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Jul
2
Something’s gone terribly wrong. From the New York Times (thank you Linda Greenhouse for naming and respecting the blogger, with no ridiculous, ad hominem adjectives attached to references of him):
It turns out that Justice Kennedy’s confident assertion about the absence of federal law ["that capital punishment for child rape was contrary to the “evolving standards of decency” by which the court judges how the death penalty is applied"] was wrong.
A military law blog pointed out over the weekend that Congress, in fact, revised the sex crimes section of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 2006 to add child rape to the military death penalty. The revisions were in the National Defense Authorization Act that year. President Bush signed that bill into law and then, last September, carried the changes forward by issuing Executive Order 13447, which put the provisions into the 2008 edition of the Manual for Courts-Martial.
Anyone in the federal government — or anywhere else, for that matter — who knew about these developments did not tell the court. Not one of the 10 briefs filed in the case, Kennedy v. Louisiana, mentioned it. The Office of the Solicitor General, which represents the federal government in the Supreme Court, did not even file a brief, evidently having concluded that the federal government had no stake in whether Louisiana’s death penalty for child rape was constitutional.
The blog? Written by Dwight Sullivan and called the CAAFlog. The post? “The Supremes dis the military justice system.” The NYT says that Louisiana says that it’s not sure that it will take advantage of the 25 day period during which they could file a request for a reconsideration. But the U.S. Department of Justice? It’s declining comment. (For the record, the USDOJ didn’t file anything in this case, according to the NYT article:
evidently having concluded that the federal government had no stake in whether Louisiana’s death penalty for child rape was constitutional.
Over to Scott or Jeff who can parse this much better than me (well, I could try, but they are a much better resource). Now what do the presidential candidates say? What do they suggest?What if we find out that other justices did know this and discounted it?What do you think?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:19 am July 2nd, 2008 in Blogging, Civil Rights, Courts, Crime, Culture, Government, Law, Military, Politics, Social Issues, WH2008
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2 Responses to “Milblog reveals factual error in SCOTUS child rape case (or, another reason why blogs matter)”
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Shalom Jill,
I’m not clear to what extent civilian law must pay respect to military law, but having served for 11 years under the Uniform Code Of Military Justice, I can tell you that military standards are rightly much more restrictive and punitive than civilian law.
After all, the UCMJ allows for the death penalty for telling your boss you don’t feel like working today.
B’shalom,
Jeff
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