In 2015, a few months before he died, Justice Antonin Scalia said he would not be surprised if the Supreme Court did away with the death penalty.
These days, after President Trump’s appointment of three justices, liberal members of the court have lost all hope of abolishing capital punishment. In the face of an extraordinary run of federal executions over the past six months, they have been left to wonder whether the court is prepared to play any role in capital cases beyond hastening executions.
Until July, there had been no federal executions in 17 years. Since then, the Trump administration has executed 13 inmates, more than three times as many as the federal government had put to death in the previous six decades.
In a dissent issued late Friday, as the court cleared the way for the last execution of the Trump era, Justice Sonia Sotomayor took stock of what the nation had learned about the Supreme Court’s attitude toward the death penalty.
These days, after President Trump’s appointment of three justices, liberal members of the court have lost all hope of abolishing capital punishment. In the face of an extraordinary run of federal executions over the past six months, they have been left to wonder whether the court is prepared to play any role in capital cases beyond hastening executions.
Until July, there had been no federal executions in 17 years. Since then, the Trump administration has executed 13 inmates, more than three times as many as the federal government had put to death in the previous six decades.
In a dissent issued late Friday, as the court cleared the way for the last execution of the Trump era, Justice Sonia Sotomayor took stock of what the nation had learned about the Supreme Court’s attitude toward the death penalty.
“Over the past six months, this court has repeatedly sidestepped its usual deliberative processes, often at the government’s request, allowing it to push forward with an unprecedented, breakneck timetable of executions,” she wrote.
“Throughout this expedited spree of executions, this court has consistently rejected inmates’ credible claims for relief,” Justice Sotomayor continued. “The court made these weighty decisions in response to emergency applications, with little opportunity for proper briefing and consideration, often in just a few short days or even hours.”
No comments:
Post a Comment