Today's Los Angeles Times carries the editorial, "Will the Supreme Court reconsider?"
The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Robert H. Jackson once archly observed, are not final because they are infallible; they're infallible only because they are final. But what about when they're not?
That question will be presented to the undoubtedly chagrined jurists when they return from their summer recess to consider a motion for reconsideration in one of the court's most celebrated -- and criticized -- rulings of the past term. The case, Kennedy vs. Louisiana, established a prohibition against state laws that would subject anyone but murderers to the death penalty, a welcome result that halted the expansion of a barbaric exercise of the state's ultimate power.
But in concluding that the nation's "evolving standards of decency" commanded that ruling, the court relied in part on the incorrect belief that only six states authorize the death penalty for the rape of a child. In fact, a federal law and a separate executive order provide for the penalty under military law. Because of that mistake, the state of Louisiana has asked the court to reconsider its ruling.
The motion seems unlikely to prevail. The existence of the penalty in military proceedings does not undermine the balance of the court's rationale, even though it does weaken it incrementally. As such, the court's ban seems destined to stand.
Earlier coverage is here.
Comments