The Dred Scott Court is Back

June 19, 2009 by mike.

The US now faces the most regressive Supreme Court of my lifetime. The battle that is brewing to prevent the appointment of Judge Sotomayor, a mainstream, qualified and experienced judge by any reasonable measure to replace Justice Souter, shows the extent to which the Republican party has pushed the Court to the right. What is the end game of the Republican drive to seat a harshly conservative court? Can we put more people in prison? Is there an upside to limiting the rights of the American people? What happens when we seat a court that will fail to acknowledge and enforce the constitutional protections of fundamental civil rights that are articulated in the Bill of Rights?

Here is the Dred Scott case for those who are unfamiliar with the judicial leanings of a corporate Supreme Court.

Robert Hunter and the Dead can have the last word for now: what a long, strange trip it’s been.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Justices Reject Inmate Right to DNA Tests WASHINGTON — Prisoners have no constitutional right to DNA testing that might prove their innocence, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a 5-to-4 decision. “It’s unquestionable that some people in some states who are factually innocent will not get DNA testing and will languish in prison,” Mr. Neufeld said. “Some of them will die in prison.” Justice Souter issued a dissent saying that officials in Alaska had “demonstrated a combination of inattentiveness and intransigence” that add up to “procedural unfairness that violates the due process clause.”But Chief Justice Roberts concluded that the issue of when to allow DNA testing was best handled by the states. “The question,” he wrote, “ is whether further change will primarily be made by legislative revision and judicial interpretation of the existing system, or whether the federal judiciary must leap ahead — revising (or even discarding) the system by creating a new constitutional right and taking over responsibility for refining it.”

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