If Roe v. Wade Goes
From the New York Times:
It would not take much to overturn the Roe decision. With four of the nine members of the Supreme Court over 70 years old, the next occupant of the White House could have the opportunity to appoint one or more new justices. If say, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the oldest member, retired and Mr. Romney named a replacement hostile to abortion rights, the basic right to abortion might well not survive. […]
Mr. Romney is a vocal supporter of this continuing drive in the states and in Congress to limit the constitutional right, even without overturning Roe. To a large degree, the anti-abortion forces have succeeded. In 1982, there were about 2,900 providers nationwide; as of 2008, there were less than 1,800. In 97 percent of the counties that are outside of metropolitan areas, there are no abortion providers at all.
We do not need to guess about the brutal consequences of overturning Roe. We know from our own country’s pre-Roe history and from the experience around the world. Women desperate to end a pregnancy would find a way to do so. Well-to-do women living in places where abortion is illegal would travel to other states where it is legal to obtain the procedure. Women lacking the resources would either be forced by the government and politicians to go through with an unwanted or risky pregnancy, attempt to self-abort or turn to an illegal — and potentially unsafe — provider for help. Women’s health, privacy and equality would suffer. Some women would die.
Texas seems to think it can buck even the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court must hear this case, if Texas refuses to commute the sentence.
Laura Moye, director of Amnesty International’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign.
Texas is set to execute Marvin Wilson, a man with an IQ of only 61, this Tuesday, despite the Supreme Court’s ban on the use of capital punishment for the mentally disabled.
FILM: At the Death House Door
Source: amnestyusa.org
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Furman vs. Georgia, which overturned the death penalty nationwide. The ruling called the penalty, as it then existed, “arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory.” Four years later, the court reversed itself, ruling in Gregg vs. Georgia that the death penalty, having been revised in many states, was once more constitutional.
Professor John J. Donohue questions how much has changed:
“Four decades later, there is plenty of evidence that the death penalty continues to be applied in an unfair manner and not a shred of evidence that the death penalty deters.”
Cases like Carlos De Luna’s, featured in At the Death House Door, certainly support his conclusion. Evidence uncovered by Chicago Tribune reporters showed that De Luna’s case was shockingly mishandled by investigators. Despite pointing investigators to the guilty man, De Luna was sent to his death based on little more than faulty and wrongly-administered eye-witness identifications. The execution, itself, was botched. The case would turn Carroll Pickett, the death house chaplain who counseled De Luna on the eve of his execution and stayed with him until the deed was done, into a fierce opponent of the death penalty.
Source: The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
For More on Carlos’s case see At the Death House Door, read the original Tribune article, and check out Los Tocayos Carlos- an interactive website examining the evidence.
SCOTUS rules on juvenile offenders
The United States Supreme Court ruled today that it is unconstitutional for juveniles convicted of murder to be automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Watch Need to Know’s look at the case of Joe Sullivan, a man who had been imprisoned since 1989 on a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Sullivan was convicted of rape when he was 13 years old, and to this day, maintains his innocence.
A breakdown of today’s SCOTUS decision on SB1070. SHARE the info!
”The controversial “show me your papers” provision upheld by the Supreme Court has been blocked by lower courts in Arizona and the five copycat until now. As a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling, law enforcement in Arizona can now pull someone over and demand their “papers” if they suspect them of being here unlawfully. Discriminatory laws like SB 1070 invite racial profiling of Latinos and others who may look or sound “foreign,” including many U.S. citizens who have lived in America their entire lives.“—ACLU
Also, if anyone is interested: SCOTUS Decision Brief PDF
(via frijoliz)
Source: rox-c-rox
