I’m struggling to find the parallel to a war memorial.
A statue of Buddha is created entirely out of religious motivation.
But you see it has some significance beyond that.
There are debates about whether Buddhism is actually a religion or a philosophy.
The problem with something like this is we don’t know if it would be okay if it was the symbol for some other religion, but the answer to that isn’t to assume if it was a a symbol of Islam or Judaism it wouldn’t be okay.
They should leave it as is, and in the unlikely event some other religious symbol is kept in the same way, it needs to stay too. This is a memorial fashioned after it’s time and not purposefully designed to exclude or intimidate.
Clarence Thomas asks another question!
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/20/politics/clarence-thomas-question/index.html
Thomas, at the very end of the hourlong hearing, suddenly spoke and essentially turned the tables by asking Johnson about the use of peremptory challenges by the defense team, not the prosecution.
“Ms. Johnson, would you be kind enough to tell me whether or not you exercised any peremptories … were any peremptories exercised by the defendant?”
“They were,” Johnson responded.
“And what was the race of the jurors struck there?” Thomas asked.
Referring to Flowers’ trial attorney, Johnson said: "She only exercised peremptories against white jurors.
and then got shot right down by Sotomayor:
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s only Latina justice, interjected, suggesting that the defense lawyer could not have eliminated any blacks because the prosecutor had already removed virtually all from the pool.
“She didn’t have any black jurors to exercise peremptories against – except the first one? … After that, every black juror that was available on the panel was struck?”
“Yes,” Johnson said.
Thomas asked nothing more.
Thomas is one of the worst SCOTUS justices in history.
“Hold my beer.” - Kavanaugh
Yeah, at least Thomas is likely to cack out in a few years. He’s got that going for him.
My hope and prediction is Kavanaugh will be impeached and removed from office after Republicans are booted out in the post Trump backlash against them.
I will return to mock myself and this this post in a decade :)
God, I hate Thomas.
Somehow I missed this yesterday:
In a mirror of the Alabama case some weeks ago, SCOTUS has stayed the execution of a Texas man on the grounds that the spiritual advisor rules violate the Constitution. In this case Texas allows state-employed Christian and Muslim advisors in the death chamber, but not any other denomination.
the tl;dr summary: In yet another death penalty case, an inmate argues that the lethal injection protocol used in his state will rupture tumors in his throat and cause him to die painfully before the chemicals cause him to lose consciousness and die as intended.
The majority (the conservatives) argue that the 8th Amendment only guarantees protection against “deliberate infliction of pain”, not the total absence of pain. Also, they’re worried that the whole thing is just a scam to delay the execution, and that he should have suggested another viable execution method.
The minority (the progressives) say that the prisoner DID in fact suggest another method (nitrogen gas, something not supported by the state), and that a small delay to spare a condemned man a terrifying execution method is warranted.
This case was actually already delayed once, after Alito stepped in when the potential that the execution could go wrong, back in 2014. It’s actually been delayed 3 times so far.
On some level, ya dude, he’s gonna die. It doesn’t need to be super nice. They aren’t intentionally trying to cause him pain. I understand the reluctance to use some totally unapproved, untested means of execution (administration of nitrogen).
I tend to think that a lot of the means of execution are way over-thought, and that something like a simple hanging would be acceptable. The chemical cocktails they use aren’t definitively that great anyway.
This isn’t directly relevant, but here’s a description of the underlying crime:
http://murderpedia.org/male.B/b/bucklew-russell.htm
Fuck that guy. There’s no doubt of his guilt. A little pain on his way out the door is not something we should worry about.
I think Gorsuch’s comment is correct, in that while the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, it doesn’t guarantee that you get a pleasant, painless execution.
Yeah, this is the death penalty, not Carousel.
Those people freaking exploded!
How about… no death penalty?
Seems like that would solve the problem completely.
Agreed. Republicans/Conservatives sure have a strange relationship with life and its taking. My views on the death penalty have changed quite a bit after growing up in Texas. Too many cases are overturned later based on DNA evidence, recanted testimony, etc. And with the years and years of delays and waiting, what’s really the point? Justice for the victim(s) and their families?
Yup, but not the issue at hand.
It’s also strange that part of a good argument against the death penalty is that it (death penalty) costs more than life without parole to the State.
I would tend to agree that the standard of proof for capital punishment should be extraordinarily high.
But in certain cases, we know with 100% certainty that someone committed these horrific crimes. There is no chance that they are wrongly convicted.
In those cases, capital punishment is acceptable to me. And i would tend to think that it should be carried out quickly.