Entirely predictable

The Supreme Court this morning overturned 19 state laws that allowed minors to be sentenced to death. This was entirely predictable, if you read the transcript of the recent debate between Justices Scalia and Breyer.

And the opinion, relying heavily on international -- not constitutional -- norms, was written by Justice Kennedy of all people. Kennedy raised eyebrows by citing international law in his majority opinion last year in Lawrence v. Texas. In this case, Roper v. Simmons, he again spends a couple of pages wringing his hands over the world's view of us.

Kennedy also, again, wrote a majority opinion overturning recent precedent. Lawrence overturned the 1986 decision in Bowers v. Georgia. Roper overturns the court's 1989 decision in Stanford v. Kentucky.

In other words, if we're liberalizing U.S. law from the bench, stare decisis is yesterday's news. Criticize Roe v. Wade as a judicial abomination, on the other hand, and you can't even get seat on a circuit court. As long as the Democrats have 41 votes in the Senate, that is. See Pryor, William Jr.

In my mind, Kennedy is angling for a cherished spot in the "Impeach this Judge!" section of the website. That's unrealistic, of course. The only true way to deal with this kind of judicial activism is to end lifetime tenure.

More conventional commentary on the decision at:
The Volokh Conspiracy
Professor Bainbridge
Outside the Beltway
Shape of Days
Joshua Claybourn
CrimProfBlog
The Seventh Age
Legal Fiction
Terminus
Poliblog
Xlrq
New World Man
Say Anything
Third Avenue
Baseball Crank
Harvard Law School Federalist Society
Secure Liberty
Villainous Company
Mossback Culture
Stolen Thunder
Check Raise
Red Harvest
Conservative Contrarian
Sobek
Scrappleface highlights a decision that got lost in the killer-kids shuffle.
And thank God Iowahawk is out there, because otherwise I'd have missed this case completely.