Victims Impact Statements and Still More

Victims Impact Statements
"Generally, defendants were not allowed counsel before the eighteenth century; most trials, in  any case, lasted only about twenty minutes." [1]  In the wake of the Gregg desi by the U.S. Supreme Court, the courts have required what is sometimes called the "super due process" in death-penalty cases, given the gravity of the punishment. Justice William Rehnquist insisted that: "A victim should not be a 'faceless stranger.' " Rehnquist said that "To right the balance in the sentencing phase of a capital criminal trial, courts should admit a 'quick glimpse' of the life the defendant chose to extinguish, and let prosecutors convey  the loss to the victim's family and to society, which has resulted from the defendant's homicide." ( NOTE: "desi" should be "decision."

Victim-impact statements "appear to amplify the commonly held prejudice that people with darker skin are more 'death-worthy.' " These statements would "appear to advance the fundamental anti-democratic notion that the lives of the eloquent, the intelligent, the beautiful, the cherished are more worthy of the full protection of the law than others." Thirty-two states have passed victim-rights amendments; five more ballot initiatives may pass in November 2018. [2]

Sheriffs' Associations
There are roughly three thousand sheriffs in the United States in forty-seven states. The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association believes that the sheriff has the final say on a law's constitutionality in his county." "To the most dogmatic there's only one way to interpret the country's founding documents: pro-gun, anti-immigrant. anti-regulation, anti-Washington." [3]

In Wolman's and Ferris's survey of sheriffs, ninety-five percent said that defending gun rights was more important than restricting access to firearms. Yet another finding of the survey was that, according to ideology, a sheriff could, for example, reject the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship and rights to former slaves.

Artificial Persons
The 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission has generated intense public opposition, as reflected in a poll that found 85 percent of Democrats, 81 percent of Independents, and 76 percent of Republicans in agreement that the case was wrongly decided. This strong majority belief is not in agreement with the reality that corporations have received constitutional protection almost since the founding of the United States. "Indeed, from 1868 to 1912, the Supreme Court heard more than 10 times as many 14th Amendment cases involving corporations as it did cases concerning African Americans." "Corporations have long since been granted constitutional rights." [4]

The legal expert, David Cole, believes that the real problem does not lie in the "Court's recognition that limiting corporate spending on political speech raises First Amendment concerns, but rather in its overly narrow conception of the permissible justifications for such limits. The problem with Citizens United is more nuanced: Its failure is not in its protection of corporate rights or its view on money as speech, but in its inability to recognize a broader set of justifications for limiting the distorting effects of concentrated wealth." [5]

I find it troublesome with David Cole not having a problem with "money as speech," as based on the one person, one vote concept,  a billionaire, or a very profitable corporation -- viewed as a person --  can obviously garner much more political influence than can I, with my one vote and my much more limited dollars.

ADDENDUM:
*Canada's rollout of its new marijuana law will create a nationwide system in which weed is treated less like a narcotic and more like booze, taxed and sold mostly in state-run stores where any adult can buy. The new pot market will be grafted onto Canada's liquor distribution systems." (Alcohol sales have dropped 15 percent in U.S. counties that legalized medical marijuana.) [6]

Footnotes:
[1] Jill Lepore, "Sirens in the Night" The New Yorker, May 21, 2018.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ashley Powers, "Lone Star," The New Yorker, April 30, 2018.

[4] David Cole, "Artificial Persons," The Nation. July 2/9, 2018.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Brett Popplewell, "Canadian Bakin," Mother Jones, July/August 2018.