The Supreme Court has been a bunch of busy little bees this week. First, they ruled 5-4 that the death penalty in child-rape cases was unconstitutional. I disagree with that one. I personally think the death penalty should apply in more cases rather than fewer. We need to be thinning the herd in this country, preferably by ridding ourselves of people who do things like rape children.
Then they ruled the gun control laws in Washington D.C. were unconstitutional. A pretty good ruling in my book. We need to eliminate gun control as a political wedge issue. There's an argument I've read that we got stuck with eight years of Jorge and Cheney thanks to the people who voted Republican based on the single issue of gun control. Hell, it wasn't worth it. Let the gun crazies arm themselves to the teeth; maybe then they'll STFU and go away somewhere.
Finally, The Supremes took a big meat cleaver to the punitive damages awarded in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case. The original jury award in 1994 was five billion big ones. In 2006, an appeals court cut that in half, down to 2.5 billion. The Supremes chopped it down to 500 million. That still sounds like a lot until you realize it's a small fraction (four days worth) of Exxon Mobil's typical quarterly profits these days. The decision in this case was 5-3, with Alito sitting it out since he's an Exxon stockholder. The bottom line is that the major courts in our judicial system will always take care of the interests of big business, regardless of what the original jury decides. So it was, so it is, so shall it forever be. Amen.
It looks like Justice Kennedy is rapidly becoming one of the most powerful men in the world. He voted with the majority in all three cases, and is the new swing vote since Judge Sandy left. Whichever side he takes wins.
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