Grrlscientist on the Supreme Court on DNA Testing
What grrlscientist said (from …And Justice for All?):
This Supreme Court decision is ethically repugnant because it does nothing to protect the powerless, the poor and the disenfranchised in this country, which is what the Constitution was originally designed to do. This outrageous decision abandons innocent people who have been imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, and worse, it will cause the deaths of innocent people at the hands of the government — in the name of each and every one of us. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. should be ashamed and all of us should be outraged.
The list of reasons to despise George W. Bush is long. But the presence of Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court, and decisions like this one, are a reminder that even though he’s gone, his toxic impact lives on.
June 20th, 2009 at 5:49 am
No, that is the purpose of laws, not the constitution.
June 21st, 2009 at 4:16 pm
So you don’t agree with any of the amendments already made to it?
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:30 am
No, that isn’t what I’m saying. The Constitution is changeable, and there are times when changing it are appropriate, it is just that it was designed to be relatively constant and rather broad in scope (generally). Laws were there to handle the nuances of those broad concepts. How DNA evidence is handled should be determined by the legislatures. I know nothing about this case, I don’t even know what it is about, it may be a states’ rights issue for all I know, probably is. If many states have rules that allow defendants to use DNA evidence, but not all, I would think their ruling was more to do with where this decision should be made than the actual decision. But I’m just guessing.
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:25 pm
That response is completely different from saying, no, the Constitution should not change to relfect changes over time, which is what you basically said.
I don’t know, but to me, I think to not allow revisions to a document that was written hundreds of years ago is absurd. Everything changes over time, for example, I dont think the guys who wrote that back then really thought about dna sampling.
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:42 pm
NL,
Good call, that.
It’s becoming more apparent to me over time that (1) some people believe laws were created and exist to support ideals of universal justice (unfortunately they are usually those with less experience with the law, but not always, and that observation in no way invalidates the idea that laws should support justice); and, (2) there are other people who seem to believe that laws primarily exist to maintain order, provide a constant playing field for saints and devils alike, and serve the interest of society by which they really mean government (but they will never admit that laws are neded to protect their government, instead they publically claim the opposite.) What you see with JBC, Grrlscientist, NL, et al is the former. What is plain in Bush’s nominations, and shcb’s response here, is the latter.
Anyway, again NL: good call, that. As your reward for that “call”, and as a prize for getting through this ridiculously long and perhaps inane comment, I give you this trippy piece fom boing boing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eooXNd0heM&feature=player_embedded
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:22 am
NL,
You are including what you said I said with what I said. Let me be clear.
The Constitution can be changed, has been changed, and should be changed on rare occasion. These changes do reflect changes in societal norms but should be reserved for broad changes, abolition of slavery for instance, but should not be used for the normal ebb and flow of societal changes, making liquor illegal for instance.
Now of course there are several issues in this brief article; there is the case itself, the case that was heard by the Supreme Court, and this breathing document comment, they shouldn’t be confused. I know nothing of the case and the author doesn’t give much information (which is what Smith and I were talking about in the other thread, the unreliability of blogs), so I don’t have much to comment on that and I have a fight going with our HOA where my rights have been violated in so many ways it is laughable so I really don’t have the time to research it.
One thing I will say is there is no reason to change the Constitution because of DNA testing. When someone uses the living document in a case like this they are usually doing it because they want the courts to legislate from the bench and use the US Constitution as the reason so it can never be overturned, not that they want the Constitution changed. Kind a cheap trick.
Oliver Wendell Holmes told a young lawyer once “this is a court of law young man, not a court of justice”
This isn’t a new argument, it is older than the country itself, I doubt it will go anywhere soon.
June 23rd, 2009 at 6:17 am
NL,
I went back and re-read my comment, I can see where you got that idea. I forget sometimes you guys haven’t been debating these issues as many decades as I have, I should have explained my answer better. I knew what the author meant, or at least what the point means, and answered to that with sort of a short hand answer, kind of like myself and my friends saying “Mitchell, Nixon” instead of using the quote “we could do that, but it would be wrong”. I hope I’ve explained myself better since.
June 24th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Yes, I got ya now.
kk, lol nice video!
June 25th, 2009 at 8:15 am
see i could leave a better comment except i can’t watch the video cause i don’t have a flashserver so instead i read your comments so …. on with story!
June 25th, 2009 at 8:17 am
and sorry about the name i went to the bathroom and my cousin put that in.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:22 am
anywho the laws they state are too keep the nation in “smoothness” see they think that without laws the nation would go out of wack, there would no control of anything at all so they make rules about every teeny tiny little thing. it’s actualy a matter of fear. who controls who?