rank the tough on crime justices
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 06:02:59 PM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Discussion
  Constitution and Law (Moderator: World politics is up Schmitt creek)
  rank the tough on crime justices
« previous next »
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: rank the tough on crime justices  (Read 473 times)
David Hume
davidhume
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,581
United States


Political Matrix
E: -0.77, S: 1.22

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« on: July 19, 2021, 03:27:29 PM »
« edited: July 22, 2021, 03:40:06 AM by David Hume »

When it comes to crime, the right has two competing interests: the conservative law and order and tough on crime stance, vs the libertarian due process stance.

Conservative justices such as Scalia, frequently bent to the libertarian side. Here is my ranking about the most tough on crime justices.

Tier one:

Alito.
If I remember correctly, Alito never vote in favor of criminals, unless in very clear and unanimous cases (I am even not sure if it really exist). He is not afriad of been the 8:1 solo dissenter, such as in Johnson v. United States (2015).

Rehnquist.
Similar to Alito. Although he sometimes vote for criminals strategically after becoming Chief Justice, most famously in United States v. Morrison. (I don't know any cases that he could be the fifth vote against criminals. Please correct me if I am wrong.)

Burger.
He got nominated for CJ largely because of his strong tough on crime stance. He did voted for criminals in Lockett_v._Ohio, but I guess it was a strategic one -- to assign opinion to himself and write a narrow one. (I have to admitted that I am less familiar with Burger, so please remind me any case that he could be the fifth vote against criminals.)


Tier two:

Thomas.
He did voted for criminals occasionally, such as the most recent BORDEN v. UNITED STATES. But I think these come from his pure originalist approach, other than been libertarian. He almost only agree in judgement but never joined the liberal opinion, as compared to Gorsuch. Besides, he did so with much smaller frequency than Scalia and Gorsuch.


Tier three:

Scalia.
He is definitely a tough on crime person, yet voted many times for criminals, from originalist approach, against vague laws, and in searches, etc.

Gorsuch.
Very similar to Scalia, yet softer on crime in general. It gives me the impression that he is relatively strong in death penalty, but weak in other cases related with criminal procedures.

Roberts.
Conventional conservative and judicial restraint stance on crime. He did voted for criminals occasionally, like in Madison v. Alabama. Comparing to Gorsuch, he is weaker in death penalty but stronger in criminal procedures in general. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-7505_2d9g.pdf
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-443_8m58.pdf

Kavanaugh.
He seems to take a middle ground of Gorsuch and Roberts, but we need more data to see. He may be the fifth deciding vote of this case https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Death.stay_.pdf

Barrett.
This is more of a guess as no enough data.


Honorable mention:

Breyer.
He may be the most tough on crime liberal justice, especially in criminal procedure cases.
Logged
Skill and Chance
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 12,522
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #1 on: July 19, 2021, 06:22:45 PM »

I would actually put Scalia and Gorsuch as the least tough on crime conservative justices of the modern era.  Roberts should probably be in the Alito tier on this issue.  Kavanaugh usually sides against criminal defendants, but is reachable in cases that involve evidence of racism (e.g. non-unanimous juries, racial bias in jury selection).
Logged
David Hume
davidhume
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,581
United States


Political Matrix
E: -0.77, S: 1.22

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2021, 06:33:09 PM »

I would actually put Scalia and Gorsuch as the least tough on crime conservative justices of the modern era.  Roberts should probably be in the Alito tier on this issue.  Kavanaugh usually sides against criminal defendants, but is reachable in cases that involve evidence of racism (e.g. non-unanimous juries, racial bias in jury selection).
Scalia is one of the strongest supporter of death penalty, and wants to get rid of exclusionary rule in total. His vote for criminals were mainly against vague laws. Gorsuch is similar to him, yet weaker in almost every aspect.

Roberts voted for criminals way more than Alito did. I believe also much more than Thomas, although have not counted myself.
Logged
Benjamin Frank
Frank
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,069


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2021, 08:39:38 PM »

What type of crime?  The Republican Supreme Court Justices tend to be very lenient on corporate crime to the extent that it would probably be fair to argue they really don't want most corporate crime to be illegal at all.
Logged
SenatorCouzens
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 267
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4 on: July 21, 2021, 06:15:10 PM »

What makes this tricky is there is the distinction between procedural rights before you are convicted many of which are textually based in the bill of rights, and then the separate question of what punishment can be delivered once you are duly convicted.

Someone like Alito is conservative/tough on both of those.

People like Gorsuch and Scalia are/were pretty libertarian on procedural rights when they were textually based, but less so when they aren't. As for punishment of those fairly convicted (i.e., procedural rights observed), they are conservative (pro death penalty, etc).
Logged
David Hume
davidhume
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,581
United States


Political Matrix
E: -0.77, S: 1.22

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2021, 02:59:57 AM »

What makes this tricky is there is the distinction between procedural rights before you are convicted many of which are textually based in the bill of rights, and then the separate question of what punishment can be delivered once you are duly convicted.

Someone like Alito is conservative/tough on both of those.

People like Gorsuch and Scalia are/were pretty libertarian on procedural rights when they were textually based, but less so when they aren't. As for punishment of those fairly convicted (i.e., procedural rights observed), they are conservative (pro death penalty, etc).

Exactly. This is why I rated them as third tier. The interesting thing is that Thomas has a much more rigid judicial methodology than Scalia, which means for procedural right based on text, he ought to be more libertarian than Scalia. Yet when it comes to vote, he was more tough on this as well.

Logged
Pages: [1]  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.025 seconds with 12 queries.