Liberal Justices say Court Sidesteps Key Criminal Justice Issues
Liberal members of the U.S. Supreme Court used the opening of the 2021 session Monday to push back on the denial of appeals involving the death penalty, qualified immunity and sentencing enhancements,
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Liberal members of the U.S. Supreme Court used the opening of the 2021 session Monday to push back on the denial of appeals involving the death penalty, qualified immunity and sentencing enhancements, reports the Courthouse News Service. Justice Stephen Breyer highlighted the case of Carl Wayne Buntion, a 77-year-old man convicted of murder in Texas in 1991 and sentenced to death. He’s been in solitary confinement for most of the last 30 years. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote to express concern at the Eighth Circuit’s reversal of an Arkansas federal court ruling that recognized issues in the death penalty trial of Mickey Thomas.
Sotomayor also offered a full-throated dissent in a qualified immunity dispute stemming from the shooting death of Willie Gibbons at the hands of a New Jersey state trooper. Both Breyer and Sotomayor acknowledged procedural issues prevented the high court from hearing the appeals. Notably, there were no new grants of certiorari in Monday’s order list. Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, was disappointed at the denial of Buntion’s death penalty appeal, but he suggested the high court’s hard shift in favor of capital punishment will backfire. David Safavian, director of the Nolan Center for Justice at the American Conservative Union Foundation, similarly expressed some concerns about the conservative majority’s handling of the cases the liberal justices offered comment on.
