The First Amendment is on our mind what with the recent revelation that Justice Thomas is spoiling to lay originalist intent to the US Supreme Court's landmark Sullivan decision on libel. Stare decisis and precedent are to be respected, especially by judges who are the anthesis of activist Judges like conservative Justice Thomas...except when his ox is gored on libel or abortion. Then it's RBG bar the door! To that end, we publish our own Judge Zilber's recent First Amendment order. And we note this- when it's neighbor vs. neighbor in a condo dispute, then get us some popcorn and a ring side seat because it's gonna be a blast to watch.
In early 1862, President Lincoln was
deluged with requests for the pardon of Nathaniel Gordon, an American sea
captain who was scheduled to be hanged on Feb. 7 of that year. Gordon was a slave trader, and had been
arrested by the navy while at sea with a cargo of between 800 and 900 Africans
bound for sale in Cuba or Brazil. In the
four decades since the U.S. had outlawed the international slave trade, many
such smugglers had been captured, some tried and convicted; but none had ever
faced the extreme penalty called for by the law.
Lincoln
agonized over his decision. “You do not
know how hard it is to have a human being die when you know that a stroke of
your pen may save him,” he explained to a friend. On Feb. 4, the president entered an order
granting Gordon, not a pardon or commutation, but a respite. Noting that the many “application[s] made for
the commutation of his sentence may have prevented the said Nathaniel Gordon
from making the necessary preparation for the awful change which awaits him,”
Lincoln reset the date of execution to Feb. 21.
“In granting this respite, it becomes my painful duty to admonish the
prisoner that, relinquishing all expectation of pardon by Human Authority, he
refer himself alone to the mercy of the Common God and Father of all men.” Replying to one of the many petitioners on
Gordon’s behalf, Lincoln explained:
I believe I am kindly enough in nature, and can be
moved to pity and to pardon the perpetrator of almost the worst crime that the
mind of man can conceive or the arm of man can execute; but any man who, for
paltry gain and stimulated only by avarice, can rob Africa of her children to
sell into interminable bondage, I never will pardon.
On Feb.
21, 1862, Nathaniel Gordon became the only man in American history to be
executed for the crime of slave trading.
[Judge Zilber's order coming shortly]
5 comments:
Nathaniel Gordon could have been taken to Africa to be sold as a slave himself.
Rump
Since you're a first amendment guy, what's your take on roger stone and whether his post was cause for gagging.
One would think Robert Kraft would have enough money that he could afford not to have to go to a strip mall massage parlor and have a sex act performed on him by a young woman who is the victim of sex trafficking; allegedly.
Police say they have secret videotape evidence of Kraft in the act. Hey Rumpole is this the definition of Karma for the Patriots secretly videotaping their opponents. Aka Spygate.
very odd to have a camera in a massage parlor. There is more to this than meets the eye. I see an acquittal or dismissal. Big time trial lawyers v. Little town uneducated cops. I will take the Lawyers -14 1/2.
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