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About a week ago, the Supreme Court released a ruling that I thought was a bit, well, out there.  They decided that the military prisoners at Guantanimo Bay had the right to petition the American civilian courts and be granted the same rightrs as American citizens.

I could have understood letting them have POW rights, or letting them complain to the United Nations about their treatment at the hands of the American military, but letting them whine to judges? That seemed a little bit off.

Then, today, the Supreme Court issued two ruling proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that at least five justices are out of their collective minds. In one case, the court rules that no matter how heinous the crime, unless it involves killing someone, the death penalty is too extreme a punishment; in the other, it ruled that Exxon Mobile should not have to pay $2.5 billion in civil punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez spill. Instead, the oil giant would ahve to pay just $500 million in punitive damages.

In some ways, the judgment agaisnt Exxon makes sense. The oil company has already shelled out more than $2 billion to clean up the spill and $1 billion in other court fines. On the other hand, at a time when the American people are largely enraged with big oil, reducing the punitive, that is punishment damages, to one tenth what the trial court originally granted is like a slap in the face of Americans everywhere.

The decision in the death penalty case is worse. A man in Louisiana raped his 8-year-old stepdaugher, causing grevious medical harm, including permanent damage to the child. Justice Kennedy, writing for the court, called the rape a horrible event. But the damage done to that child was not as important as if he had simply completed what he started and killed her.

Apparently, her life long physical and emotional trauma is not worth as much as her life. If he had simply killed her or the medical professionals who gave her trauma care had been slightly less efficient at saving her life and stopping the internal bleeding, her sttacked could be put to death. But since he stopped short and called paramedics, telling them his little girl had “just become a woman”, he gets to live. And she has to go on knowing that the value of her life, the quality of it, was less important thant he life of this maniac.

This is yet another blow to the American death penalty and strikes down laws in 8 states which allowed the death penalty in the case of rape. Now, the court has decided that it has only to protect the actual life of the victim, not the quality of it. So much for that young woman’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!

Since when do we believe that the rights of the accused should outweigh the rights of the victim? And, what the hell is wrong with the Supreme Court?

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