Whither Scalito?

Edward Lazarus, a lawyer who won a recent Supreme Court opinion for a client on death row, asks what kind of Justice will Samuel Alito be? After leading with the idea that new Chief Justice Roberts has turned out to be more cutting and partisan than he seemed, Lazarus goes on to describe the opposite surprise regarding Alito.

After the Court granted review in Holmes, but before oral argument, Alito replaced Sandra Day O'Connor. It seemed, at the time, that this could only be bad news for Holmes [Lazarus's client]. O'Connor was a very strong advocate for the line of cases on which Holmes's first argument - the due process/confrontation clause argument -- rested.

...

But Alito's opinion declaring South Carolina's rule unconstitutional did not fulfill any of these fears. Instead, it reflects much of the persona Alito ascribed to himself at his hearings - namely, that he was a plainspoken, pragmatic, and precedent-oriented judge. Whereas Roberts has thus far shown signs of being more strident and less open-minded than advertised, Alito has been true to his word during his brief tenure. So far, he's vindicated the many colleagues who vouched for him.

It's an interesting bit of tea-leaf reading.

The Brand identity

The Aryan Brotherhood began as a prison organization in the 70's, when race riots were common in prison. It's members call it 'The Brand' and branched out from white prison supremacy to dealing narcotics, racketeering, extortion, murder. They've created a criminal organization that rivals the mafia's. When Gotti wanted to punish the black guy who punched him out in prison, he went to the Brand. Now 40 people have been indicted and four are currently on trial.

The Aryan Brotherhood launched a campaign a decade ago to become the most powerful criminal organization in the world, a former high-ranking member of the prison gang told a federal jury Tuesday.

This New Yorker article is full of shocking details about the organization.

Upon entering a new prison, Brand members would often carry out a “demonstration” killing or stabbing, in order to terrorize the inmate population. The Baron reportedly ordered that one foe be “taken out in front of everyone, to let these motherfuckers know we mean business.” Indeed, rather than conceal its murders, the gang flaunted them even in front of the guards, as if to show it had no fear of repercussions, of being shot or sentenced to life without parole. “We wanted people to think we were a little crazy,” Thompson said. “It was a way, like Nietzsche said, of bending space and reality to our will.”

Did Texas execute the wrong man?

The Houston Chronicle investigates the case of a teenager executed in 1993.

Beef: It's what's [censored]

I almost let this one slip past:

In a decision that seemed to twist logic unmercifully to arrive at a prescribed conclusion, the U.S. Supreme Court Monday declared that those ads promoting "Beef: It's what's for dinner" are not the work of an industry council promoting their product, but are in fact "government speech." Therefore it's acceptable to use the coercive power of government to force beef producers who don't agree with or like the ad campaign to pay for it.

Most Americans who see those agricultural industry promotion ads -- think also "Got Milk?" or "the other white meat" -- probably believe they're supported by dues or voluntary assessments on members of industry associations. In fact, almost all those campaigns are backed up by the federal government, which makes it illegal for beef producers (to take the current example) not to pay $1 per head of cattle raised each year to support the campaigns.

A sensible Supreme Court would wonder what clause in the Constitution gives the government power to promote a special interest through taxation and would conclude that the government had no constitutional authority to do such a thing.

This is something tax-chawing Red Staters and college town vegans should be able to agree upon. If it's in the people's interest, the government should use tax revenue from food producers and consumers to promote healthy diet (see my post from earlier).

But the problem here is that government has pinched the pockets of food producers to make them pay to promote their product. Which would be fine if the product in question actually helped people. Then all of America would be healthy and our society would live longer and better lives, and I could write posts about the wonderful things our government is doing. Instead, I've got to ask: Is beef (or oranges, or chicory, or any number of products) especially good? Should the government be in the business of mandating beef producers to submit to a private organization's marketing schemes? No. It's bogus. It's anti-American.

Souter, in his dissent (with Stevens and Kennedy):

I take the view that if government relies on the government-speech doctrine to compel specific groups to fund speech with targeted taxes, it must make itself politically accountable by indicating that the content actually is a government message, not just the statement of one self-interested group the government is currently willing to invest with power.

In other words, the government has to be accountable in any speech it sponsors, and not just create of a private group that can't be touched by voters.