tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post1946702435787671749..comments2024-03-18T22:54:23.759-04:00Comments on THE BLOG: THOMAS'S DISSENT IN GRAHAMRumpolehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08380575650255695462noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-35685149515308401052010-05-21T14:25:03.245-04:002010-05-21T14:25:03.245-04:00BTDT--I did give all the facts. 10:34 simply make...BTDT--I did give all the facts. 10:34 simply makes up facts to make the crime sound worse than it is. I got my facts directly out of the opinion. Nowhere is there any mention that there was any possibility that Graham himself hit the restaurant manager, both the majority and the dissent explicitly say it was the other kid he was with. Also nowhere does it say that they "left him for dead" or that he required "extensive stitches" or had "many injuries that make it hard to live day by day". It says "the restaurant manager required stitches for his head injury." The end. The other facts are supplied by 1034, I stand by my original post.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-41626621068262547752010-05-21T11:18:14.883-04:002010-05-21T11:18:14.883-04:00Great post, Rump. Good stuff.
You might enjoy ...Great post, Rump. Good stuff. <br /><br />You might enjoy the book "The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America." It briefly compares Thomas and Kennedy in a way similar to your thoughts here.<br /><br />Enjoyed the post.The Professornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-66569961388850135172010-05-20T10:50:56.356-04:002010-05-20T10:50:56.356-04:0010:34........didn't know that. Silly me for t...10:34........didn't know that. Silly me for thinking anonymous would give all the facts, lol. Knowing that, I would give him life in a second.<br /><br />BTDTAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-53703819980966971192010-05-19T22:34:19.620-04:002010-05-19T22:34:19.620-04:00BTDT - Not only was he on probation for robbery, t...BTDT - Not only was he on probation for robbery, the original case that led to probation was violent - he or his buds smashed the owner of the store over the head with a metal bar leaving him for dead - he needed extensive stiches and I am sure has many injuries that make it hard to live day by day.<br /><br />In cases like that I say drag in the parents and give them a 3rd degree misd charge just for being a bad parent. Sixty days in the slammer, and by george, we may get some parenting skills out of mom and dad.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-209929165163516762010-05-19T21:47:01.547-04:002010-05-19T21:47:01.547-04:00Rump, you make me so hot when you talk case law.Rump, you make me so hot when you talk case law.Napoleon Bonaparte Browardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-63050921640537122232010-05-19T20:33:06.654-04:002010-05-19T20:33:06.654-04:005:02.........I'm just curious.......do you hav...5:02.........I'm just curious.......do you have children? I have no trouble with the judge sentencing this defendant to life. To me, the case is much simpler than you suggest. The defendant was on probation for robbery. He and his buddies, six months into his probation, committed a home invasion robbery involving firearms. That same night, they committed a second robbery where a defendant was shot. <br /><br />Sorry, but I don't care what color he is, what color the judge is, etc. While I wouldn't have given a life sentence if I were the presiding judge (I would have given him a lot of time, but not life), I'm not sympathetic to someone who commits armed home invasion robberies while on probation for robbery. <br /><br />Regardless, the issue isn't whether he deserved life (would your argument be any different if he was 18 instead of 17?). The real issue is whether the judge's ruling was so unconscionable as to constitute cruel and unusual punishment. I say it wasn't.<br /><br />BTDTAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-66879781311525286602010-05-19T17:59:20.328-04:002010-05-19T17:59:20.328-04:00I want to correct my comment that at the time of t...I want to correct my comment that at the time of the Constitution were Graham in Jacksonville he would have been the property of another. FL was not part of the US at that time. However, once Jackson and the US conquered it, the Constitution and slavery were brought to FL concurrently.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-41315615201703099492010-05-19T17:02:19.802-04:002010-05-19T17:02:19.802-04:00In the first few pages of the Graham opinion it su...In the first few pages of the Graham opinion it summarizes his crimes. Its hard to understand how a unbiased observer could think he deserves life in prison. It says that when he was 16, he and another kid went into a BBQ restaurant through an unlocked back door. The other kid hit the manager in the head, causing an injury that "required stitches". They left and nothing was stolen. This is the case he was ultimately sentenced to life on. Initially, he was sentenced to a year in jail (which he'd already served) f/b probation, not a crazy-low sentence for such a case depending on victim's feelings and accounting for D's involvement and age. He violated his probation 6 mos later, when he was 17, by participating in a home invasion robbery. He went into the home w/ two 20 year olds. They all held the homeowners at gunpoint and searched for stuff to steal. Nobody was physically injured. Later that night apparently the three of them tried a second robbery, during which one of the co-defendants was shot (no further details as to this are in the opinion). At probation violation hearing, the bottom of the guidelines were 5 ysp, the PSI recommended a departure and a sentence of 4 ysp, and the state recommended 30 ysp. The judge sentenced him to life on the probation violation, it isn't clear what happened if anything with the new substantive cases. All of this happened in Jacksonville. The judge is white and the then-juvenile is black.<br /><br />It is hard for me to imagine that anyone who works in the system and sees how cases are typically handled would defend this as a fair result on the above facts. The only person ever injured was his co-defendant, and that doesn't appear to have been directly related to Graham. Even an adult with pages of priors would be extremely unlikely to get life on those facts, let alone a 17 year old kid. Intellectual defensibility of the Kennedy vs. Thomas' opinions aside, sometimes the system treats people unfairly and it is the job of appellate judges to remedy those mistakes. It certainly appears to me that they did so here.<br /><br />At the time the Constitution was written, were Graham in Jacksonville he would have there as the personal property of another man. The city is named for Andrew Jackson, a man who made his wealth as the owner of a cotton plantation that "employed" hundreds of slaves and the man who led the early 1800s war against the Seminole Indians (also not "men" in our Constitution) and whose chief claim to fame in Florida was taking it from the Spanish, in large part because it was being used as a refuge for runaway slaves. I find originalist, textualist arguments awfully hard to swallow when one looks at the text in relation to the world as it actually existed when our revered founders did the signing. On the other hand, the principles embodied in the Constitution have rightly inspired men and women around the world for over 200 years. I think Kennedy's opinion is in the best tradition of those principles.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-32063076385221483072010-05-19T16:19:25.221-04:002010-05-19T16:19:25.221-04:00Life is meant for the living. I can spend all the ...Life is meant for the living. I can spend all the time in the world striving to gauge what the intent of what people who are worm food or dust, once was, but that doesn't address our current problems.Toy Storynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-37072715522213578412010-05-19T15:48:44.924-04:002010-05-19T15:48:44.924-04:00I was really tired last night, when I wrote my 11:...I was really tired last night, when I wrote my 11:33pm post. The full thought I wanted to convey was: "He may come across [as] logical, but I'm going to side with the concern that 61 out of 77 juveniles are sentenced to [life in prison in] nonhomicides in counties other than Miami Dade or Broward."<br /><br />That's what I get for posting while falling asleep.<br /><br />And surprisingly Batman hit on the same sentiment I was trying to convey when I wrote: "Not sure what logic is or if I can define it, but 'I know it when I see it.'" I was borrowing from the Justice Stewart line about porn in Jacobellis v. Ohio.<br /><br />After all, when looking at the original intent of the Fourteenth Amendment, there was no way any Court would, following that intent, have ever thought to desegregate schools as the Brown decision was illogical. <br /><br />And by Thomas's remarks in Missouri v. Jenkins, he made it abundantly clear that Brown's use of "psychological or social-science research" was not logical. He acknowledges that de facto segregation is wrong, but how does that square with "adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."<br /><br />Not to mention with the Fourteenth Amendment, you have R. Conkling who came forth with an alleged copy of the manuscript of committee meetings that showed that the committee in drafting the amendment was more focused on using the 14th to protect big corporations from the states rather than minorities and how very rarely has it been used in cases to protect "other persons" but how hundreds of cases involving corporations invoked its power to protect the "corporate person." I had a dream that one day the subsidiaries of Philip Morris, Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Coca-Cola will play with the children of living human beings and that both will not be recognized by color of the currency in their banks, but the content of their character.<br /><br />Originalism pretends to be the voice of logic but it will twist itself too to fit the needs of those who would use it to reach the desired result. Scalia has long made the argument that many forms of judicial interpretation are flawed, but that original intent is the lesser of all the evils.<br /><br />Original schmidginal. I revel in my lack of sophistication and my legal simplicity. I remain unimpressed. Violation of probation for a home invasion robbery doesn't equal life in my book, period.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-13476746684857336602010-05-19T15:29:50.769-04:002010-05-19T15:29:50.769-04:00zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-73208683508497857702010-05-19T15:02:33.431-04:002010-05-19T15:02:33.431-04:00Kabuki?Kabuki?RFBnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-28449391667464340592010-05-19T14:54:04.494-04:002010-05-19T14:54:04.494-04:00Also a word for the day from the Foster opinion: ...Also a word for the day from the Foster opinion: LEGERDEMAINAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-77630684357193806962010-05-19T14:24:38.368-04:002010-05-19T14:24:38.368-04:00Adrien reversed again! Andrew Foster v. State, 3D0...Adrien reversed again! Andrew Foster v. State, 3D07-1893.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-56942337083347590262010-05-19T13:31:53.657-04:002010-05-19T13:31:53.657-04:00The matter should just simply be decided on what i...The matter should just simply be decided on what is or is not cruel or unusual punishment. Let's face it, what is cruel and unusual is no different that Potter Stewart's statment about pornography: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it ..."<br /><br />All of this throwing around of statistics, which we all know can be shaded and manipulated to say whatever we want them to say avoids the question of conscience. The idea that we can take a human being, who is not legally old enough to vote, drink or even serve in the military because of our legal system's belief that that any one under 18 (or even 21) is not sufficiently competent to do those things, and incarcerate him or her for life on the basis he or she is irredeeemable is ludicrous.<br /><br />Now, with that said, if you put a juvenile in an adult facility, he will grow up fast, tough and mean. In other words you may be creating the very thing you claim this child is. We have already warehoused an entire generation of young adults for serious crimes. All we do, by taking juvenilles and treating them the same, is start the process against the new generation a little bit earlier.Batmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13274624617697584555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-35908172910862653992010-05-19T13:28:12.097-04:002010-05-19T13:28:12.097-04:00Very thoughtful this morning rump. I agree. Cons...Very thoughtful this morning rump. I agree. Conservative dissents are often more compelling, because they are often disentangled with the harshness of a given result by allegiance to the neutral principle being applied. This case is a perfect example of that. One would agree with Thomas a lot more, however, if there was any confidence that political powers would not in fact sentence a 7 year old to life for a fifty dollar theft. Thomas would say even that is for legislative judgment. But who can possibly have any confidence in the legitimacy of that judgment, when it is usually so often just based on how tough and mighty a legislator can be. One would think that reason would come into play at some point. Given the current state of the country's political process, I unfortunately doubt it. I like you concur in the result of Kennedy's opinion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-88119465115779062342010-05-19T11:43:50.832-04:002010-05-19T11:43:50.832-04:00Yup. I agree with you Rump (though I disagree wit...Yup. I agree with you Rump (though I disagree with the outcome).<br /><br />BTDTAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-50662680382471355362010-05-19T09:41:13.864-04:002010-05-19T09:41:13.864-04:008th amendment jurisprudence has long recognize evo...8th amendment jurisprudence has long recognize evolving standards of decency...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-71688085507844038472010-05-19T08:52:37.345-04:002010-05-19T08:52:37.345-04:00But as a practical matter, life with parole does n...But as a practical matter, life with parole does not necessarily mean one will be released from prison.<br /><br />I have long believed that parole should be available in most cases, particularly nonviolent ones. However, it should not be automatic. An inmate should have to strongly prove that he/she DESERVES parole. What steps has the inmate taken to actually better him/herself while incarcerated? What does the inmate plan to do with his/her life when released? Why should the parole board believe that the inmate will not reoffend? You get the picture. If an inmate has not taken any constructive steps, no parole. Perhaps there should also be time in a halfway house for long-term inmates before possible parole. Parole should be a POSSIBLITY, not a GUARANTEE.<br /><br />As a case in point, Charles Manson is eligible for parole. Yet I would gladly bet everything I owned, plus every penny I could borrow, that he will never be paroled.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-4427556818867610402010-05-19T08:50:48.245-04:002010-05-19T08:50:48.245-04:00Remember, Thomas haters, he and Scalia were the tw...Remember, Thomas haters, he and Scalia were the two dissentes in the sex ofenders case who said the feds CANNOT lock up people after their sentences have expired. The rest of the court seemed pretty comfortable with the idea of lifetime incarceraton based on 'expert' testimony.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-1865020770790702182010-05-19T08:44:24.981-04:002010-05-19T08:44:24.981-04:00Having slept on it, I think this is the best - mos...Having slept on it, I think this is the best - most effective and powerful dissent I have read in a very long time. Again, I agree with the result of the majority, but they reached it in a very very poor way. Thomas nailed Kennedy but good.Rumpolehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08380575650255695462noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-45084555215970633522010-05-19T08:40:50.898-04:002010-05-19T08:40:50.898-04:00enough of this legal gobbledeegook!
more rumour-m...enough of this legal gobbledeegook! <br />more rumour-mongering!!!!Fake Catalanohttp://www.hillquest.com/images/GayMensChorusSD.jpgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-67924332229971048972010-05-19T07:33:13.109-04:002010-05-19T07:33:13.109-04:00Excellent and intellectually honest analysis Rump....Excellent and intellectually honest analysis Rump. Thanks.<br /><br />BTDTAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-34604539151599861282010-05-18T23:38:58.507-04:002010-05-18T23:38:58.507-04:00I find myself actually agreeing with Thomas on thi...I find myself actually agreeing with Thomas on this one. Here is the law school question that needs to be answered: for sentencing under this scheme, what's the difference between a juvi committing a 1st felony PBL one day short of his 18th birthday and another doing it on the day after he turns 18? Where does the majority's point that juvis don't appreciate their actions end up?<br /><br />Some juvis need life without parole. It wasn't cruel and unusual in the past, the type of offense hasn't changed, the victims are still victims, but an unelected branch has decided that it knows the national consensus on punishment is leniency is different despite the evidence of legislatures tightening sentencing policies.<br /><br />This stinks to high h***.Rambling Thoughts...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19039943.post-11137847159551221322010-05-18T23:33:11.809-04:002010-05-18T23:33:11.809-04:00Not sure what logic is or if I can define it, but ...Not sure what logic is or if I can define it, but "I know it when I see it."<br /><br />Thomas is scary to me. Period. He is earning his place in history at any cost. He'd probably slit your throat too, rape you and leave you for dead if it would advance his agenda.<br /><br />He may come across logical, but I'm going to side with the concern that 61 out of 77 juveniles are sentenced to nonhomicides in counties other than Miami Dade or Broward.<br /><br />The Legislature refuses to fund the justice system too. I'm sure Thomas would agree with that, since its within the Legislature's right to do so.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com