Moonhowlings

NYTimes Alert:

Justices Bar Life Terms for Youths Who Haven’t Killed

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court said that sentences of
life without possibility of parole for crimes other than
homicide that were committed when the offender was under the
age of 18 are unconstitutional. The decision, in a Florida
case involving an armed burglary conviction, said such
sentences violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and
unusual punishment

Some criminals in their teens are just as vicious as adults. Why should they get a pass because of age?

Justice Kennedy was the swing vote.

According to Sciencemag.org:

Juveniles who have not committed murder should not be locked up for life, according to a U.S. Supreme Court decision today. In the case of Graham v. Florida, the court says it considered brain and behavioral science in deciding that life sentences for most young criminals amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

The decision extends a 2005 decision (Roper v. Simmons) banning the death penalty for juveniles. Amicus briefs submitted to the court by the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, and others questioned whether youths should be held to the same standards of culpability as adults given research suggesting that their brains are not yet fully mature.

In its decision, the court says it took this data into consideration:

No recent data provide reason to reconsider the Courts observations in Roper about the nature of juveniles. As petitioners amici point out, developments in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds. For example, parts of the brain involved in behavior control continue to mature through late adolescence. … Juveniles are more capable of change than are adults, and their actions are less likely to be evidence of irretrievably depraved character than are the actions of adults.

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Remember the WWI memorial the vets built in honor of their fallen buddies from WWI that was erected out the the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert?  Some rat bastard has stolen it.  The cross that was actually a memorial has been embroiled in a Supreme Court Case in one form or another for a decade. 

Antibvbl.net covered the story of the Desert Cross  back in October, 2009.  Since then the land on which the cross was erected has been donated as private lands.  Huffington Post reports:

By Adelle M. Banks
Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) The war memorial cross at the center of a recent Supreme Court ruling has been stolen, a spokeswoman for the Mojave National Preserve said Tuesday (May 11).

A wooden box had covered the controversial cross, which has been the subject of court cases for almost a decade. A preserve staffer noticed the box was missing on Saturday; by the time a maintenance crew showed up Monday to replace it, the cross also had disappeared, spokeswoman Linda Slater said.

On April 28, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the cross to stay up and directed a district court to further consider a congressionally approved transfer of the cross to private land.

“This is an outrage, akin to desecrating people’s graves,” said Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of Liberty Institute, which represents the caretakers of the World War I memorial and several veterans groups.

“It’s a disgraceful attack on the selfless sacrifice of our veterans. We will not rest until this memorial is reinstalled.”

According to CNN:

The 6-foot-tall metal structure was removed Sunday night from Sunrise Rock in a lonely stretch of the Mojave National Preserve, said government officials and veterans groups that have been fighting for years to keep the cross on national park land.

The National Park Service said it is investigating the incident; no arrests had been made as of Tuesday morning.

The high court on April 28 ruled the cross did not violate the constitutional separation of church and state. The American Civil Liberties Union, which had brought the original lawsuit to have the cross removed, promised to continue the court fight.

I consider myself a fairly strong establishment clause person. I very much believe in seperation of church and state…probably as much as some of the 2nd amendment people believe in their cause. However, at what point do people just go rabidly nuts on a subject?

This cross was erected back in the 1930′s by veterans of WWI to honor their buddies who didn’t make it home. Call it a grassroots memorial, if you will. It was out in the middle of no where in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It was honoring the dead. It wasn’t pushing religion even.

Whoever took the cross is a thief– a common thief. The individual(s) is lower than a snake’s belly. This person or persons doesn’t represent a cause. The memorial ought to be left alone. There is one remain WWI vet left in America. Those brave men who fought that horrible war now belong to time and the ages. Can’t people put aside their causes just this once? The cross that represents the memorial needs to be returned immediately.

The VFW has offered a reward for information that leads to the return of the memorial.

According to the New York Times and MSNBC, President Barack Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan will be nominated for the Supreme Court vacancy.  If confirmed, she will replace Justice John Paul Stevens. 

According to Wikipedia,com:

Elena Kagan (pronounced /ˈkeɪɡən/),^[2] born April 28, 1960^[1]) is Solicitor General of the United States. She is the first woman to hold that office, having been nominated by President Barack Obama on January 26, 2009, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2009. Kagan was formerly dean of Harvard Law School and Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law at Harvard University. She was previously a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. She served as Associate White House Counsel under President Bill Clinton. It has been reported by MSNBC and the New York Times that Kagan will be nominated to be the next U.S. Supreme Court justice, replacing John Paul Stevens, by President Obama on May 10, 2010.^[3][4] If nominated and confirmed, she would become the fourth female Supreme Court justice in United States history and third on the court’s current bench. She would also be the eighth Jewish justice and the third on the current bench.

What better tribute to mothers than a birthday party for The Pill. The Pill has probably been one of the top 5 inventions of the last century that has altered our society the most.

In Sunday’s Washington Post, columnist Elaine Tyler May celebrates The Pill:

Forget the single girl and the sexual revolution. The pill was not anti-mother; it was for mothers. And it changed motherhood more than it changed anything else. Its great accomplishment was not in preventing motherhood, but in making it better by allowing women to have children on their own terms.

A glance at history tells us that  up through the late 19th  century, nearly all women seemed to have endless children. My own grandfather was one of 9. These weren’t country people. Sure, they had rural roots but they weren’t having children to work the farm. They had children because they didn’t know how to not have children. Endless childbirth robbed women of their health and often their lives.  My own great grandmother was a victim. It’s impossible to take a cursory walk through a 19th century cemetery without noticing the number of untimely deaths of women in their child-bearing years. 

Women did a little better as they moved through the 20th century toward 1960, when the FDA approved the use of THE Pill for contraceptive purposes. Barrier methods of contraception as well as some chemical products improved a woman’s chanced of preventing unwanted pregnancy. However, it wasn’t until 1960 that The Pill really altered the way American couples married and had families.

The Pill wasn’t without great controversy. Even FDA approval was not easy to come by. There were moral and religious objections, social objections, and a fear that sexual behavior would somehow alter our sexual mores forever. Perhaps it did. However, there is something very liberating about being able to control one’s own reproduction.  It is almost frightening to realize the Griswald vs. Connecticut wasn’t decided until 1965, making contraception of any kind a right of privacy.  Griswold guaranteed that states could not prevent the use of contraception.  Griswold isn’t 50 yet. 

The Griswold Case 

The pill: Making motherhood better for 50 years

From the Washington Post:

Fighting Hate West Virginia Style. Westboro descending on Charleston, WV to inform the good people in the state capital that the Montcoal mining disaster happened because God hates …who even knows…oh ….they got a threatening note from West Virginia. 

Charlestown fought back with class and style:

Westboro fanned out. (picket schedule)

They also went to VT to disrupt.

Westboro had mentioned deceased Morgan Harrington on their website. The VT student was murdered last fall after disappearing from a Metallica concert at UVA. Students organized and simply outnumbered qnd out performed Westboro in only the way United VT can do! Morgan’s parents were on hand to express their displeasure at having their daughter’s name dragged through the mud after her horrible fate.

According to WIBW:

BLACKSBURG, Va., (WIBW)_ Members of Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church turned up at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia on Friday morning.

They were there for a protest following the mine disaster which claimed the lives of at least 25 miners. Rescue teams continue to search for four more miners whose fate is still unknown.

The church claims the explosion was a result of a threatening memo that the church said was sent from West Virginia, the New York Times reported.

According to the Charleston Gazette, more than 300 counter-protesters were on hand for a counter demonstration against the six church members who showed up.

Nearby, larger numbers of church members fanned out across three locations in Blacksburg, Virginia nearly two years after the shootings at Virginia Tech that killed 32 people.

They too were met by counter protesters, including the father of Morgan Harrington, a Virginia Tech student who disappeared last October. Harrington said he couldn’t believe the Westboro Church was including Morgan’s memory in their protests.

What, if anything can be done to stop these vile people?  They are using the very laws that make us tolerant Americans against us.  Hopefully the Supreme Court case will castrate their efforts.  I would contribute to any plan to legally put these disgusting wretches in their places.  I think jail time sounds real good.

And when you thought they couldn’t go any lower, check out the parting shot.  This sign was from the Sago mine disaster in 2006.  However, they arrived at Montcoal, WV today with similar tactics.  The poor people of Montcoal are trying to mourn their dead and recover their lost.  They just don’t need this crap.

Justice John Paul Stevens has announced he will retire at the end of the session this summer.  Justice Stevens is the oldest of the justices  and will be  90 active years old on April 20th, according to the NY Times, he still plays tennis.  He was appointed by President Gerald Ford in 1975.   He has served through the terms of 7 presidents. 

Justice Stevens is seen as one of the liberals on the Supreme Court.  He would classify himself as a conservative. 

He sent his letter of resignation to President Obama today.  His retirement does not come as a surprise.  It was hinted at in the NY Times several weeks go because he only hired one new law clerk.  Most justices have 4. 

Justice Stevens seems like an institution on our Supreme Court.

Westboro Baptists (sic), the cretins who go to the funerals of our dead troops and protest American not killing gays or something akin to that perhaps serve a purpose. They are a group who are universally hated and despised by both the right, left and middle. They are right up there with 9-11 in that they are a great unifier.

Read more…

Having a big mouth just doesn’t pay sometimes.    Powell stupidly shot off his mouth in a letter to Commonwealth Attorney Paul Ebert and confessed to raping and brutally killing Stacie Reed, thinking that he couldn’t be tried twice.  It didn’t work out so well for him.  He got a stay of execution at the last minute back in July and his case headed for the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court will not stop his execution.  The wheels of justice sometimes grind very slowly. 

 
Hot off the press from Manassas News and Messenger:

The United States Supreme Court will not stop the execution of a man charged with killing a 16-year-old girl at her Yorkshire home in 1999.

Paul Warner Powell was set to be executed for the murder of Stacie Reed in July but the Supreme Court postponed the execution, saying they needed more time to decide if they would review the case.

The Supreme Court decided this week not to intervene.

A new execution date has not yet been set.

Powell was convicted of capital murder for killing and attempting to rape Stacie at the family’s Yorkshire home on Jan. 29, 1999. He was also convicted of raping and attempting to kill Kristie, who survived.

 

Powell said he killed Stacie because she was dating a black man. He is a self avowed white supremacist.

Now Powell only has 2 things to ponder: Old Sparky or the Big Drip in the Sky. I hope he choses to ride the lightning bolt out of here. It should be painful to be both evil and stupid.  The links below include an interview with News and Messenger reporter Uriah Kiser when he thought the Powell execution was a go.  The News and Messenger has an excellent timeline.

Links

Stay of Execution

Background from News and Messenger   (U. Kiser)
UPDATE FROM MANASSAS NEWS AND MESSENGER

Today the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission which overturned a hundred years of campaign finance laws, including part of the McCain FeingoldAct.  Corporations and Unions can now spend money directly on the support of candidates.  According to Michael Waldman of the Washington Post:

This far-reaching ruling augurs a significant power struggle. For the first time since 1937, an increasingly conservative federal judiciary faces a progressive and activist Congress and president. Until now, it was unclear how the justices would accommodate the new political alignment. The Citizens United decision suggests an assertive court, eager to overturn precedent, looming as a challenge to President Obama’s agenda.

The Atlantic explains the decision:

Justice Kennedy, in the majority opinion, reasoned that the government can’t discriminate against speakers based on their corporate identities, and that “all speakers, including individuals and the media, use money amassed from the economic marketplace to fund their speech, and the First Amendment protects the resulting speech.”

This basically eliminates a middleman: before today, corporations and unions had to set up PACs (political action committees), filed separately with the IRS, that would receive donations. And they did. Corporations and unions spend millions of dollars on elections. Now, however, the accounting firewall is gone, and Wal-Mart or the Service Employees International Union, for instance, can spend their corporate/union money directly on candidates.

 

 
Read more…

Today the Supreme Court heard the case of the Desert Cross. Some background: In 1934, some veterans of WWI got together and erected a cross, made of white metal pipes, in the Mojave Desert. The desert has since become national park land. The cross has been covered up as a result of the court cases. An older couple kept the cross up for the now deceased vets. According to the Washington Post:

In 1934, veterans erected a cross on a rock in a remote part of the Mojave Desert on what is now national park land — and for the next 65 years, pretty much nobody but the odd rattlesnake noticed. But over the past decade, this 6 1/2 -foot-high cross, made from four-inch white metal pipe, has become the subject of no fewer than four acts of Congress, two district court rulings, three appellate court actions — and Wednesday, arguments before the nine justices of the Supreme Court.

The case was heard and gave an opportunity for Justice Anthony Scalia and Attorney Peter Eliasberg of the American Civil Liberties Union to get in the proverbial pissing contest with each other. It went something like this:

“The cross doesn’t honor non-Christians who fought in the war?” the Catholic justice asked with incredulity.

“I believe that’s actually correct,” said Peter Eliasberg of the American Civil Liberties Union, the son and grandson of Jewish war Pveterans.

“Where does it say that?” Scalia demanded to know.

“It doesn’t say that,” Eliasberg admitted, “but a cross is the predominant symbol of Christianity, and it signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins.”

This news enraged Scalia. “The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of the dead,” he declared. “What would you have them erect . . . some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David, and you know, a Muslim half-moon and star?”

“The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians,” Eliasberg corrected. “I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew.”

The audience laughed. “I think that’s an outrageous conclusion,” Scalia hissed

.

I am embarrassed for Justice Scalia. How ….unseemly.

How will the case be settled? Will the cross have to taken down? After all, it is out in the middle of nowhere, erected by men who are now dead; to honor those who died over 80 years ago, in a war barely remembered. Who is it hurting? Does it show state supported religion? What of the crosses on tombstones in federal cemetaries here and abroad?

Solutions have been suggested. One that seems to make the most sense is to give the land the cross is erected on to the Veterans of Foreign Wars and let them put the cross back up. That works. Or we could not worry about a lone cross, honoring soldiers from a century ago. Sometimes we just have to suck it up and not be so ‘correct.’

More background information

Washington Post: Court Wades Shallowly Into Church and State

The Supreme Court reconvenes on Monday after summer recess. To mark this occassion, C-Span will air its documentary The Supreme Court: Home to America’s Highest Court giving us an inside look at internal workings of the US Supreme Court.

According to the Washington Post:

Supreme fanatics will learn something new here about justices’ chambers and the busts, interior artwork and exterior features of the 1935 court building.

Most interesting, this marks the first time that all the current and retired justices (including Sandra Day O’Connor, David Souter and newcomer Sonia Sotomayor) have given individual interviews on camera for the same film. If nothing else, it’s rare to see some of them move and speak up close. (Longer individual interviews will be aired later in the week, and full transcripts, natch, will go up on C-SPAN’s Web site.)

That the justices say almost nothing revealing and stick squarely to their respect and reverence for the job is fine with me, as is the fact that you’d have to go to a funeral home to find a more hushed edifice. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg most giddily shows off the hallowed halls. There is discussion of pecking order and chamber offices that face street protesters and offices that don’t. There is the never-before-filmed robing room, where one treats one’s colleagues with utmost kindness and respect, even when “you may be temporarily miffed because you received a spicy dissenting opinion,” she says.

The show airs at 9 pm Sunday night for 90 minutes on CSPAN. Sunday night is getting some better TV for those willing to leave the standard networks.