Thomas and Alito Shortchange the Bill of Rights in Another Criminal Justice Case

Greetings and welcome to the latest issue of the magazine. Injustice System bulletin. It’s now the first week of June, which means the U.S. Supreme Court has begun its annual mad dash to release all of its opinions on cases discussed in its current term before the justices leave for summer vacation. If past SCOTUS conditions are any indication, we’ll be getting one or more major comment submissions every week for the next three or four weeks, usually on Thursdays, and everything will be wrapped up neatly and tidily by the last days of June.

By my count, there are nearly a dozen major cases waiting to be decided, addressing issues ranging from executive power to immigration to digital privacy to the right to be protected against unreasonable search and seizure.

There have also been some notable events in criminal justice cases that have occurred just off the SCOTUS main stage. As I noted last week, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito went out of their way to protest the Supreme Court’s refusal to review a lower court decision denying qualified immunity to a police officer facing credible allegations of misconduct. Pointing to this case and others, I observed that “from a libertarian legal perspective, Thomas and Alito tend to stand out as the worst on criminal justice issues.”

Thomas and Alito were at it again this week, once again protesting a Supreme Court action that goes against the interests of law enforcement. Yesterday the Supreme Court issued an unsigned opinion in a case. Whitton/Dixon. At issue was whether a lower court erred in weighing post-trial DNA evidence in its evaluation of the state Supreme Court decision. In its opinion, the Court held that the lower court “should not have considered the post-trial DNA evidence in considering whether the Florida Supreme Court reasonably concluded that: [a jailhouse informant’s] the testimony was irrelevant to the jury’s decision. Since the DNA evidence was not presented to the jury after the trial (it was not actually available during the trial), this evidence could not have influenced the jury’s verdict.”

Thomas opposed the decision, with Alito joining in. “If the Eleventh Circuit made any error in citing the DNA test results,” Thomas wrote, that error was “harmless” because the lower court also “thoroughly reviewed the overwhelming evidence against Whitton that was more than sufficient to justify its decision.”

At its core, this case was about whether failure to comply with proper procedures in a criminal justice matter counts as a violation of due process. The 7-2 majority argued that this evidence should be considered because post-trial evidence must be considered. Negative was evaluated, proper procedures were not followed and justice was not served. Therefore, SCOTUS sent the case back to the judicial drawing board “for further action consistent with this opinion.”

Thomas and Alito, by contrast, argued that the majority’s focus on procedural niceties was entirely misguided. According to Thomas’ opponent, the majority was too focused on “technical” issues.[ies]It doesn’t really affect[t]’Result of the case’

Complaining that criminal defendants fail to pay their sentences due to legal “techniques” is a hallmark of what is sometimes called “law and order conservatism.” One problem with this kind of conservative thinking is that the Constitution in general, and the Bill of Rights in particular, are devoted to the kind of procedural safeguards that at times necessarily benefit criminal defendants, because that’s what it takes to impose consistent and principled limits on government power.

When Thomas and Alito complain about pesky “technicalities” that aid defendants, they are, in other words, actually complaining about the pesky Constitution.

Please forgive my shameless self-promotion, but my latest book was officially released this week and I wanted to tell you a little about it.

It’s called War of Independence: The Fall of Slavery and the Coming of the Thirteenth Amendment. My attempt to understand and explain the legal, political, and military factors that made an abolitionist constitutional amendment possible. You can read a brief excerpt and get your own copy here. Here. I hope you check it out.

Post Thomas and Alito Incomplete Amendment to Bill of Rights in Another Criminal Justice Case appeared for the first time reason.com.