

Perhaps decades from now we will learn that detainees ended up being abused in some far-off place because the government closed Guantanamo in response to judicial meddling. Even those who support what the court did today may live to regret it.

Five Justices in air-conditioned roomsin DC may think troops will be mindful of habeas corpus and all that in the heat of battle. They are wrong.

UPDATE
Ace:

The Court holds that not only do the terrorists have a habeas right, but they have a Super Special Celebrity Killer Habeas Right, entitling them to judicial "review" -- pre-review, actually, as there's nothing yet to review -- of the entire scheme of the once-upcoming process before it actually unfolds. This despite the fact that the DTA actually granted a right to challenge the procedures, with later Article III court review (that is, a real judicial court defined by Article III under the constitution, and not a quasi-court as are established by Congress and run by the Executive), a right to challenge the terrorists never bothered availing themselves of.

The Court could easily have found the terrorists do have habeas rights, but that filing is premature, as they would with any other citizen criminal in the country. For reasons clear only to themselves, they didn't.

Guessing at a non-retarded opinion, I figured maybe there might be some initial habeas review to determine if these guys are being lawfully held in the first place (which, of course, they are, the same as it was lawful to hold all those Nazi prisoners we took), and that a habeas review of their criminal incarceration would only be ripe once they were actually convicted.

Nope. They went the full-on retard route. The prisoners get to challenge their trial in advance of actually having the trial.

And the majority laughingly posits that part of their reason for demanding this is to prevent delay in their claims being heard. Uh-huh.

What a disgrace.



Share on Facebook

Breaking news: Supreme Court upholds ban on partial-birth abortions

Supreme Court upholds ban on partial-birth abortions

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure today, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

More at Pajamas Media and Instapundit

Rep. Jeb Hensarling and Sen. John McCaine applaud the decision.

Update Reaction.