Supreme Court Mixes Law with Cyanide

Supreme Court Mixes Law with Cyanide
By Alton H. Maddox,

The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Roper v. Simmons on October 13. The question addressed was whether the execution of 16 and 17 year olds amount to violations of the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. Missouri’s highest court answered the question in the affirmative. Children, like the mentally retarded, are unable to assist satisfactorily in their defenses and are unable to comprehend the proceedings.
Capital punishment, throughout the world, is unavailable to juvenile proceedings. The world’s greatest democracy stands alone in allowing for the execution of children. If the Supreme Court takes the same approach that it pursued in Lawrence v. Texas by giving deference to international law, the outcome in Roper would be to invalidate laws allowing for the execution of children.
The mere fact that the Supreme Court granted writ of certiorari in Roper after deciding Atkins v. Virginia suggests that the Court may facially want to bring the United States into the Twenty-first Century. Atkins held that the execution of mentally retarded persons constituted “cruel and unusual” punishment and violative of the Eighth Amendment. The Missouri Supreme Court equated the mindset of a juvenile with a mentally retarded person.
It is not obligatory that the Supreme Court review a case notwithstanding glaring constitutional errors in the record. The Supreme Court is a political forum and renders political decisions. Fifteen years ago in Stanford v. Kentucky, the Supreme Court approved the execution of 16-year-old offenders but banned the execution of a juvenile 15 years old or younger.
In 1986, the Supreme Court had an opportunity to invalidate Georgia’s anti-sodomy law but refused to extend the constitutional right of privacy to consensual homosexual sodomy. Seventeen years later, the Supreme Court, in Bowers v. Hardwick, reversed itself in Lawrence v. Texas by giving great deference, inter alia, to international law. Stare decisis usually extends the life expectancy of a case well beyond seventeen years.
While the Supreme Court may very well reverse itself on sanctioning the execution of juveniles, it may reach the right conclusion by applying the wrong premise. Stanford and Atkins are bottomed on the notion that state legislatures should be given great deference in resolving a constitutional issue. This is a back door approach to elevating states’ rights over federalism.
For example, the Supreme Court found in Atkins that most state legislatures condemned the execution of mentally retarded defendants. Currently, most states either prohibit the execution or any convicted defendant or prohibit the execution of a juvenile under 18 years of age. This constitutes a majority of the states and, under Atkins, constitutes a national consensus.
The national consensus rationale ignores a larger issue; that is; if a juvenile is capable of assisting in his or her defense and is capable of understanding the nature of the legal proceedings, any ruling from the Supreme Court should be limited to Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment violations without a discussion of national consensus.
Courts should decide cases on narrow, constitutional grounds without giving a wink to public opinion. Any extended discussion should be viewed as dictum. A constitutional violation should not rest on the whims of the public. If that is the case, it means that the Supreme Court has abandoned its constitutional obligation and is now deciding political questions.
While a referendum is permissible in the legislative branch of government, the rights of “minorities” should not be decided by the whims of the majority. The Supreme Court is embarking on a course of action that will ultimately bring great harm to descendants of enslaved Africans.
Rather than discussing Supreme Court personnel, Black leaders should be complaining about the current direction of this Court and its deviation from constitutional obligations. If personnel is a concern, it should be extended to the entire federal judiciary.