Faulty investigation leads to execution

The problem is this isn't a judicial issue. It's a legislative one. When you rely on the courts to make the laws, or in this case, put a good housekeeping of approval on the law, this is what you get. You don't just get the judicial activism that you 'actually' like, from the judges whose politics agree with yours (justice shouldn't be politicized). You get the stuff that you don't like, too. There is nothing unconstitutional about the death penalty, unless you want to start parsing "cruel and unusual punishment." So the answer isn't to leave it to a judge (in modern-America, judges aren't judges; they are unelected legislators who follow their own agendas, not what the Constitution 'actually' says). The answer, if the majority people think the death penalty is wrong (and unfortunately they don't) is to either get the Constitution amended or to have the people we elected (legislators) get rid of those death penalty laws. Scalia should never figure in the equation. But this is a reap what you sow thing; because of how ass-backward our courts have become.

 

I'm not sure he intended to mock anyone, but I agree it came off poorly. I am against the death penalty and don't see why anyone would be cavalier when it comes to people living or being put to death.

I think you realize, though, I was saying Antonin Scalia should be irrelevant in the discussion. He should be irrelevant in 99 percent of the discussions he is a part of. Antonin Scalia shouldn't be deciding affirmative action, abortion, the death penalty or whether a kid with drugs in his locker can stand on his head in front of a Christmas tree while drug-sniffing dogs bark at him. Neither should Stephen Breyer. We elect people for those things--which aren't even remotely touched on in the Constitution--but the courts have become second legislatures. Unelected ones.

Most of the stuff that goes before the Supreme Court today isn't remotely addressed by the Constitution. But we have nine justices with social agendas making up BS to rationalize the laws they make from the bench. In many ways, they are more powerful as legislators than our elected Congressmen are. They can't point to this amendment or that amendment in many decisions anymore, and most of the time, they don't bother to even try to ground what they do in the actual Constitution. No one forces them to.

It's how ass-backward we became at some point last century, that we turned the judiciary into an unelected legislature because people didn't like the laws the actual legislatures (from the people we elected to represent us) were giving us. Instead of addressing it as a legislative issue, though, they created the mess we have today. Once you opened the barn door, the horses got out. And along with the judicial activism you might actually like, you now have to accept the judicial activism (Scalia's brand) you don't like.

Justice isn't justice or upholding the actual Constitution. It's politics and social agendas and judges having more power than elected legislators. Throw checks and balances out. It is one way our country has gotten slightly derailed.