Editorial in the New York Times, courtesy Pathik.
Scalia again.
In a troubling 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has significantly weakened the Sixth Amendment’s right to legal counsel. The decision came in the case of Jesse Montejo, a Louisiana man sentenced to death for murder based on incriminating statements that he made when the police questioned him without his lawyer present.
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well….
off late I am going into a comparison between Scalia and Katju… both ‘self- proclaimed messiah’s’ of judicial restraint (to use your phrase). .
both giving ridiculous judgments not considering age old precedents… rembr the gun ruling of Scalia ?
just a thought… and a start.. might throw in more similarities later on
regards
Aditya
The decision is available here. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-1529.pdf Extraordinarily poor reasoning. The Court overruled the earlier decision in Jackson saying,
“As for the strength of Jackson’s reasoning, when this Court creates a prophylactic rule to protect a constitutional right, the relevant “reasoning” is the weighing of the rule’s benefits against its costs.”
Umnn… judicial reasoning is nothing more than a balancing of costs and benefits? So says Scalia, the self-proclaimed messiah of judicial restraint!?!
Again, “the principal cost of applying Jackson’s rule is that crimes
can go unsolved and criminals unpunished when uncoerced confessions are excluded and when officers are deterred from even trying to
obtain confessions.”
Obviously, whether this statement is true or not is a trivial matter for the learned Mr. Justice Antonin Scalia. And if true, is this the best way to go about addressing it? Of course, Scalia says so and Scalia cannot be wrong can he
Anyway, thanks for highlighting this one. Its a gem.