The ACLU is really getting desperate to stop resumption of executions in California. They certainly lost on one of the ballot measures last week, and it is close to certain they lost on the other. AP has not "called" Proposition 66, but the Secretary of State's Office did remove it from its "close contests" page this afternoon when the margin inched up to the 2% threshold for "close."
In California, and in almost all states, the legislature sets the method of execution in broad terms and the prison department fills in the details. That has been the law here and almost every capital punishment state for a long time. The outlier is Arkansas, where a howler of a decision by the state supreme court said that violates the separation of powers.
Maura Dolan reports in the L.A. Times:
In California, and in almost all states, the legislature sets the method of execution in broad terms and the prison department fills in the details. That has been the law here and almost every capital punishment state for a long time. The outlier is Arkansas, where a howler of a decision by the state supreme court said that violates the separation of powers.
Maura Dolan reports in the L.A. Times:
The ACLU of Northern California challenged a state law that gives the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation wide flexibility in establishing execution procedures.Seriously? It never has before.
Delegating such policy decisions to a state agency, the suit says, violates separation of powers provisions of the California Constitution.
Scheidegger said he doubted the California effort would succeed.No offense to my friends in Arkansas. Only to your supreme court.
"They are attacking what the law has always been," he said. "I don't think the California Supreme Court will follow the lead of the state of Arkansas."
"Seriously? It never has before.
~ I agree, but with living-constitution, evolving decency, atheistic foes such as the ACLU, are not history and precedent meaningless?
That no state is permitted to execute retarded murderers due to "evolving standards of decency," and the Supreme Court "therefore conclude[s] that such punishment
is excessive" under the 8th Amendment (1791), 'never was before' 2002.
That no state is permitted to execute child rapists by the 8th Amendment (1791) "barring capital punishment" for any crime not resulting in death, 'never was
before' 2008.
That homosexuals "wedding" each other is demanded of every state by the 14th Amendment (1868), which "requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex", 'never was before' 2015.
That "transgendered" males under Title IX (1972) must be allowed female bathrooms as they want [and vice versa], i.e. "facilities consistent with their gender identity"
by all "schools receiving federal money", 'never was before' 2016.
~ https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-343.ZO.html; https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/536/304/case.html; https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/576/14-556/; http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kentucky-clerk-kim-davis-released-from-jail/; ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-departments-education-and-justice-release-
joint-guidance-help-schools-ensure-civil-rights-transgender-students