According to reports, Chief Justice John Roberts is resting comfortably following yesterday's seizure. At this point, there is no additional information as to the cause of the "benign idiopathic seizure" which led to his hospitalization yesterday.

I did encounter some interesting information as I perused various articles.

Take this from the New York Times' excellent Supreme Court reporter, Linda Greenhouse.

In an interview on Monday evening, Dr. David J. Langer, the director of cerebrovascular neurosurgery at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt, Beth Israel and Long Island College Hospital, said that medical care after such a seizure should include “a good M.R.I., CAT scan and EEG.” All these tests are available at the Penobscot Bay Medical Center, according to the hospital’s Web site.

“But the chances they’ll find anything and be able to do anything about it are pretty low,” said Dr. Langer, who is also an assistant professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University.

“In the majority of seizures you see no anatomical cause,” he said. Such a cause could be a tumor, bleeding in the brain, a clogged blood vessel or an injury.

Dr. Langer said it could be difficult for doctors to decide whether the chief justice, who at 52 is the youngest member of the court, should start taking medications, which Dr. Langer said “have significant side effects.” Chief Justice Roberts appears otherwise healthy and is not known to have any chronic medical problems.

In other words, given that the Chief Justice has had only two seizures and they are nearly 15 years apart, there is some disagreement as to whether or not the medications are really necessary. The "significant side effects" comment strikes me as a bit of over-kill, though, as I have worked with a number of colleagues with epilepsy over the year and have known only one to have exhibited major side effects from the medication. After all, most long-term medications (such as my diabetes and blood pressure medications) do have significant side effects, but not for all (or even a majority of) patients.

Indeed, the disagreement over how to classify and treat Roberts' seizures (if ongoing treatment is necessary) is highlighted later in the article.

Dr. John W. Miller, a professor of neurology and director of the University of WashingtonÂ’s regional epilepsy center in Seattle, said that anyone who had more than one seizure, no matter how many years apart, should be classified as having epilepsy.

Based on news accounts, Dr. Miller said, Chief Justice Roberts’s epilepsy would be categorized as “cryptogenic,” meaning that there is presumably a cause but that doctors cannot identify it.

Statistically, he said, it is “extremely unlikely” that this seizure represents a brain tumor. Fewer than 5 percent of those with recurrent seizures have brain tumors as a cause, and a very slowly progressing brain tumor would be rare.

However, as pointed out in an email to me last night, even if one presumes (as Dr. Miller does) that the Chief Justice can legitimately be diagnosed as having epilepsy, that does not necessarily indicate mental illness or intellectual incapacity. After all, the following modern individuals are known to have suffered from epilepsy.

Despite the stigma, many famous people have suffered from the disorder and excelled in spite of it. They include:

* Bud Abbott, American comedian of Abbott and Costello fame
* Richard Burton, Welsh actor
* Truman Capote, American author
* Lewis Carroll, English author and mathematician
* Dante Alighieri, Italian author
* Charles Dickens, English author
* Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian author
* Danny Glover, American actor
* Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter
* Margaux Hemingway, American actress, granddaughter of author Ernest Hemingway
* Elton John, English pop singer
* James Madison, fourth U.S. president
* Guy de Maupassant, French author
* Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist, engineer and founder of the Nobel Prize awards
* Niccolo Paganini, Italian violinist
* Peter the Great, Russian czar
* Edgar Allen Poe, American author
* Neil Young, Canadian rock musician
* Jonathan Swift, English author
* Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer
* Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet
* Lord Byron, English poet

There are some truly great and creative minds on that list -- including the man often described as the Father of the Constitution. Given Roberts' lifelong fidelity to that document, I think that he is in excellent company.

There are, of course, other figures who some historians speculate also had epilepsy, though time and the tenuousness of evidence makes classifying these individuals less certain.

Some historical researchers believe there is evidence to suggest that the following famous figures may have also suffered from seizure disorders:

* Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia
* Aristotle, Greek philosopher/scientist
* Napoleon Bonaparte, French general/emperor
* Buddha, founder of Buddhism
* Julius Caesar, Roman emperor
* Hannibal, Carthaginian general
* Michelangelo, Italian painter/sculptor
* Mohammed, prophet of Islam
* Sir Isaac Newton, British mathematician
* Pythagoras, Greek mathematician
* Saint Paul the Apostle, a father of the early Catholic Church
* Socrates, Greek philosopher
* Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect and engineer

All are known to have suffered from some sort of seizures at some time, as reported by historical documents. While I might not agree with every classification, it is again pretty clear that a history of seizures is not a bar to success in life. That should demonstrate that this incident is not necessarily a prelude to the Chief Justice's retirement from public life. As I said last night, there is nothing in this incident that should be seen as barring his remaining on the court for another three decades or so.

A second point that I feel needs to be brought up is the earlier seizure. Folks speculated that it was hidden from the administration and from senators at the time of his confirmation hearings. That issue can be definitively laid to rest.

Newsweek reported in November 2005 that Roberts suffered a seizure in January 1993 while golfing. "It was stunning and out of the blue and inexplicable," Larry Robbins, a Justice Department colleague, told the magazine. Robbins said Roberts was not allowed to drive for several months after the seizure and took the bus to work. The magazine quoted a senior White House aide as describing the episode as an "isolated, idiosyncratic seizure."

There is no record of any discussion of the 1993 seizure or of Roberts's health in general during his confirmation hearings. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who chaired the hearings, told CNN on Monday night that senators were told about the previous episode but did not find it serious enough to ask Roberts about. Roberts has no known history of major illness.

Senators knew about the 1993 seizure, but absent any other history of seizures found it to be unimportant. Those seeking to disqualify Roberts based upon the incident (or upon a presumptive diagnosis of epilepsy arising from this incident) find themselves in the position of arguing that the Senate should have considered (or should today consider) an issue that private employers are forbidden to consider -- a real or perceived disability on the part of a candidate for a job. And since there is nothing inherent in epilepsy that would preclude the Chief Justice fully and effectively doing his job, it strikes me that they are seeking to create an ideology exception to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

And again, as I noted yesterday, the level of hatred being spewed by liberal sites deemed "mainstream" among Democrats is pretty frightening. When Bill Clinton fell ill during the 2004 presidential election, we on the right offered prayers and best wishes, despite our previous opposition to the former President and our general dislike of his wife. Contrasted with the comments found on Democratic Underground, DailyKos, and other sites of that ilk. I won't drive them traffic, though, so no links from me.

UPDATE: Chief Justice Roberts has been released from the hospital and says he is doing well.

H/T Malkin, Ace, Bill's Bites, Volokh, Volunteer Opinion Journal, Texas Rainmaker

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Posted by: Greg at 01:58 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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This report is disturbing, but not necessarily a sign that the Chief Justice will need to leave the bench any time in the next three decades.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., a seasonal resident of Hupper Island, located off Port Clyde, will be staying overnight at Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport following a seizure.

St. George Ambulance responded to a call at about 2 p.m. Monday of a man who had fallen 5 to 10 feet and landed on a dock, hitting the back of his head. The patient was ashen and was foaming at the mouth. National news report quotes a Supreme Court spokeswoman as saying that Roberts was conscious the entire time of the incident. That spokeswoman has not returned a telephone call to the newspaper.

PBMC issued a statement at about 7 p.m., saying that Roberts was being kept overnight as a precaution and was recovered. He suffered some minor scrapes from the fall, the hospital stated. A comprehensive neurological examination was administered to the chief justice and the seizure was determined to be a benign one, the hospital stated. The chief justice suffered a similar seizure in 1993.

According to a Supreme Court spokesperson, Roberts is fine.

Arberg said Roberts suffered "a benign, idiopathic seizure," medical terminology for an attack whose origin is unknown. She said Roberts suffered a similar episode in 1993.

Seizures are any "sudden, abnormal electrical activity" in the brain, according to background information posted online by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health.

While some seizures are focused in one part of the brain, government researchers note, others can be generalized. Not all seizures involve convulsions.

"Most seizures last from 30 seconds to two minutes and do not cause lasting harm," the Institute said. "However, it is a medical emergency if seizures last longer than 5 minutes or if a person has many seizures and does not wake up between them."

While seizures can be the result of a brain disorder such as epilepsy, the Institute notes they can also be a consequence of fevers, head injuries or even medication side effects.

Let's consider the term used -- benign idiopathic seizure. It indicates that it is an incident that caused no significant harm to the Chief Justice and does not seem to be related to any underlying medical condition. It may yet turn out to be caused by any number of relatively trivial circumstances, including low electrolytes or a reaction to a flashing light source. Based upon the initial diagnosis, there is no reason to believe that the Chief Justice should not be able to return to his duties at full strength by the end of the summer recess -- or that he won't be able to resume his normal schedule by the weekend, for that matter.

The Leftard-sphere has reacted with its usual level of (no) class and (no) decency, and I've already seen posts and comments hoping that he is incapacitated, dies, and "damned to Hell". I won't drive any traffic their way.

Decent Americans (or all political stripes) send their prayers and/or best wishes for the Chief Justice and his family.

H/T Malkin, Ace, Bill's Bites,

Posted by: Greg at 12:07 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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Take this one, for example.

Fewer See Balance in Court's Decisions

Sounds bad, until you read the actual story.

About half of the public thinks the Supreme Court is generally balanced in its decisions, but a growing number of Americans say the court has become "too conservative" in the two years since President Bush began nominating justices, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Nearly a third of the public -- 31 percent -- thinks the court is too far to the right, a noticeable jump since the question was last asked in July 2005. That's when Bush nominated John G. Roberts Jr. to the court and, in the six-month period that followed, the Senate approved Roberts as chief justice and confirmed Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

In other words, 7 in 10 Americans believe the Supreme Court is either in balance or too liberal -- but that isn't what the media wants to focus on. Instead, they focus on the Americans of a liberal bent -- and even then can find less than 1/3 of the public who find the High Court to be too conservative. Indeed, with roughly half the public finding the court to be just about right, it strikes me that we need to ensure that the Court does more of what it has done this term.

And while the story notes that the public disagrees with the school desegregation decision handed down at the end of the term, I'm not surprised. After all, the media generally presented the story as a setback for civil rights rather than the step forward towards non-discrimination that it really was. The majority explicitly upheld Brown v. Board of Education's central holding -- that assigning students to school based upon their race is a violation of the Constitution. Given teh misreporting of the story by the press, it is no wonder that the American public is misinformed about that decision -- and I firmly believe that the public would agree with the holding if they wee presented with the truth.

Posted by: Greg at 11:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Like this is going to help the guy's case when it is presented to a jury.

A satanist on trial for allegedly killing and dismembering another man, then eating portions of the body, may wear his full religious regalia when he defends himself in court, a Florida judge has ruled.

The prosecutor in the case, Assistant State Attorney Herbert E. Walker III, told WND the motion was brought by Lazaro Galindo, who is on trial for the 2000 death of Argelio Gonzalez.

It was approved by trial Judge Peter Adrien.

Walker said he did not object to the request, because Galindo cited recent decisions that have allowed Islam into U.S. courtrooms for Muslim faithful, and he didn't want to set up a circumstance that could result in grounds for an appeal if Galindo is convicted.

This strikes me as a particularly dumb move -- after all, it is likely to give teh jury a bad impression of a guy charged with murdering a man and then eating parts of his victim. But then again, maybe that is the idea -- seek to get off on the argument that he cannot get a fair trial because people are inherently biased against cannibalistic devil-worshipers.

Posted by: Greg at 02:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Shades of FDR!

Still, there is nothing sacrosanct about having nine justices on the Supreme Court. RooseveltÂ’s 1937 chicanery has given court-packing a bad name, but it is a hallowed American political tradition participated in by Republicans and Democrats alike.

If the current five-man majority persists in thumbing its nose at popular values, the election of a Democratic president and Congress could provide a corrective. It requires only a majority vote in both houses to add a justice or two. Chief Justice John Roberts and his conservative colleagues might do well to bear in mind that the roll call of presidents who have used this option includes not just Roosevelt but also Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln and Grant.

So let's get something clear on this one -- if the Supreme Court continues to issue well-reasoned opinions backed with Constitutionally-sound principles, it should be overthrown in the interest of assuring politically popular decisions instead. Now tell me -- who then is adopting "a manifestly ideological agenda, [that] plunges the court into the vortex of American politics" -- the justices or those seeking to overturn justice via the political process.

Oh, and interestingly enough, at no point does the author cite a single decision this term that was manifestly incorrect -- or even one that he views as decided based upon political ideology rather than the law. But he still appears to want to make the Supreme Court a branch politically subservient to the whims of the Democrats by adding seats and packing the bench after a presumed victory by the Democrats in 2008.

Posted by: Greg at 01:34 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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After all, the gun law struck down in the District basically made it a crime for a mere serf citizen to keep or bear arms in the District of Columbia. Now the mayor has announced plans to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court.

The District will ask the Supreme Court to uphold its strict 30-year handgun ban, setting up what legal experts said could be a test of the Second Amendment with broad ramifications.

The high court has not ruled on the Second Amendment protection of the right to keep and bear arms since 1939. But at a morning news conference yesterday, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and Attorney General Linda Singer said they expect the court to hear a case they called crucial to public safety.

In a 2 to 1 decision in March, a panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the city's prohibition against residents keeping handguns in their homes is unconstitutional. In May, the full appeals court declined a petition from the city to reconsider the panel's decision.

Some gun control advocates have cautioned that a defeat in the Supreme Court could lead to tough gun laws being overturned in major cities, including New York, Chicago and Detroit. Fenty said the District had no choice but to fight because more guns in homes could lead to increases in violent crime and deadly accidents.

"The handgun ban has saved many lives and will continue to do so if it remains in effect," Fenty said. "Wherever I go, the response from the residents is, 'Mayor Fenty, you've got to fight this all the way to the Supreme Court.' "

You know, the data shows Fenty's argument to be false. Crime drops where the law-abiding are free to exercise their rights under the Second Amendment -- and criminals, of course, are strangely disinclined to follow gun bans.

Interestingly enough, if one looks at the words of the Founders on the right to keep and bear arms, there should be no question as to the meaning of the Second Amendment -- or its purpose. And indeed, a hard-and-fast ruling that there is no right for the people to keep and bear arms in the amendment guaranteeing that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged" might well be a good reason to implement that purpose.

Posted by: Greg at 12:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I understand that the accused has a right to a fair trial -- but for a court to order that the terms "rape" and 'sexual assault" not be used during the course of a trial on sexual assault charges is beyond absurd -- it makes it absolutely impossible to discuss the events that led to the charges. And since the victim wouldn't consent to this travesty of justice, the judge has declared a mistrial in the case.

A Lancaster County district judge has declared a mistrial in a sex-assault case in which he had barred the words "rape" and "victim" among others, and both the defense and alleged victim are asking for a shot at a fair trial.

Judge Jeffre Cheuvront said publicity surrounding the rape case against Pamir Safi, 33, would have made it too difficult for jurors to render an impartial verdict.

The mistrial came a day after Cheuvront deemed that the alleged victim in the case would not have to sign his order barring witnesses from certain words. The judge had warned Tory Bowen, 24, at a hearing on Wednesday that he would have little patience if she used the forbidden language when testifying against Safi.

Among the words and phrases Cheuvront barred were: rape, victim, assailant and sex-assault kit.

I'm sorry, but banning such words and phrases would have made it utterly impossible to actually discuss the events in question and the evidence int he case. As it was, the judge had indicated he might jail the victim if she did not abide by his order -- but instead he decided to rape her (and Lady Justice) again by declaring a mistrial due to what he described as too much publicity and attempts to intimidate the court brought about by those who objected to the order -- including the victim, who refused to stay silent.

Even more despicable is the response of the defendant and his shyster, who had previously attempted to ban the Tory Bowen from testifying about the events that led to the charges in the first place.

"The problem this creates, of course, is the taxpayers of Lancaster County are going to carry the burden for this misconduct," said Safi's attorney, Clarence Mock. "All Mr. Safi wanted was an opportunity to have was a fair trial in front of an impartial jury, and due to the misconduct -- reprehensible conduct -- of the complaining witness and her supporters, he was deprived of that opportunity."

The reprehensible conduct of the complaining witness? What reprehensible conduct? Demanding to be able to actually say what happened to her on the night in question? Demanding the opportunity to be heard by a jury without these absurd censorship rules put in place by a judge who clearly seems more sympathetic to rapists than their victims?

I don't know about you, but it appears that Judge Jeffre Cheuvont needs to be removed from the bench in the most expeditious manner possible -- or at least reassigned to hearing nothing more serious than parking tickets.

Posted by: Greg at 12:19 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, other than being the first woman on the Supreme Court.

As one begins to consider whether O'Connor might be left with no similarly enduring achievements, it's worth pointing out that some part of this may well be of her own doing: Even at the height of her influence at the high court, O'Connor's critics tended to deride her constitutional stylings as closer to Muzak than Mozart. Justice Antonin Scalia once famously wrote that her argument in an abortion case "cannot be taken seriously." And her many critics often pointed to the lack of real rigor in her "undue burden" test for abortion restrictions; her "reasonable observer" test for whether the government has "endorsed" religion; or her "someday my prince will come" test for when affirmative action programs might become unnecessary in the future.

That's why Charles Krauthammer once wrote of O'Connor that "she had not so much a judicial philosophy as a social philosophy. Unlike a principled conservative such as Antonin Scalia, or a principled liberal such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, O'Connor had no stable ideas about constitutional interpretation." Buried in this criticism was the implication that her legal framework would go easily, once she was replaced by someone with a "serious" constitutional theory. Samuel Alito, her successor, is probably that someone, at least from Krauthammer's point of view. Certainly no one would suggest calling him a "moderate," a "pragmatist," or a "common-law judge." Alito has an agenda far broader than O'Connor's one-case-at-a-time approach. It's hardly surprising that he has not taken up where she left off.

It isn't just her replacement by a more conservative justice. it is that there was never any coherence in her jurisprudence. Constantly trying to split the difference, her positions were often ad hoc compromises that were difficult to apply in real world settings. Indeed, her opinions really offered no more Constitutional clarity than Potter Stewart's "I know it when I see it" standard on obscenity. As such, the latter years of her time as a justice will likely be remembered as an interregnum during which there was little, if any, certainty on Constitutional matters, and even fewer principled decisions enunciated.

Posted by: Greg at 04:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The decision against counter-terrorism surveillance of telephone calls from outside the US has been struck down.

It really isn't a surprise, both in terms of the standing issue and the precedents in the case.

After all, a Carter-era case supports warrantless searches and surveillance for national security purposes, and holds it to be an inherent presidential power. In 1980, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in United States v. Truong Dinh Hung (629 F.2d 90 , that the President did possess the authority to conduct such searches (and, by inference, wiretaps) without a warrant.

Perhaps most crucially, the executive branch not only has superior expertise in the area of foreign intelligence, it is also constitutionally designated as the pre-eminent authority in foreign affairs. . . .The President and his deputies are charged by the constitution with the conduct of the foreign policy of the United States in times of war and peace. See United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 57 S. Ct. 216, 81 L. Ed. 255 (1936). Just as the separation of powers in Keith forced the executive to recognize a judicial role when the President conducts domestic security surveillance, 407 U.S. at 316-18, 92 S. Ct. at 2136-2137, so the separation of powers requires us to acknowledge the principal responsibility of the President for foreign affairs and concomitantly for foreign intelligence surveillance.

In sum, because of the need of the executive branch for flexibility, its practical experience, and its constitutional competence, the courts should not require the executive to secure a warrant each time it conducts foreign intelligence surveillance.

Similarly, so did the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review noted in In re: Sealed Case No. 02-001 (310 F.3d 717).

The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. It was incumbent upon the court, therefore, to determine the boundaries of that constitutional authority in the case before it. We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power.

And, as noted by one former federal prosecutor, there are a couple of dozen of examples of situations in which warrantless searches of American citizens have been upheld by various courts, up to and including the US Supreme Court.

Detain American citizens for investigative purposes without a warrant;

Arrest American citizens, based on probable cause, without a warrant;

Conduct a warrantless search of the person of an American citizen who has been detained, with or without a warrant;

Conduct a warrantless search of the home of an American citizen in order to secure the premises while a warrant is being obtained;

Conduct a warrantless search of, and seize, items belonging to American citizens that are displayed in plain view and that are obviously criminal or dangerous in nature;

Conduct a warrantless search of anything belonging to an American citizen under exigent circumstances if considerations of public safety make obtaining a warrant impractical;

Conduct a warrantless search of an American citizen's home and belongings if another person, who has apparent authority over the premises, consents;

Conduct a warrantless search of an American citizen's car anytime there is probable cause to believe it contains contraband or any evidence of a crime;

Conduct a warrantless search of any closed container inside the car of an American citizen if there is probable cause to search the car — regardless of whether there is probable cause to search the container itself;

Conduct a warrantless search of any property apparently abandoned by an American citizen;

Conduct a warrantless search of any property of an American citizen that has lawfully been seized in order to create an inventory and protect police from potential hazards or civil claims;

Conduct a warrantless search — including a strip search — at the border of any American citizen entering or leaving the United States;

Conduct a warrantless search at the border of the baggage and other property of any American citizen entering or leaving the United States;

Conduct a warrantless search of any American citizen seeking to enter a public building;

Conduct a warrantless search of random Americans at police checkpoints established for public-safety purposes (such as to detect and discourage drunk driving);

Conduct warrantless monitoring of common areas frequented by American citizens;

Conduct warrantless searches of American citizens and their vessels on the high seas;

Conduct warrantless monitoring of any telephone call or conversation of an American citizen as long as one participant in the conversation has consented to the monitoring;

Conduct warrantless searches of junkyards maintained by American citizens;

Conduct warrantless searches of docks maintained by American citizens;

Conduct warrantless searches of bars or nightclubs owned by American citizens to police underage drinking;

Conduct warrantless searches of auto-repair shops operated by American citizens;

Conduct warrantless searches of the books of American gem dealers in order to discourage traffic in stolen goods;

Conduct warrantless drug screening of American citizens working in government, emergency services, the transportation industry, and nuclear plants;

Conduct warrantless drug screening of American citizens who are school officials;

Conduct warrantless drug screening of American citizens who are school students;

Conduct warrantless searches of American citizens who are on bail, probation or parole.

And those are cases of warrantless searches and detentions of Americans that are directed at Americans -- not cases in which the words of Americans are incidentally intercepted in the course of monitoring foreign communications not covered by the protections of the US Constitution at all!

Posted by: Greg at 08:21 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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It looks like a lot of defendants, including this terrorist, are going to try to use the President's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence as justification for lowering their own.

An alleged Hamas operative is likely to be among the first criminal defendants to try to capitalize on President Bush's commutation of the 2 1/2 year prison sentence imposed on a former White House aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., for obstructing a CIA leak investigation. Mohammed Salah, 57, is scheduled to be sentenced by a federal judge in Chicago next week on one count of obstruction of justice. In February, a jury convicted Salah and a co-defendant, Abdelhaleem Ashqar, of obstruction, but acquitted the pair of a far more serious charge of racketeering conspiracy in support of Hamas's terrorist campaigns in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.

"What the president said about Mr. Libby applies in spades to the case of Mohammed Salah," Salah's defense attorney, Michael Deutsch, told The New York Sun yesterday. "We'll definitely be bringing it up to the judge. Â… It's going to be a real test, a first early test of whether we're a nation of laws or a nation of men."

Here's the problem with the argument advanced by the terrorist scumbag and his paid mouthpiece -- decisions in clemency cases are NOT a legal precedent, and DO NOT have the force of law. Indeed, a case of executive clemency is an action based upon the individual case and circumstance, not a general rule. It is an act of mercy in directed at correcting an individual injustice or recognizing individual merit.

However, there is one aspect of this case that troubles me -- and which troubles me every time it is used in justifying a sentence for someone convicted of a crime.

Despite Salah's acquittal on the racketeering charge, which could have carried a life sentence, prosecutors have asked Judge Amy St. Eve to find that the evidence presented at trial proved Salah was part of a terrorist conspiracy. "The jury did not find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant Salah committed racketeering conspiracy. The standard at sentencing, however, is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt," the prosecution wrote in a recent court filing.

Prosecutors have also asked the judge to consider a series of alleged offenses from the 1990s that Salah was never charged with, including bank fraud and perjury on behalf of a Hamas leader then facing deportation, Mousa abu Marzook. "To sentence Mr. Salah on the basis of non-relevant, stale, and acquitted conduct would most assuredly result in an unreasonable sentence and promote disrespect for the law," Mr. Deutsch said in papers filed with the court.

It strikes me that if the prosecution wants to have someone sentenced based upon criminal conduct, they should have to prove that conduct in court and get a conviction, not come back after obtaining a conviction on some other offense, even a related one, and demand that the sentence be based upon a crime with which that individual was never accused, against which he was never permitted to defend himself, and of which he had never been convicted. That strikes me as loading the dice too much in favor of the prosecution when the Bill of Rights makes it clear that an individual should not be punished for a crime of which he was not convicted.

Posted by: Greg at 03:49 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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When the white or the wealthy win, it is "Justice Denied" according to this editorial.

In the 1960s, Chief Justice Earl Warren presided over a Supreme Court that interpreted the Constitution in ways that protected the powerless — racial and religious minorities, consumers, students and criminal defendants. At the end of its first full term, Chief Justice John Roberts’s court is emerging as the Warren court’s mirror image. Time and again the court has ruled, almost always 5-4, in favor of corporations and powerful interests while slamming the courthouse door on individuals and ideals that truly need the court’s shelter.

* * *

It has been decades since the most privileged members of society — corporations, the wealthy, white people who want to attend school with other whites — have had such a successful Supreme Court term. Society’s have-nots were not the only losers. The basic ideals of American justice lost as well.

And when it comes right down to it, the decision cited -- some which I agree with, others which I do not -- don't really matter. What has the NY Times angry is that "corporations, the wealthy, [and] white people" won in them. Never mind that those decisions all had solid legal and/or Constituitonal reasoning to support them -- the NY Times does not like who won, so they cannot be legitimate. Indeed, it would appear that the editors believe that Lady Justice should rip off her blindfold and put her thumb on the scale to ensure that "corporations, the wealthy, [and] white people" even if the law and the Constitution are on their side.

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Posted by: Greg at 03:14 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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