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Fuck Alabama, and Fuck SCOTUS

Gil Bang

By Gil Bang
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Gil Bang

Gil Bang 26164

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WHEN THE SUPREME COURT cleared the way for Alabama to execute Domineque Ray, a Muslim man who had wanted his imam by his side as he died, the legal commentary ranged from surprised to outraged. The justices’ order, on February 7th, approved by a 5-4 vote—with the four liberal-leaning justices in dissent—made no mention of the apparent constitutional problem with Alabama’s refusal to grant Mr Ray’s request. According to Alabama Department of Corrections policy, the prison’s Christian chaplain may be present during a lethal injection and, on request, “will kneel at [an inmate’s] side and pray with him”, but clergy of other faiths are barred from the room.

On February 6th, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals had delayed  Mr Ray’s execution on the grounds that Alabama’s Christian-clergy-only rule seemed to violate the constitutional bar on preferring one faith over others. In a 28-page opinion explaining this position, Judge Stanley Marcus wrote for two colleagues in concluding that “it looks substantially likely to us that Alabama has run afoul of the establishment clause of the First Amendment”. Mr Ray’s claim “touches at the heart” of America’s ideal of religious liberty. “[W]e can think of no principle more elemental to the establishment clause”, they wrote, “than that the states and the federal government shall not favour one religious denomination over another”.

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SuingToGetAMessageBoard?

SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861

Posted
Posted

So weird.  Thomas says it was a timing issue.  https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18a815_3d9g.pdf

If he'd have asked earlier, it might be a 1st Am violation.  I can't quite track the discretion here, but Kagan says 11th Cir was acting within its discretion when ordering a stay, and SCOTUS was claiming it was an abuse of discretion.  Really incredible to have an abuse of discretion when you are just looking at timeliness.

 

 

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JimmyJames

JimmyJames 12271

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Posted
3 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

So weird.  Thomas says it was a timing issue.  https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18a815_3d9g.pdf

If he'd have asked earlier, it might be a 1st Am violation.  I can't quite track the discretion here, but Kagan says 11th Cir was acting within its discretion when ordering a stay, and SCOTUS was claiming it was an abuse of discretion.  Really incredible to have an abuse of discretion when you are just looking at timeliness.

 

 

Yeah. The Surpemes rules the 11th circuit “abused its discretion” because they think the claim was made too late, even though it was made 10 days before. I guess 17 days might have been good enough but who knows.

With respect to the death penalty, this decision cannot possibly be defended other than arguing “hey were the Supreme Court so we can do whatever the fuck we want so take this 5-4 decision up your ass.”

Dark days at the Supreme Court I’m afraid. 

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Bama Chick

Bama Chick 28596

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The timing excuse is utter bullshit because the man didn’t know he couldn’t have his imam UNTIL 10 days prior to his execution.

And the state claims the other timing issue is that they only allow state employed and trained personnel to attend executions and they didn’t have enough time to hire and train an imam.

They only have a Christian Protestant official employed and trained.

So, it’s not just Muslims out of luck in Alabama if you want clergy with you if the state is taking your life. Jews, Catholics, Hindus, etc. won’t be accommodated either.

Seriously, the one religious official that’s employed couldn’t have gone through more than a couple of weeks of training. And they don’t have to hire other faith representatives on a full time basis. Hire them as contractors or consultants, train them, have them on retainer, and pay them if they render services.

They could have stayed the execution for two weeks and trained the imam and hired him as a contractor.

The guy raped and slit the throat of a 15 year old girl, so I don’t have a lot of sympathy for him but the state’s argument was horseshit and the SC upholding it is gross.

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SuingToGetAMessageBoard?

SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Yeah. The Surpemes rules the 11th circuit “abused its discretion” because they think the claim was made too late, even though it was made 10 days before. I guess 17 days might have been good enough but who knows.

With respect to the death penalty, this decision cannot possibly be defended other than arguing “hey were the Supreme Court so we can do whatever the fuck we want so take this 5-4 decision up your ass.”

Dark days at the Supreme Court I’m afraid. 

It's the series of discretion exercise that I was having trouble with.  The district court denied the stay, the 11th Cir granted the stay, SCOTUS denied the stay. 

 

I just read 11th Circuit on this.  I'd like to see what the district court had to say about timeliness.  11th Circuit makes it very clear there was no evidence he should have anticipated being denied the Imam.  It goes through everything from the denial of his request to see the procedures to the heavily redacted and sealed procedures filed with the court to the inartfully drafted statute that doesn't tell you where the Imam would be.    http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201910405.ord.pdf

 

After reading that, I doubt that the district court had anything real to say about timeliness and it is annoying to see SCOTUS ignore the very well explained delay in filing by Ray.  

 

 

14 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

He should have had his Imam.

That said, I knew the child he raped and murdered. Don't cry for me Argentina, too bad he didn't get to twitch and shit himself sooner.

Death penalty guys get the death penalty for something, for sure.   I'm sorry to hear you knew the victim.  But the state recognizes that if he was a Protestant and did this killing, he'd be entitled to have a man of his faith by his side.  And when the state is doing undertaking the most extreme thing it can be doing, that is the time I'm least happy we are throwing the law out the window, not the most forgiving of it.

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Horn Dog

Horn Dog 10123

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Posted
1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

He should have had his Imam.

That said, I knew the child he raped and murdered. Don't cry for me Argentina, too bad he didn't get to twitch and shit himself sooner.

Sorry to hear the victim was an acquaintance of yours.  That’s rough.

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Bama Chick

Bama Chick 28596

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Posted

When the state is Alabama....

Hell, Texas could be doing the same thing.

No one here knew this was even an issue until the prisoner asked for an imam to be with him during his execution and he was told no.

Again, he didn’t find out until 10 days before his execution date and the state has a requirement that anyone in the death chamber must be specifically trained for executions and must be a Board of Prisons employee.

So, their stance that it’s not about the religion, it’s about the “late request” and bureaucracy.

Just ignoring the fact that the only religious counselor employed by them is a Christian Protestant.

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Llano Estacado

Llano Estacado 1257

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Dumb questions amnesty, I’m too lazy to google.

“Death chamber” is in with the actual inmate vs CCTV or plexiglass areas at Holman or Huntsville or wherever, yes? What does the state do if they anticipate an issue between the family of the victim(s) and the family of the condemned? I assume in 2019 they’re always separated?

Those would be state by state and facility by facility decisions on how much they accommodate the condemned with religious leaders, families, and friends at the “viewing”?

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SuingToGetAMessageBoard?

SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, Llano Estacado said:

Dumb questions amnesty, I’m too lazy to google.

“Death chamber” is in with the actual inmate vs CCTV or plexiglass areas at Holman or Huntsville or wherever, yes? What does the state do if they anticipate an issue between the family of the victim(s) and the family of the condemned? I assume in 2019 they’re always separated?

Those would be state by state and facility by facility decisions on how much they accommodate the condemned with religious leaders, families, and friends at the “viewing”?

The 11th circuit opinion is very clear that procedures like this are very secret.  So a policy may exist but we don’t know what it is. 

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RDCanecutter

RDCanecutter 26771

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

And when the state is doing undertaking the most extreme thing it can be doing, that is the time I'm least happy we are throwing the law out the window, not the most forgiving of it.

Yeah, I believe he should have had his Imam, and that everybody else should have their Imam, Priest, Rabbi, President of the Harry Potter Fan Club, whatever.

That's how I'd vote.

Now as to how I feel, I don't care about him one way or the other. This is how it went down for him, instead of whatever other miserable end he was going to set up for himself (and others) if he'd never been caught. He's done now.

I hope the State of Alabama trains up a crew of clerics of all flavors, for the true believers, and especially for any jailbird game-the-system attempts. Norse Pagan? Here's your priest. No, you don't get to die in battle, shoulda tried that the night the cops showed up.

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RDCanecutter

RDCanecutter 26771

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Posted
1 hour ago, Llano Estacado said:

Dumb questions amnesty, I’m too lazy to google.

“Death chamber” is in with the actual inmate vs CCTV or plexiglass areas at Holman or Huntsville or wherever, yes? What does the state do if they anticipate an issue between the family of the victim(s) and the family of the condemned? I assume in 2019 they’re always separated?

Those would be state by state and facility by facility decisions on how much they accommodate the condemned with religious leaders, families, and friends at the “viewing”?

Big Reveal:

I attended my brother's execution in Texas years ago. (He earned it, but didn't commit the kind of degenerate acts that most in there do.) Those who know me can figure out who he was. If you don't, it doesn't matter.

The preacher (unless memory fails me) was in there praying during and after. I could have a detail wrong, which seems weird, but there you are.

The families never see each other. But all can see inside the chamber.

The press crowd up behind you to take note of any word or whimper.

The cops do a good job of keeping the families away from any protestors afterwards, or people celebrating the execution, eg friends of the murderer's victim.

In Huntsville there is a sort of halfway house where the family of the executed can stay before or after. I had stayed there the night before, but we blew the hell out of Huntsville the very night of the execution, and all met in a motel a county away, to go through my brother's things and hold a sort of wake for him.

He died well, trying until the last to atone in some way to the victim's family. The cops said it was unusually well done. I had my brother's papers and saw how he had gone back and forth with a preacher trying to come up with the last best speech that would help everyone.

If this guy, the one who hurt Tiffany, did the same? I'll change my mind. Legally, and just out of decency, he should have had someone.

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WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28889

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What if the condemned is a follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? The simplest solution would probably be to disallow a clerical presence of any kind in the death chamber. How many people outside of death row leave this world with a member of the clergy present? How many of us came into the world with one present? Why should it matter?

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RDCanecutter

RDCanecutter 26771

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1 hour ago, Horn Dog said:

Sorry to hear the victim was an acquaintance of yours.  That’s rough.

I was her teacher about a year before her murder. Tiffany was a funny kid, usually had a mischievous side-glance like she was laughing at her own jokes, she had a dry wit and perfect dead-pan delivery. I can still remember a couple of things she said.

I used to bicycle all through the country around Selma, and I was familiar with that road south of town where her body was found. I had ridden past the exact spot. It's all dirt roads and Spanish moss hanging overhead.

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cabowabo

cabowabo 4640

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Posted
41 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

What if the condemned is a follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? The simplest solution would probably be to disallow a clerical presence of any kind in the death chamber. How many people outside of death row leave this world with a member of the clergy present? How many of us came into the world with one present? Why should it matter?

Agreed. Fuck this guy. He killed 3 people. 

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RDCanecutter

RDCanecutter 26771

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Just now, Bama Chick said:

Jeez, that’s quite a tale Canecutter.

I’m sorry you had to deal with that.

You’re a pretty cool dude whose had quite a life. I’d read your autobiography for sure.

In an odd way, my brother gave me a gift. We all fuck up (ok maybe not murder but we all fuck up.) We all must one day die.

Now go live without fear, and one day die well.

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Mr. Blutarsky

Mr. Blutarsky 154

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Posted

The separation of church and state is quite literally one of the founding pillars of this country, that said I have never understood how any Christian could uphold the death penalty. The basic tenant of the faith is that conversion is always possible. If you condemn a person to death who you deem unworthy of life you revoke their ability to be saved and stand in way of Christ's salvation. It is the most hypocritical vision of Christianity possible. Where life exists conversion exists.

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WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28889

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Posted (edited)
46 minutes ago, cabowabo said:

Agreed. Fuck this guy. He killed 3 people. 

Either everyone should have their flavor of voodoo priest in the death chamber with them or no one should. 

I'm opposed to the death penalty since I think it's better to keep every murderer in prison for life than to execute one innocent person for something they didn't do. I don't think there's a greater injustice that we as a society can commit. And there's zero chance we haven't done it on more occasions than we'd probably like to know. 

I'm not a religious person. But if I was, I could argue that it's up to God to decide when someone should die. And maybe that's why we allow a cleric in the death chamber in the first place. To shirk responsibility when we're trying to play God. 

Edited by WhatTheBuck
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Larry T. Spider

Larry T. Spider 1747

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This issue is very simple to me. Either everybody gets their person of faith (within reason) or nobody does. It has nothing to do with the murderer being a terrible person. Theoretically, everybody in that situation is. This is purely about southern conservatives pushing their brand of religion on everybody else per the usual. They will also tell you that they are under attack and their religious freedoms are being taken away. 

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31868

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Posted

I don't like what the Supreme Court did here.  I don't like a lot of their death penalty jurisprudence.

 

The weirdest thing about this is that I am virtually certain that if this Alabama statute reached the Supreme Court in another, less "time-sensitive," stay-of-execution way, the result would be what everyone thinks should happen:  clergy of your choice, or possibly none at all.

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Fozzz

Fozzz 152

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Posted
6 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I don't like what the Supreme Court did here.  I don't like a lot of their death penalty jurisprudence.

 

The weirdest thing about this is that I am virtually certain that if this Alabama statute reached the Supreme Court in another, less "time-sensitive," stay-of-execution way, the result would be what everyone thinks should happen:  clergy of your choice, or possibly none at all.

Given the laughable majority opinion in this case, I kinda doubt it, but I’m not surprised seeing you try to excuse this decision. 

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UTDD

UTDD 362

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Posted
3 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

Yeah, I believe he should have had his Imam, and that everybody else should have their Imam, Priest, Rabbi, President of the Harry Potter Fan Club, whatever.

That's how I'd vote.

Now as to how I feel, I don't care about him one way or the other. This is how it went down for him, instead of whatever other miserable end he was going to set up for himself (and others) if he'd never been caught. He's done now.

I hope the State of Alabama trains up a crew of clerics of all flavors, for the true believers, and especially for any jailbird game-the-system attempts. Norse Pagan? Here's your priest. No, you don't get to die in battle, shoulda tried that the night the cops showed up.

I'm kind of with you on this, but I would add that it matters to me a little in that you may have another situation down the road with another person that I feel more sympathetic towards being denied this right.

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31868

Posted
Posted (edited)
12 hours ago, Fozzz said:

Given the laughable majority opinion in this case, I kinda doubt it, but I’m not surprised seeing you try to excuse this decision. 

Which majority opinion is that?  This:

Because Raywaited until January 28, 2019 to seek relief, we grant the State’s application to vacate the stay entered by the Unit-ed States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. See Gomez v. United States Dist. Court for Northern Dist. of Cal., 503 U. S. 653, 654 (1992) (per curiam) (“A court may consider the last-minute nature of an application to stayexecution in deciding whether to grant equitable relief.”).

That isn't an opinon, friendo.  I assume the next non-Christian inmate up for execution in Alabama will raise this issue in a more timely fashion and the result would be as indicated:  clergy of choice or none at all.  The relief sought here was stay of execution, not examination of the Alabama statute.  Bring it up on plenary review and it gets trashed, dollars to donuts.

Also, where exactly, did I defend the decision?

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Fozzz

Fozzz 152

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Posted
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Which majority opinion is that?  This:

Because Ray waited until January 28, 2019 to seek relief, we grant the State’s application to vacate the stay entered by the Unit-ed States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. See Gomez v. United States Dist. Court for Northern Dist. of Cal., 503 U. S. 653, 654 (1992) (per curiam) (“A court may consider the last-minute nature of an application to stayexecution in deciding whether to grant equitable relief.”).

That isn't an opinon, friendo.  I assume the next non-Christian inmate up for execution in Alabama will raise this issue in a more timely fashion and the result would be as indicated:  clergy of choice or none at all.  The relief sought here was stay of execution, not examination of the Alabama statute.  Bring it up on plenary review and it gets trashed, dollars to donuts.

Also, where exactly, did I defend the decision?

You are defending it in this fucking post.  If you are not trying to excuse it, then why not mention that although the execution was scheduled on November 6 the state waited until January 23 to deny Ray's request, and the Alabama statute in question provides that both the prison chaplain and the inmate’s spiritual adviser of choice may be present at an execution, without drawing a distinction between those who may be present in the execution chamber and those who may only be present in the viewing room?  Those are important points that were not even addressed by the majority.  Moreover, as Kagan pointed out in her dissent, SCOTUS is normally reluctant to vacate a stay as it implies an abuse of discretion by the lower court.  

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31868

Posted
Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

You are defending it in this fucking post.  If you are not trying to excuse it, then why not mention that although the execution was scheduled on November 6 the state waited until January 23 to deny Ray's request, and the Alabama statute in question provides that both the prison chaplain and the inmate’s spiritual adviser of choice may be present at an execution, without drawing a distinction between those who may be present in the execution chamber and those who may only be present in the viewing room?  Those are important points that were not even addressed by the majority.  Moreover, as Kagan pointed out in her dissent, SCOTUS is normally reluctant to vacate a stay as it implies an abuse of discretion by the lower court.  

I'm simply observing that, on plenary review, the sought after outcome would be obtained.  And this isn't plenary review.

Which part of the first two sentences of my original post did you fail to understand?

I don't like this outcome.  I'm not satisfied with the reasoning, but I understand why it is the way it is.

 

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Fozzz

Fozzz 152

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm simply observing that, on plenary review, the sought after outcome would be obtained.  And this isn't plenary review.

Which part of the first two sentences of my original post did you fail to understand?

I don't like this outcome.  I'm not satisfied with the reasoning, but I understand why it is the way it is.

The reason it was a "last-minute" stay was due to the state dragging their feet for months and waiting till the last moment to deny Ray's request, and yet the majority cites that against Roy without mentioning why he "waited" until January 28.  You don't see the unfairness in that?  

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Nice Guy Eddie

Nice Guy Eddie 13628

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Posted

The rule should be that you don't have a clergy member next to you when you are executed.   You can have access to one in advance and one near the end, but I don't believe there is any special reason you need one along side you as you are killed.

I think it's strange if a Christian preacher sits there obediently while someone is killed next to him.  I'm not saying he should sneak in a gun and try to help the prisoner escape but a preacher should be condemning the men performing the execution.  that whole pesky commandment of  Thou Shall Not Kill.  

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31868

Posted
Posted (edited)
6 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

The reason it was a "last-minute" stay was due to the state dragging their feet for months and waiting till the last moment to deny Ray's request, and yet the majority cites that against Roy without mentioning why he "waited" until January 28.  You don't see the unfairness in that?  

I understand that, you dolt.  And it's a bad posture for reviewing the constitutionality of a statute on establishment clause grounds.

Fuck, I'm even anti-death penalty. 

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Horn Dog

Horn Dog 10123

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Posted
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Bring it up on plenary review and it gets trashed, dollars to donuts.

 

I remember another poster named TahoeHorn would use this phrase frequently....hmmm.

And what does “dollars to donuts” mean anyway?  Does it mean you will pay a dollar for a donut?  That seems like a bad deal and a nonsensical thing to say.

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Fozzz

Fozzz 152

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I understand that, you dolt.  And it's a bad posture for reviewing the constitutionality of a statute on establishment clause grounds.

Fuck, I'm even anti-death penalty. 

Obviously you understand that, which is why you said "I assume the next non-Christian inmate up for execution in Alabama will raise this issue in a more timely fashion and the result would be as indicated:  clergy of choice or none at all." lol

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31868

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, Horn Dog said:

I remember another poster named TahoeHorn would use this phrase frequently....hmmm.

And what does “dollars to donuts” mean anyway?  Does it mean you will pay a dollar for a donut?  That seems like a bad deal and a nonsensical thing to say.

Oh bullshit.  Tahoe brought doughnuts.  I ain't bringing any donuts.

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