The Wee Weed Week In Review

“Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached”
– Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

You know, there’s a part waiting for him as Caiaphas in JC Superstar:

“We-need-him-cru-ci-fied-it’s-all-you-have-to-do…”

Liberals would have been going bat crap crazy if Bush had uttered this idiot statement. See if its mentioned on Page 1 of any liberal rag or MSNBC CNN CBS NPR.

Maybe we finally found out what that tingle up Chrissy Matthews leg was?

MS, could you please ask Slansky why the Jeremy Piven bullet links to a HuffingtonPost summary about TIME’s own 10 question article/video? If you’re gonna plug your own site, just do it, get rid of the middleman.

You’ve got to be freaking kidding me, do you really think using a word that his daughter could hear to describe the absolutely ridiculous childish behaviors with pissy media is a left right thing? clearly being wee weed is not!

Certainly ‘bedwetters’ is a perfectly acceptable term to describe someone whose convinced that there is a Muslim terrorist around every corner or a euthenasia panel behind every subheading…..

Scalia’s comment left me almost speechless. What a complete and utter piece of sh!t.

Can we stop referring to him as ‘Justice’ Scalia now? After all, it’s clear that he has no interest in actually dispensing justice.

Your description of Scalia is not nearly as harsh as his behavior deserves. Unfortunately, Scalia seems like one of those people that just loves being a$$hole. He would probably enjoy your disgust with him.

If anyone knows about pissing in the wind, it would be Opie Obama.

http://twitter.com/HULAgate

If Richard Nixon was a cancer on the presidency, then Opie Obama is a botched bowel resection.

Sorry, ACORN’s ignorance of the law is no excuse for stealing elections.

KEN STARR, AMERICA NEEDS YOU AGAIN, SIR.

Speaking of weed, has Doctor Obama been drug tested, lately? Really, he looks, sounds, acts like a STONER, lately. Maybe party gal Ashley Biden’s in the house too, lately?

Why do I get the feeling that Scalia is the Italian Prime Minister’s wayward brother? You know, the brother without any morals.

Dee are you kidding me? In the context he used it would not make sense to even a 8 year old. Your feeble defense makes you as big of a moron as the President. He should stick to the Teleprompter

I understand your normal slam against Bush but I am confounded how the two relate other than a passing cheapshot.

Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.
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While taken at a glance, this could be misconstrued as utter contempt towards the notion of jurisprudential flaws, that is that the justice system is incapable or erring. However, if you parse the words, which is always necessary when attempting to discern the meaning of a Scalia utterance, you find what is, in my opinion, a more complex perspective. By factual innocence I find this to mean evidentiary innocence, that is failure to explicitly prove guilt. By properly reached, I take this to mean that the person is actually guilty. So while some may read this as “Innocence is no reason to to overturn a verdict which was procedurally sound,” I read this as “Evidentairy failure to prove guilt is no reason to overturn a decision in which the defendant is undoubtedly guilty.” We all are aware of cases in which the evidence is too circumstantial to convict, yet guilt is undeniable. This is the situation to which Scalia speaks, in my opinion.

Good grief, Hula. Perhaps you yourself should indulge in some chronic, maybe you’ll chill out on the hysteria a bit. By the way, marijuana should be legalized as it poses no societal risks. If cigarettes and alcohol can be legalized, yet regulated and taxed, why not marijuana? It was only added to the illegal drug category early in the 1900s as a racially motivated means to incarcerate blacks. It’s an outdated irrational statute.

1937 to be exact.

Indeed. I appreciate the precision, Sacred.

I was simply referring to anyone who uses paranoid delusions as a basis for determining policy. I wasn’t even thinking of Bush except insofar as he was willing to trash the large sections of the Constitution in order to placate the bedwetter brigade’s fear of foreigners.

Now the bedwetter brigade is at it again with all sort of imagined evils that will follow if United Healthcare has it’s monopoly status challenged.

No neo, you don’t get to make up a legal definition out of whole cloth. Legal “actual” i.e. factual innocence means exactly what it says: The person did not commit the crime that he has been accused of committed. From which orifice you pull your fabricated definition is probably something I don’t want to specifically know. “Properly reached” the same thing. It means the person went through trial and was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury or a judge without prosecutorial or judicial misconduct. The Innocence Project has brought and won any number of capital cases in which the convicted person was “actually innocent” of capitol murder. Here (LINK)The Innocence Project – Home
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All of that said, Scalia has been misquoted here. He actually wrote

We granted certiorari on the question whether it violates due process or constitutes cruel and unusual punishment for a State to execute a person who, having been convicted of murder after a full and fair trial, later alleges that newly discovered evidence shows him to be “actually innocent.” I would have preferred to decide that question, particularly since, as the Court’s discussion shows, it is perfectly clear what the answer is: There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding in the Constitution a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction. In saying that such a right exists, the dissenters apply nothing but their personal opinions to invalidate the rules of more than two thirds of the States, and a Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure for which this Court itself is responsible. If the system that has been in place for 200 years (and remains widely approved) “shocks” the dissenters’ consciences, post, at ____, perhaps they should doubt the calibration of their consciences, or, better still, the usefulness of “conscience-shocking” as a legal test..

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He goes on to discussion the burden on the lower courts of “of regularly analyzing newly-discovered-evidence-of-innocence claims in capital cases.”
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I disagree with his position of course. You can read the decision and his dissent here (LINK)Barry Miller: Widely published Scalia quote re: “innocense” is inaccurate. We have to agree. « LawReader. Even so, you aren’t allowed to just make sh!t up out of whole cloth.
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Paul:

“I wasn’t even thinking of Bush except insofar “? Let me get this straight. You weren’t thinking of him except when you were thinking of him? Your logic is dizzying.

And speaking of the Constitution, the current administration daily shreds the document. Obama is making Nixon look like anb Eagle Scout.

Indeed, you were the one who brought him up. The bedwetters themselves are all over the place. I wasn’t discussing anyone but them.

the current administration daily shreds the document

Really? Which part?

Here’s a handy reference in case you need to find it:

http://www.constitution.org/cons/constitu.txt

James,
Relax, nothing I said was made up, nothing was fabricated. I stated, on several occasions, that this was merely my interpretation of Scalia’s comment. I am very familiar with Scalia jurisprudence and, while this particular quote was unknown to me, based on some of his other rationales, interviews and speeches it is quite clear to me that Scalia is not advocating for the execution of an innocent man merely on procedural grounds. I was therefore attempting to discern the meaning of this limited quote. Thanks for the additional context of the quote. It is clear that what Scalia is suggesting is that statutorily and jurisprudentially there is not an inherent right to overturn a procedurally sound conviction based on alleged alleviating evidence. That is not synonymous with advocating that innocence is irrelevant to conviction in so much as the verdict was reached in accordance with the law. He speaks solely to whether a right of review exists. With this contextual framework, the original quote of “Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached” is completely vindicated from what it could suggest when taken strictly strictly independent of any other commentary. To simply post the quote and nothing more is intentionally disingenuous. I found it to be wholly lacking, on its face, in what I know Scalia to support and thus I was attempting to discern what he could have meant based on his jurisprudential history. The context is vital.

How about the dropping of the case against the Black Panthers? Every civil rights group of note is aghast. In addition to voter manipulation how about a hate crime?Or how about the emails sent to folks who never had any contact with the WH. (Of course its everybody’s fault but the Messiahs) Or destroying over 50 years of bankruptcy law in the auto deals? Or the cash clunker when anyone signing up have the entire contents of their computers and records to be the property of the US Government.

Selective perception but not unexpected since you weren’t thinking of Bush except when you weren’t but only because I brought him up. John Kerry is proud

when anyone signing up have the entire contents of their computers and records to be the property of the US Government
Bedwetters indeed……..

Where were you when we need you?
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http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying

That’s one big problem with you rightwingers neo. You just make up new definitions of commonly accepted words and LEGAL definitions either 1) in order to fit your agenda or 2) because you are ignorant about the issue and too lazy or too dim to gain an understanding before you start mouthing off and opining. The definition of actual/factual innocence is very clear, yet you don’t accept that definition and start from there, you make up a definition in order to pontificate about legal matters about which you obviously know nothing, in order to absolve Scalia of responsibility for the legal theory he has put forth. When you could very well have gone to look up his actual opinion discovered his exact words, which aren’t quite as frankly radical as the misquote.
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For get all this wee-weeing around. Here’s a GREAT Saturday morning story to chew over:

No More Mister Nice Blog

It’s about a very pompous Joe Klein being his pompous, most childish self, raging and beating his fists agianst those dang libruls and that mean ole Glennzilla, at a private barbecue……

Joe Klein has a long history of getting very very nasty at social functions when his professional feelings have been hurt. It appears he can’t handle his liquor. Also. I happen to know that he went on a rampage about this (the FISA issue) against one of the other Swampland bloggers as well, who was completely innocent of anything but suggesting some kind of correction posted when it was made clear the Klein had (massively MASSIVELY) blundered.

James
Do not be obtuse. It was precisely the legal definitions that I based my interpretations on. Generally, factual means actual. However, with regard to jurisprudence, facts equal evidence and thus factual simply means evidentiary. In other words, in the courtroom, factual innocence suggests the evidence illustrated innocence, not necessarily literal undeniable innocence. Factually guilty does not imply actual guilt, it suggests guilt based upon the evidence. With regard to jurisprudence, James, my distinction was entirely accurate. It is you, in fact, who would extend generally accepted terminology to a wholly distinct judicial jargon.

There you go again. Factual innocence and actual innocence, the term means the person *actually* didn’t do the crime. You can’t parse apart a legal phrase to make it mean what you think you want it to mean. Who do you think you are, Ari Flesicher? (JOKE)

Oh, Jimmy. There you go again, applying laymen connotations of actual/factual to an entirely different realm of jurisprudential vernacular. In legal jargon factual implies based upon evidence, it speaks in no way to actual events. We can play this game all day, though, to no avail. You extend the common linguistic definitions of words to any and all contexts, whereas I recognize the variances within technical usage, such as in judicial interpretations. Parsing words in this manner is unavoidably essential as semantics and their varying connotations with regard to the law are wholly applicable.

So, my dear wee-weers, in these recessionary times, the people are uncomfortable with this word “option” – as used by investors like the despicable Madoff and mortgage companies…

According to the polls, the people don’t want a government “option” but they are for a “choice”.

Words matter.
So let us give them the “PUBLIC CHOICE” in that HC bill!

Obvious, Blinding
subtopics: HC insurance competition, lack of

WE here know about lack of real HC insurance competition, but maybe it’s slowly dawning upon others?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/32518753

I was hearing short pot, myself.

Doesn’t work that way li’l neo. Legal terms have precise meanings unlike blogospheric vernacular, and you aren’t allowed to alter the legal meaning to fit your agenda. Jes’ saying. Don’t you have an opinion about what he *really* wrote? This quibbling about whether you can parse a legal phrasing to fit your agenda (i.e., YOU CAN’T) is played out….
Or maybe you are miffed at yourself because you ran with the misquote?

Better go take your meds, freep. Your head seems to be exploding.
(LINK) KA-BOOM

James:

It sure is easier going straight to derogatory comments than address the issue. Can’t say that I’m surprised.

MAybe you could check my spelling or punctuation too. That seems to be the SOP when the libs face facts.

cfukara

Yes public choice just like pro-choice. Putting chocolate sauce on manure is still manure

Dude you didn’t discuss any issue. You just let loose with a stream of vile nonsense. None of it even made any sense. I don’t really give a cr@p about your spelling and punctuation. Your sanity, yes. It was a solicitous statement concerning your mental and emotional well-being.

Legal terms have precise meanings unlike blogospheric vernacular…
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That was precisely my point, I’m glad to see that I am making headway with you. In law, factual means evidentiary, not actual. In common usage, factual means in truth, or essentially actual.
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Now, on to the substance of the Scalia reasoning. Scalia’s judicial philosophy of textual originalism precludes him from ever allowing emotions, societal factors or conscience from informing his decisions. It’s a rigid stance, to be sure, but it is the basis for this issue. Essentially, Scalia speaks not to whether a conviction should be re-evaluated in light of new evidence. He speaks to whether such a ‘right’ exists, that is, must the court instinctively and naturally review any such claim.
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Note that when Scalia says…
We granted certiorari on the question whether it violates due process or constitutes cruel and unusual punishment for a State to execute a person who, having been convicted of murder after a full and fair trial, later alleges that newly discovered evidence shows him to be “actually innocent.”
…he uses the words alleges and places actually innocent in quotations. He is not speaking in terms of whether it is cruel and unusual to execute one convicted, but whom is proven innocent by new evidence. He is speaking on whether it is cruel and unusual to execute one who has been convicted, who merely claims that evidence exists that would exonerate him. By placing actually innocent in quotes he is noting that this is not a given, it is strictly relative to the notions of the convicted, not to any factual, evidentiary proof of innocence. He is thus only referring to whether every claim of innocence should be reviewed if new evidence is alleged. He takes a rigid stance on the issue of this right in that it is not enumerated in the Constitution or any statutory text. While I respect and often agree with Justice Scalia, I do disagree with this concept, not on any jurisprudential grounds, but on ethical principles of pursuing justice at all costs; if this requires an increase in appeals, so be it. However, my argument is strictly emotional and as such cannot be addressed by Scalia’s judicial philosophy. Fidelity to his principles preclude him from taking a more practical or shall I say, compassionate approach. While in this case it may seem a tad harsh, it is in the greater context that the virtues of his philosophy are relevant. Under what standard can we allow personal ideas of compassion, emotion, conscience and practicality weigh upon the letter of the law? What norm or rubric is to be applied? It is fallacious that we, as a society, can depend upon the better judgment of all jurists in this regard. What if one’s conceptions of compassion or conscience not only clash, but strictly contradict the law? The slippery-slope repercussions of allowing such influence in judicial reasoning is what Scalia attempts to confront with his rigidity. For better or worse, his view on the role of the courts is extremely narrow and in this case he adheres to his principles unequivocally.

Ah! We are, I see, in almost complete agreement. (except for that pesky “actual innocence” issue.) That was also my take on his *actual* writing as opposed to the misquote. That legal theory was actually set forth in a Texas apellate court some years ago, i.e., that evidence of actual innocence does not compel a new hearing, and the defendant was actually executed in that case. I can’t remember the name of the case, I think it was in the 90′s, probably under the Texas Dubya Administration. I, too, abhor the implications of it and think it wrong, though I’m not a Constitutional scholar of course. One would think Due Process might cover that, or Cruel and Unusual. Dubya, of course. *loved* having power of life and death over people and enjoyed the declining of clemency, and our friend Ciaoberto Gonzales helped him in that respect. (Compelling myself to withhold a much cruder description of Dubya’s character.)
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Anyway, nice analysis. (except for that one little issue.)

James

DUDE thanks fo rproving the point!

OKay, after all that, do I have y’alls permission to do a legal dissertation on the difference (if any) between factual innocence and actual innocence? This of course assumes I get off my tail and take the LSAT at some point in the future.

dissert away, yutso! You don’t need no steeenkin law degree to dissert on *this* board.

It’s funny when you think about it, because you people have gone so far off the reservation, neither Nixon or Regan could get elected now.