I am Matt Thomas.

Looks like you’re safe, Junior.

March 2, 2005

Wow, a little bit of good news to keep us going. Today the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for juvenile offenders. There’s not much to say, other than “Thank God,” but there were a few quotes from the Boston Globe article that I found astonishing.

The ruling is also notable because the majority invoked foreign precedents in reaching its decision about what the US Constitution permits, a direction in legal reasoning sharply opposed by conservatives [hooray! -MT] Kennedy, the pivotal swing vote in the case, noted that since 1990, only seven other countries—including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China—have executed juvenile offenders, and all have since disavowed the practice.

Kennedy also noted that every nation except the United States and Somalia has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has a provision forbidding the juvenile death penalty. Somalia does not have a functioning government. (emphasis mine)

“The court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our nation’s moral standards—and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures,” Scalia wrote … Scalia was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas. All of them are “originalists” who believe that the meaning of the Constitution is fixed at what it meant when it was ratified in 1791.

Thanks to the Globe for reminding us why Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist are such fucking douchebags. The constitution also included the 3/5ths rule, but I don’t see Clarence Thomas in a cotton field.