The Death Penalty is Unconstitutional

Given that DataPolitical has vanished, I'll instead take up MJG283 on the points he raised as they're quite good. It seems to be little-acknowledged, but much of our case law precedents are based largely on the "evolving standards of society." Though lifetime appointment frees judges from being subject to the momentary passions of the public, they are tied to a time and place and their decisions (coupled with the composition of the court) don't always adhere to stare decisis (especially now as supreme court appointments are perhaps more politicized than ever). Your question of political candidates on the issue of the death penalty is a good one – and there's a good explanation for it. Simply put, very few people have sympathy for (suspected) murderers or for the poor. It's no coincidence that virtually all of the people on death row are poor (which is a major reason that they end up there in the first place) and there are very few advocates in power for those populations. Lacking numbers and money – such people have little power to wield in our political system. It also doesn't help that, In our concision-oriented, demagogic culture - when you champion the rights of the accused as a politician, you're automatically painted as soft on crime. It's the same reason you don't see many politicians championing the rights of drunk drivers (which is why organizations like MADD can ram through virtually any legislation unopposed, regardless of how impractical or unconstitutional it may be). The same goes for child sex offenders; there are a slew of new laws that have been passed across the US that threaten to make recidivism rates higher by encouraging sex offenders to go underground – but because they sound good – there are few people opposed to them. For those reasons, few make ending the death penalty a major platform of their campaign. While it's true that the majority of the public still supports the death penalty, as you conceded that support wavers as soon as you start introducing nuance (like the possibility of life without parole). When people become educated about the various inequities in our justice system – that support drops further. That reality, in part, explains why we're at a 13-year low in terms of the number of executions nationwide. The Constitutionality of the death penalty is debatable – that's what we're here for. Your argument doesn't really address the substance of what I was saying. I'm not arguing per se that the government lacks the constitutional authority to engage in the death penalty – I'm arguing that the death penalty is unconstitutional because due process (which is an essential component that strictly regulates the government's power to administer things like capital punishment) is denied to the defendants who are sentenced to death. The notion that any law or practice is "moving toward unconstitutionality" is not ridiculous – the reality of the flexibility of what we consider to be constitutional surrounds us in examples from the gradual loosening of freedom of speech (especially with respect to "obscenity" and to criticism of the government) to the issue of Abortion. What's patently absurd is pretending that the history of our judiciary isn't rife with complete 180-degree changes in how the constitution is interpreted. There's no shortage of irony in the fact that some of the most ardent self-described "originalists" in the supreme court hold positions contrary to the original interpretations of the Constitution as enumerated by the framers. Judicial Pragmatism doesn't eliminate the existence of "ironclad" or "consistent" limits on the power of government. It simply provides a framework whereby we take into account what the modern ramifications are for the intentions or spirit of the laws established by the framers. In an age where we can now look into the brain to observe the chemical reactions that govern our thought processes (which has led to vast changes in how we think about mental health) taking that modern information into account has bearing on the relative constitutionality of something like the death penalty. Thanks for your excellent points – I appreciate you stepping up in Datapolitical's absence.