Late Shoutout
ArchPundit
20253 4:37:13
October 2004
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The 21st Century version of the Lincoln-Douglas debate in Illinois
I’m telling you, if you crackpots keep claiming this Abe is going to get up and slap you around.
I’m not sure who thinks this is a wise idea, but one thing about Illinois is it doesn’t have the provencial hold on many historical events like, say, Saint Louis and the damn 1904 World’s Fair, but don’t mess with Abe. Just don’t–it really makes one realize what a carpetbagger Keyes is. I don’t care much about where he’s from, but these comparisons are incredibly annoying and offensive.
And the delusions continue:
In a matter of weeks Alan Keyes has gained a wide grassroots support. Polls show a 20%+ gain for Keyes in some areas of the State with a fraction of the money Obama has spent. Obama had over $9 million on June 30, 2004 and has spent about $8 million. Keyes has raised $1,349,679 in 7 weeks, with over 20,000 contributors.
Quincy Herald-Whig Poll
Obama 53 %
Keyes 17 %
Bush 51.5 %
Kerry 35.4 %
Not a lot of details in the text, but you get the picture.
Lamest Non-Endorsement
Lame endorsement of the cycle–the Edwardsville Intelligencer. They endorse Kerry as the lesser of two evils, but claim that Barack is avoiding tough issues such as gay marriage because he opposes it and supports civil unions. The lameness of this is how clear Obama’s position is on the subject–
Against gay marriage
For Civil Unions
Against DOMA
For allowing gay couples to adopt.
That’s clearer than about 80% of the politicians in the country and clearer than Kerry.
They guy is a charismatic policy wonk. You may not agree with him, but he’s pretty detailed and clear.
Some Sun on Sunday and a Debate on Tuesday
Hard debate preparation for Obama in Daytona Beach on Sunday.
Keeping him honest….Thank you Dave Syverson.
ABC-7 Poll
Kerry 52%
Bush 42%
Undecided 5%
Obama 70%
Keyes 20%
Undecided 8%
And in my continuing efforts to point out what a red herring gay marriage is:
Gay marriage is supported by 23-percent of the voters and an additional 39-percent approve of civil unions between gay or lesbian couples. 31-percent support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, but that’s less than a third.
So 62% of Illinoisans support Obama’s position. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out Mr. Keyes. Interestingly, at least 11% of those who are against gay marriage aren’t voting for Keyes.
Details
ABC 7 News poll of 828 registered voters interviewed over the phone last week by Richard Day Research.
The Ever Increasing Problem of Adding Death Penalty Qualifications
One of the attacks on Obama has been that he voted against the death penalty in cases where a gang member kills a child. Of course, the murder of a child under 12 was already death penalty eligible since 1981.
So why pass a new law? To make oneself look tough on crime even if that is utterly irrelevant to any practical consequence. In the bizarre attack on Obama in the debate by Keyes, Keyes wanted to show that we hold such murderers acocuntable with the most serious punishment. And again, the good Ambassador’s unfamiliarity with Illinois law led him to make a case, that made no sense.
I stumbled across the above article by Aaron Chambers (also columnist at the Register Star) which identifies the problems with too many death penalty eligible circumstances.
It’s a policy wonk’s dream of an article
To be eligible for a death sentence in Illinois, a defendant must be convicted of first degree murder and meet at least one of the eligibility, or ?aggravating,? factors. If a judge or jury finds the defendant eligible for death, then a sentencing authority must weigh aggravating factors against any number of so-called ?mitigating? factors, such as when a defendant has no significant history of criminal activity. If there are no sufficient mitigating factors, then the court must sentence the defendant to death.
This framework ? like those in other states ? was designed to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court?s decision in Furman v. Georgia and that decision?s progeny. The 1972 decision in Furman held that capital punishment, as it was administered in Georgia and Texas, constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth amendments because it could be arbitrarily applied. That decision effectively invalidated the death penalty. Subsequent decisions have held that a state?s sentencing scheme must narrow the class of people eligible for the death penalty. The statutes also must give judges and juries clear guidelines for determining an appropriate sentence.
Starting with 7 eligibility factors, the state increased that to 21 with the practical effect of all first degree murders being essentially death penalty eligible:
The state?s high court could weigh in on the matter, too. The justices are considering at least two cases in which Death Row inmates argue that having so many eligibility factors has rendered the death penalty statute unconstitutional on its face. Essentially, the defendants maintain that, while each aggravating factor separately may narrow the class of people who are eligible for death, collectively they encompass the circumstances of most conceivable murders, making the statute as a whole unconstitutional. They argue the statute has become so broad that the intent of the law, to limit the cases where death may be imposed, has been negated. ?The situation is now that there are so many exceptions to the rule that they have swamped the rule,? says Charles Hoffman, an assistant appellate defender challenging the law on behalf of Death Row inmate Raul Ceja
In trying to stay within fair use standards, only 9 eligibility factors have been utilized it seems, and two are by far the most used:
And of those 391 instances, prosecutors used committing a murder in the course of a felony 44 percent of the time, and committing two or more murders 36 percent of the time.
The death penalty is allowed under the understanding that it is reserved for clear cases of the most brutal of crimes. By allowing a large number of factors to exist, the death penalty is likely to be used for less than the worst cases some of the time. The Illinois Supreme Court avoided the issue by saying there was no way to address where the line of too many sentences are if one could classify all death penalty cases:
Even assuming one could ever create a tool that would measure the percentage of defendants eligible for capital punishment, where is the dividing line of constitutionality and who makes that decision?”
This isn’t that tough of a question–appoint a special master and code the first degree murder convictions for the last several years and figure out how many are death penalty eligible according to the law. If anything, this would underestimate the number since some cases won’t have enough information in the record.
It’s simply a cop-out to say it can’t be done or no one knows where to draw the line. If the US Supreme Court requires death penalty cases be narrowed, if nothing is potentially narrowed, or very little, that is saying something. How to arrive at a specific test might be hard, but it isn’t that difficult if one has time.
This case was denied by the US Supreme Court, but ultimately, I will virtually guarantee a split between state Supreme Courts that the US Supreme Court will take up (assuming the reasoning is on federal Constitutional grounds).
It’s usually good politics to get tough on crime, but it is also often bad policy. Keyes blunt argument on this goes again to his supposed brilliance. Instead of having a serious discussion, Keyes wants to simply hit Obama over the head. That isn’t brilliance, it’s loudness.
Keyes Flight Watch
Vasyl tells us the flights to Baltimore are up to $142. We wish the good Ambassador the good luck to have gotten his ticket earlier.
Basically, this is a choice between the 21st century and America circa 1913
That was the year when the nation ratified the 16th and 17th amendments, which allowed the income tax and provided for direct election of senators – two amendments the reactionary Mr. Keyes would repeal.