Comments on: A Reasonable Top Court Ruling On An Unreasonable Sentencing Guideline

By: Megaman_X

Megaman_X — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:56:56 +0000

Thanks for the link, DLS. Good gravy! Samuel Alito is awful. And we're stuck with him for a generation. Bush has all but replaced the Supreme Court with his allies, and slowly but surely, Americans are becoming alarmed by it.

By: DLS

DLS — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 22:37:21 +0000

This page has links on it that will take you to the related documents.

By: bellisaurius

bellisaurius — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:30:46 +0000

I haven’t read the whole dissent, but if that was the center of its reasoning; it was pretty disingenuous. I’m a fan of limiting judicial overreach, but this isn’t one of those cases. Coke and crack should have roughly similar sentnecing guidelines (either upwards or downwards) since they’re roughly similar drugs.

By: Shaun Mullen

Shaun Mullen — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:21:09 +0000

Bellisarius:

I was updating the post with the Thomas-Alito dissent as you left your comment.

You are correct all around, although I once again find it incredibly lame that any justices, let alone the ever reliable Thomas, would dissent on the basis that, in this instance, there would have to be a new sentencing system because (my words) the present system is so abjectly biased.

By: bellisaurius

bellisaurius — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:14:25 +0000

Thomas and Alito in the dissent, on the grounds that they think the court will have to establish a new sentencing system, ie a legislative duty.

On the other hand, it doesn;t seem to get mentioned a lot, but scalia can often be quite liberal in criminal issues. As those don;t usually get most of the headlines, I guess his liberal side will have to go with O W holmes conservative side (which Mencken addressed way back when).