Usually I think that the Supreme Court Justices, or the “Supremes” as I call them, have a really good gig. They get to pick what they work on, have life time tenure, and have a pretty nice building to work in every day. This week I don’t envy them, because I get the feeling that the Justices are really busy. You know it is a historic week when an important case about the right of a state to define its own immigration laws is not the biggest news coming out of the Court. So while everyone waits for the Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the health care law, let’s see what is being overshadowed.
Today the Supremes issued several important decisions, one of which wasn’t even argued. First, the Court struck down most of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, emphasizing the supremacy of federal law in this area. Growing up and living in the Northeast, it is difficult to comprehend the policy issues surrounding immigration that are faced in states like Arizona. Yet immigration law just feels like an issue of federal law, one that we should decide as a nation, because it determines who and how people join us in America. I know almost nothing about immigration law, but really Arizona’s legislation was a criminal statute in that it allowed police new powers over those who they suspected were not in Arizona (and the U.S.) legally. Indeed, the one aspect of the Arizona law upheld by the Supremes was the provision allowing police to check the immigration status of anyone that the office has a reasonable suspicion is not in the U.S. legally. As a former criminal defense attorney, this provision seems like it is subject to lots of abuse and racial stereotyping. What do you think? Should the police have that power? Should our entire nation get to decide?
Another interesting decision today held that sentencing a juvenile (someone under 18) to life without possibility of parole is a violation of the Eighth Amendment. I have studied the precursor to this decision, a case called Roper v. Simmons, which held that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment for juveniles. Other cases have held that life without parole is a sentence very similar to the death penalty, thus connecting the two lines of cases, the Court made a predictable conclusion. That said, there is much debate whether a 17 year old that commits a horrendous crime should get a lesser sentence than someone one year older. Ultimately, we don’t want to lock up our young children for life without parole, most would agree. So we have to draw a line somewhere. Because so many other legal rights and obligations attach at age 18, it makes the most sense. Others argue that we shouldn’t draw lines, but allow the jury to decide in each case whether children should be given long sentences or even the death penalty. What do you think?
6 Comments
Anisha Vellodi posted on June 25, 2012 at 11:45 pm
I think that the one part of the Arizona law that was upheld is completely useless. It is so easy for police to come up with any excuse for reasonable suspicion and abuse the law. Especially in lower income areas it is so hard to regulate small details and the abuse of power like this. I do not think the police should have that power at all. I don’t think it is up to any individual to decide the fate of another or of a family on a whim, and especially not to affect the entire nation by themselves. With regard to the violation of the Eighth Amendment I think the jury should be able to decide each case. I think that people who commit horrific crimes, regardless of the age, should be punished in relation to that crime. In my mind, if a 13 year old commits a heinous crime the fact that they are young does not justify anything. It makes no sense that because they are young they are forgiven, but if they were five years older they would not be given that leniency. People who commit those crimes of that level know fully well what they are doing and should not be forgiven for it, regardless of age. If kids are given the freedom and responsibility to drive, get married, and have kids as they choose to under the age of 18, they should be held liable for all their actions, especially those that affect another life and another family. In fact it is because horrible crimes affect so many other lives, criminals of all ages should be punished as equals because when the crime is the same, a 13 year old murderer affects as many people as a 35 year old murderer.
Shree Chudasama posted on June 26, 2012 at 12:00 am
Call me a terrible person, and maybe because I don’t have kids, I can feel this way, but kids committing murders as atrocious as Venables & Thompson shouldn’t be let off just because they’re kids. I don’t agree with the death penalty simply because it seems too easy, but prison time should be given dependent on the crime. Overall, I don’t see how useful prison time itself is, I think criminal rehab programs would be much more effective and should be utilized in the case of kids. But if that never goes anywhere, then prison’s fine. I disagree with the idea that kids don’t have the moral capacity to know what’s what and think punishments that fit the crime would work as a good teaching device. I also don’t believe in getting out early for good behaviour unless there have been spaced-out, thorough, mental health exams on the criminals beforehand. And that would really only work if some sort of rehab practice were put into place. I see how the Supreme Court came to their conclusion, since getting rid of the potential lifetime of a 12-year-old when he/she’s that young may be cruel and unusual, but if they were truly enforcing the Eighth Amendment, shouldn’t they be rethinking capital punishment?
Shree Chudasama posted on June 26, 2012 at 12:11 am
And in regards to immigration, from what I’ve learned, the legal immigration process is a pretty convoluted one, which seems to draw a lot of people towards undocumented immigration. The part of the law the SC decided to uphold seems like it’ll result in a lot of dispute of how racially charged cops’ suspicions are, but i don’t think these claims will be taken seriously because Arizona’s courts probably do not favor undocumented folks. This is a system that needs some serious restructuring and trying to temporarily appease a state and a few xenophobes probably won’t cut it.
Jenny Rozenzaft posted on June 26, 2012 at 9:49 pm
In regards to Arizona’s new law, I believe that the immigration issue is federal since it does affect the entire country. The police can, of course, abuse their new-found power just as they can abuse any power. I just don’t understand why an officer would have any interest in searching man after man to check whether or not he is an illegal immigrant. The law could (and most likely would) lead to racial profiling, but other than offending and detaining the accused, I suppose the law could not bring about any harm. But what would even give an officer “reasonable suspicion” to believe someone is an illegal immigrant? What garners such suspicion? The way someone walks? His or her clothing? I just don’t really fathom this entire scenario (maybe because I live in the northeast).
After reading about the atrocious crimes committed by the children in the linked article, especially the two ten-year-olds who tortured poor James Bulgar, I almost want to change my previous opinion that all minors should be tried differently than those over 18. However, thinking rationally, a ten-year-old should never be judged the same way as a thirty-year-old man. It is simply unfair. I do, by all means, think that any child who commits such a heinous crime should be put in some sort of facility, and then it is up to experts to decide whether or not to let said child out after x amount of years. And since the option is still available to give out harsh sentences, this new law does not really limit any decision. I think that automatically giving the death penalty to a 14-year-old is cruel and unusual, under any circumstances. I do not, however, think that giving that same teenager decades in prison is cruel or unusual. On a side note, I also agree with Shree’s comment that prisoners should not be released early based on good behavior. I have always thought that this idea was ridiculous and can hardly have a good outcome.
Yin Fu posted on June 27, 2012 at 9:22 pm
Effectiveness of the statue aside, I find that the Supreme Court decided on Arizona’s immigration law with the right intentions. Illegal immigrants contributes to the rise of unemployment among US citizens, especially those residing in the southern border states. Also, the illegal immigrants indirectly perpetuate unethical employment practices because their illegal status is often exploited by certain employers in the form of poor working conditions and sub-minimal wages. Any services and products from low wage workers would in turn present an unfair competition in the local economy because their low prices can drive others out of competition. It is both the federal and state government’s duty to stimulate its economy, to create employment opportunities for its own citizens, and to solve societal problems such as unethical employment/business practices. These reasons, in light of the still-recovering national economy, can more or less justify Arizona and the Supreme Court’s rather unsympathetic standpoint on illegal immigration.
However it is difficult for me to affirm the usefulness of “police checking for immigration status based on reasonable suspicion” in regulating illegal immigration. Perhaps the government should concentrate on tighter border control, or some other more effective alternatives. As discussed in class, this statute leaves ample room for power abuse on the police’s part, since “reasonable suspicion” encompasses a too-wide range of motives. How can the wrongly-accused disprove the police’s suspicion if it is “reasonable”? Also, what is to happen if the suspected person is indeed illegal? Will he/she be deported? Many of the current legal residents in this country have started out as illegal immigrants; most people already know that the rest (of the naturalization process) becomes easier once one “gets their foot in the door”, or in this case, on US lands. The point is, even if the appropriate measures are taken against the illegal immigrants discovered in this manner, hosts of problems still remain. In the end, those who are deported have their families broken up, the police may be blamed based on power abuse and racial discrimination, there are still vast number of illegal immigrants who never get discovered, and their poor working conditions persist–so, nobody wins.
Scott Pheifer posted on September 12, 2012 at 10:11 am
Before coming to college there was a stabbing at my high school and a young kid with a lot of dreams died that day. I have zero sympathy for the killer as it was premeditated in terms of he brought the knife to school and would stab the first person he would see going to the urinal. The perp was 17 and the victim as well i believe was 17. I personally thought the kid who did it should be given the death penalty, but mass doesnt allow that anyway so I see nothing wrong with him rotting in person for the rest of his life. everyone knows that killing is wrong growing up, your parents teach you or you can just have a brain and realized that if everyone in the world thought that they could just go around killing people are world would be an awful place to live. To think that you change significantly from 17 to 18 or 20 to 21 is absurd and you know what you did was wrong, you should pay the consequences for your actions.