How will Trump's win affect the Supreme Court and death penalty jurisprudence? Thomas and Alito are likely to retire during the next four years, so Trump will get to replace them. That will keep the Court at 6-3 for a long long time.
The big question is what happens with Sotomayor. Some say she should immediately retire to allow Biden to replace her now (and not have another RBG situation). Others say it's too late:
Second, the calendar: The Senate is out of session right now, and will not reconvene until Tuesday. They’ll recess for the week of Thanksgiving, return to Washington to speed-run the confirmations of Biden’s lower court nominees, and then adjourn for good on December 20. When the new Congress begins on January 3, Democrats will be out of power, and one of several Republican senators named John will hold the Senate gavel instead. So, if you are doing the math at home, even if Sotomayor were to retire today, and even if the White House had a nominee ready to announce tonight, that leaves Democrats five weeks—41 days total, and 24 days excluding holidays, recesses, and weekends—to get it done.
Another topic to watch is the death penalty:
Throughout his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump signaled he would resume federal executions if he won and make more people eligible for capital punishment, including child rapists, migrants who kill U.S. citizens and law enforcement officers, and those convicted of drug and human trafficking.
“These are terrible, terrible, horrible people who are responsible for death, carnage and crime all over the country,” Trump said of traffickers when he announced his 2024 candidacy. “We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts,” he added.
While it remains unclear how Trump would act to expand the death penalty, anti-death penalty groups and criminal justice reform advocates say they are taking his claims seriously, noting the spree of federal executions that occurred during his first term.
“We’re going to fight this tooth and nail, and we’re going to seek to uphold the constitutional principals that do not call for this expansion,” said Yasmin Cader, an ACLU deputy legal director and the director of its Trone Center for Justice and Equality.
At the tail end of Trump’s first term, 13 federal inmates were put to death — even as the pandemic led states to halt executions because of Covid concerns in prisons. The cases included the first woman executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years; the youngest person based on the age when the crime occurred (18 at the time of his arrest); and the only Native American on federal death row.
No president had overseen as many federal executions since Grover Cleveland in the late 1800s, and the U.S. government had not executed anyone for more than 15 years until Trump revived the practice.
4 comments:
It's WAY TOO LATE for Sotomayor to retire and have Biden replace her. The time for that was February or even last year.
It took 101 days from Kennedy announcing his retirement to Kavanaugh being confirmed. There are only about 70 days until Trump's inauguration.
Even if fast tracking might be possible, the Republicans will do everything in their power to stop Biden from seating a Justice. Just look at what happened to Merrick Garland near the end of the Obama administration. Merrick Garland was nominated in March of 2016 - eight months BEFORE the election, and his appointment was blocked because the republicans said that the election should decide who took the seat. (Recall, his nomination expired on Jan 3, 2017 when Congress adjourned without holding hearings or a vote).
Does anyone really think that a post-election lame duck president is going to get a nominee to SCOTUS confirmed in this political environment? LOL
Never going to happen. Manchin will never go along with it and I doubt Sinema will either. The public will be aghast at such a cynical move. McConnell is a parliamentary genius (unlike his counterpart Schumer) and will find a clever way to block it. The truth is that Sotomayor is not well and it is 50-50 that she never makes it to 2028. As for the death penalty, it stopped being a hyper partisan issue a while ago. You can thank Scalia for that. With the Dems gone, the Court will not be grappling with the limits of federal power, First Amendment issues, and regulatory overreach (i.e., climate change). Expect an explosion in immigration jurisprudence as the feds throw a blanket over illegals hiding out in California and Illinois where the respective governors are doing an excellent impersonation of George Corley Wallace.
Scalia’s view on the death penalty and the 8th Amendment is actually pretty simple. When it was enacted death was the possible penalty for a whole set of crimes. So, it certainly isn’t per se cruel and unusual for murder. However to the extent people feel it is there is a process to get rid of it like half the States have done. Abolishing the death penalty is not an Issue for the Courts.
The difference with RBG - ACB was that Trump had her picked ready to go.
It was just scheduling the hearings and vote, even more after losing the 2020 ballot.
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