{"id":15613,"date":"2024-12-06T22:15:03","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T22:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=15613"},"modified":"2024-12-06T22:15:09","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T22:15:09","slug":"the-strange-case-that-the-supreme-court-keeps-refusing-to-decide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=15613","title":{"rendered":"The strange case that the Supreme Court keeps refusing to decide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Beginning in the mid-20th century, the Supreme Court maintained that the Eighth Amendment \u201cmust draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society<\/a>.\u201d Thus, as a particular method of punishment grew less common, the Court was increasingly likely to declare it cruel and unusual in violation of the Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least some members of the Court\u2019s Republican majority, however, have suggested that this \u201cevolving standards of decency\u201d framework should be abandoned. In Bucklew v. Precythe<\/em><\/a> (2019), the Court considered whether states could use execution methods that risked causing the dying inmate a great deal of pain. Justice Neil Gorsuch\u2019s majority opinion, which held that potentially painful methods of execution are allowed, seems to exist in a completely different universe<\/a> than the Court\u2019s Eighth Amendment cases that look to evolving standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the Court\u2019s earlier opinions ask whether a particular form of punishment has fallen out of favor today<\/em>, Gorsuch asked whether a method of punishment was out of favor at the time of the founding<\/em>. Though his opinion does list some methods of execution, such as \u201cdisemboweling\u201d and \u201cburning alive\u201d that violate the Eighth Amendment, Gorsuch wrote that these methods are unconstitutional because \u201cby the time of the founding, these methods had long fallen out of use and so had become \u2018unusual.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes Bucklew<\/em> confusing, however, is that it didn\u2019t explicitly overrule any of the previous decisions applying the evolving standards framework. So it\u2019s unclear whether all five of the justices who joined that opinion share a desire to blow up more than a half-century of law, or if the justices who joined the Bucklew <\/em>majority simply failed to rein in an overly ambitious opinion by Gorsuch, the Court\u2019s most intellectually<\/a> sloppy justice<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any event, Hamm<\/em> opens up at least two major potential divides within the Court. Smith says he is intellectually disabled; the state of Alabama wants to execute him anyway. So the case perfectly tees up a challenge to Atkins<\/em> if a majority of the justices want to go there. Meanwhile, Bucklew<\/em> looms like a vulture over any cruel and unusual punishment case heard by the Court, as it suggests that the Republican justices may hit the reset button on all of its Eighth Amendment precedents at any time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/scotus\/378058\/supreme-court-hamm-smith-death-penalty-eighth-amendment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Beginning in the mid-20th century, the Supreme Court maintained that the Eighth Amendment \u201cmust draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.\u201d Thus, as a particular method of punishment grew less common, the Court was increasingly likely to declare it cruel and unusual in violation of the Constitution.
\nAt least some members of the Court\u2019s Republican majority, however, have suggested that this \u201cevolving standards of decency\u201d framework should be abandoned. In Bucklew v. Precythe (2019), the Court considered whether states could use execution methods that risked causing the dying inmate a great deal of pain. Justice Neil Gorsuch\u2019s majority opinion, which held that potentially painful methods of execution are allowed, seems to exist in a completely different universe than the Court\u2019s Eighth Amendment cases that look to evolving standards.<\/p>\n

While the Court\u2019s earlier opinions ask whether a particular form of punishment has fallen out of favor today, Gorsuch asked whether a method of punishment was out of favor at the time of the founding. Though his opinion does list some methods of execution, such as \u201cdisemboweling\u201d and \u201cburning alive\u201d that violate the Eighth Amendment, Gorsuch wrote that these methods are unconstitutional because \u201cby the time of the founding, these methods had long fallen out of use and so had become \u2018unusual.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

What makes Bucklew confusing, however, is that it didn\u2019t explicitly overrule any of the previous decisions applying the evolving standards framework. So it\u2019s unclear whether all five of the justices who joined that opinion share a desire to blow up more than a half-century of law, or if the justices who joined the Bucklew majority simply failed to rein in an overly ambitious opinion by Gorsuch, the Court\u2019s most intellectually sloppy justice.<\/p>\n

In any event, Hamm opens up at least two major potential divides within the Court. Smith says he is intellectually disabled; the state of Alabama wants to execute him anyway. So the case perfectly tees up a challenge to Atkins if a majority of the justices want to go there. Meanwhile, Bucklew looms like a vulture over any cruel and unusual punishment case heard by the Court, as it suggests that the Republican justices may hit the reset button on all of its Eighth Amendment precedents at any time.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/scotus\/378058\/supreme-court-hamm-smith-death-penalty-eighth-amendment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[790,1213,528],"class_list":["post-15613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-courts","tag-judiciary","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15613"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15615,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15613\/revisions\/15615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}