The Failed Pacifist

SCOTUS: OK to Favor Death

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday ruled in favor of a Kansas law which requires the death penalty be imposed when aggravating and mitigating circumstances are equal. That is, when there are equal arguments regarding whether a convicted person be put to death, or allowed to live, the person should die.

The court was sharply divided, with Justice Scalia seeing those opposed to the death penalty as "sanctimonious" and attacking the American way of life. Justice Souter disagrees.

"Today, a new body of fact must be accounted for in deciding what, in practical terms, the Eighth Amendment guarantees should tolerate, for the period starting in 1989 has seen repeated exonerations of convicts under death sentences, in numbers never imagined before the development of DNA tests," Souter wrote.

posted by Doran @ 8:16 AM