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.
Showing posts with label Citizens United. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Citizens United. Show all posts
Sunday, August 5, 2018
Friday, August 26, 2016
Who Contributes to Political Campaigns; Citizens United; Rape in the Congo; and Syrian Torture
I. Who Contributes to Political Campaigns
In 2012, fewer than 200 Americans -- a minuscule 0.000063 percent of the population -- contributed 80 percent of all Super PAC donations. Of the top 100 contributions in 2012, only 11 were made by women. The percentage of spending coming from groups that aren't required to disclose their donors rose from 11 percent to 47 percent between the 2006 mid-terms and the 2010 mid-terms. 72 percent of the political advertising by outside groups in 2010 came from sources that were prohibited from election spending in 2006. In 2004, 98 percent of outside groups disclosed their donors, versus 34 percent in 2010. Only 26,783 Americans donated more than $10,000 to federal campaigns in 2010, or about one in every 10,000 Americans. The average donation from the elite groups that make up the majority of Super PAC donations is $28,913 -- more than the median individual American income. (The source for the above is People for the American Way)
According to a study of 467 congressional races in 2012, the candidate with more money won the race 91 percent of the time.
II. Citizens United
The Citizens United Supreme Court decision has drawn the ire of many U.S. citizens. Over 650 cities and towns have passed resolutions on ballot initiatives calling on Congress to pass an amendment overturning Citizens United. A poll by the Associated Press and the National Constitution Center found that eight in ten Americans support limits on the amount of money given to groups that are trying to influence U.S. elections. Even the public isn't buying the "money is speech" argument, as 95 percent of respondents told Hart Research Associates in 2010 that corporations spend money on politics to buy influence. Just to note that a high percentage of Americans are worried about the effect of big-spending groups, a 2012 Brennan Center poll found that 70 percent of respondents believe that Super PAC spending will lead to corruption.
Justice John Paul Stevens said the following in his dissent to Citizens United: "Corporations have no conscience, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires..." "They [corporations] are not themselves members of 'We the People,' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."
III. Rape in the Congo
"Rape in war is as old as war itself. But the intimate nature of sexual assault means that the horrors often go undocumented, sanitized out of history books and glossed over in news accounts that focus on casualties and refugee numbers." [1]
The UN reports that 200,000 Congolese women and children have been raped during the Congo's simmering conflicts. In eastern Congo alone, as many as 50,000 children were born of rape over the past two decades. In many countries in Africa and the Middle East, they are not eligible for national IDs without a father's name on the birth certificate, which prevents them from going to school or receiving government assistance.
In 1998, rape was first prosecuted as a tool of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, for crimes committed during the country's genocidal conflict.
Syrian Torture
"The Commission for International Justice and Accountability's (CIJA) work recently culminated in a four-hundred-page legal brief that links the systematic torture and murder of tens of thousands of Syrians to a written policy approved by President Bashar al-Assad." The CIJA interviewed roughly two hundred and fifty victims across several provinces to secure 'pattern evidence' "showing that crimes had been perpetrated in a systematic manner, in accordance with evidence in the documents. In hundreds of witness interviews, the CIJA found consistent patterns in interrogation practices across all branches of the security services. Detainees were routinely kept in inhumane conditions for months or years without entering the judicial system." [2]
Footnotes
[1] Bryn Baker, "War and Rape," The Nation, April 8, 2016.
[2] Ben Taub, "The Assad Files," The New Yorker, April 8, 2016.
In 2012, fewer than 200 Americans -- a minuscule 0.000063 percent of the population -- contributed 80 percent of all Super PAC donations. Of the top 100 contributions in 2012, only 11 were made by women. The percentage of spending coming from groups that aren't required to disclose their donors rose from 11 percent to 47 percent between the 2006 mid-terms and the 2010 mid-terms. 72 percent of the political advertising by outside groups in 2010 came from sources that were prohibited from election spending in 2006. In 2004, 98 percent of outside groups disclosed their donors, versus 34 percent in 2010. Only 26,783 Americans donated more than $10,000 to federal campaigns in 2010, or about one in every 10,000 Americans. The average donation from the elite groups that make up the majority of Super PAC donations is $28,913 -- more than the median individual American income. (The source for the above is People for the American Way)
According to a study of 467 congressional races in 2012, the candidate with more money won the race 91 percent of the time.
II. Citizens United
The Citizens United Supreme Court decision has drawn the ire of many U.S. citizens. Over 650 cities and towns have passed resolutions on ballot initiatives calling on Congress to pass an amendment overturning Citizens United. A poll by the Associated Press and the National Constitution Center found that eight in ten Americans support limits on the amount of money given to groups that are trying to influence U.S. elections. Even the public isn't buying the "money is speech" argument, as 95 percent of respondents told Hart Research Associates in 2010 that corporations spend money on politics to buy influence. Just to note that a high percentage of Americans are worried about the effect of big-spending groups, a 2012 Brennan Center poll found that 70 percent of respondents believe that Super PAC spending will lead to corruption.
Justice John Paul Stevens said the following in his dissent to Citizens United: "Corporations have no conscience, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires..." "They [corporations] are not themselves members of 'We the People,' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."
III. Rape in the Congo
"Rape in war is as old as war itself. But the intimate nature of sexual assault means that the horrors often go undocumented, sanitized out of history books and glossed over in news accounts that focus on casualties and refugee numbers." [1]
The UN reports that 200,000 Congolese women and children have been raped during the Congo's simmering conflicts. In eastern Congo alone, as many as 50,000 children were born of rape over the past two decades. In many countries in Africa and the Middle East, they are not eligible for national IDs without a father's name on the birth certificate, which prevents them from going to school or receiving government assistance.
In 1998, rape was first prosecuted as a tool of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, for crimes committed during the country's genocidal conflict.
Syrian Torture
"The Commission for International Justice and Accountability's (CIJA) work recently culminated in a four-hundred-page legal brief that links the systematic torture and murder of tens of thousands of Syrians to a written policy approved by President Bashar al-Assad." The CIJA interviewed roughly two hundred and fifty victims across several provinces to secure 'pattern evidence' "showing that crimes had been perpetrated in a systematic manner, in accordance with evidence in the documents. In hundreds of witness interviews, the CIJA found consistent patterns in interrogation practices across all branches of the security services. Detainees were routinely kept in inhumane conditions for months or years without entering the judicial system." [2]
Footnotes
[1] Bryn Baker, "War and Rape," The Nation, April 8, 2016.
[2] Ben Taub, "The Assad Files," The New Yorker, April 8, 2016.
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