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Originally Posted by Marcus1124
Hey, where's my cookie? he was agreeing with me! *grin*
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What??? What do you think I am, a handout liberal????
Ok Ok .... I'll share it.
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Originally Posted by Marcus1124
Just out of curiousity, given that you both readily acknowledge the clear and unambiguous textual support for Capital punishment being permissable, what do you think of justices, sworn to uphold that document, simply disregarding that fact and substituting their own personal will in place of the unambiguous text?
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I think ignoring the text acknowledging the death penalty's existence (and it's axiomatic conclusion that it must be constitutional as a choice of punishment given its approved reference in the document) to declare the death penalty unconstitutional on its face as a permissible concept of punishment would constitute a breach of the parameters of judicial licence to interpret constitutional language.
As this pertains to this case, however, I feel it's important to note that the two dissenting justices did not make that holding. Rather, they held the following in a nutshell:
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Kentucky’s protocol lacks basic safeguards used by other States to confirm that an inmate is unconscious before injection of the second and third drugs. I would vacate and remand with instructions to consider whether Kentucky’s omission of those safeguards poses an untoward, readily avoidable risk of inflicting severe and unnecessary pain.
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http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/07-5439P.ZD
The constitutionality of the death penalty wasn't even an issue in this case. Lethal injection was even conceded to be a constitutional method of performing it. The plaintiff were merely challenging Kentucky's manner of doing it, which was argued to be a manner that has a higher likelihood of causing unnecessary pain.