All Posts Tagged With: "crime"

This blog has become one forum for Ira Carmenites to discuss how much they thought of him.  I have had the benefit of taking courses with many extraordinary professors over the years, and in Political Science two stand above the rest.  One is Carmen, and the other is a community college professor in Decatur Illinois named Larry Klugman.  I’m also lucky that both of these greats correspond with me from time to time.  A few days ago Klugman forwarded an email to a group of his friends and asked, “If you heard on the news I was convicted of a crime, what crime would it be.”  He was very entertained by the series of answers he received.  Maybe Professor Carmen would be too.

So here’s the question:

If you heard on the news tomorrow that Ira Carmen were arrested, what crime would you be most likely to assume he committed?

Have fun with it.

If you’ve experienced any NFL football for the past 2 years or so, I imagine you’ve heard of some of the following individuals: Tank Johnson, Chris Henry (and any one of his Cincinnati Bengals teammates), and of course Adam “Pacman” Jones.  These guys have made the news not for their stellar play, but rather for their atrocious criminal records.

Pacman recently announced that he wanted to only be called Adam from now on.  Clearly an attempt to make people look away from his sordid past activities.  Unfortunately, Pacman, one first must give respect in order to earn it.  This guy was banned from the NFL for an entire year for his antics, and then is reinstated after giving certain guarantees that he will behave…and makes it all the way through week 5 of the season until he is in the news again. Read more…

For those interested in international and constitutional law, the Supreme Court yesterday handed down an incredibly important decision in the case of Medellin v. Texas. You can read the full decision by Chief Justice Roberts (joined by Justices Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito), along with Justice Stevens’ opinion concurring in the judgment and Justice Breyer’s dissenting opinion (joined by Justices Ginsberg and Souter) here (PDF). Opinio Juris (which is just an all around fantastic legal blog) has a whole series of posts discussing the decision and its many implications.

Many news reports of the decision have focused either on its relation to the death penalty or on the Court’s rejection of the President’s claim of broad inherent constitutional power. This is unfortunate because it largely misses the real import of the decision, which relates to (1) when treaties are domestically enforceable in the absence of implementing legislation by Congress, and (2) the circumstances in which decisions by international adjudicative bodies such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are binding on domestic courts.

Here’s a brief run-down of what the case is about. The United States is party, along with 170 other nations, to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR), which says in part that any time a foreign national is arrested, that person has a right to consult with consular officials from his or her foreign consulate. The United States had also been a party (until it pulled out in 2005) to the Optional Protocol to the VCCR, which says that the ICJ can exercise jurisdiction in disputes relating to foreign nationals’ access to their consulates. Jose Ernesto Medellin is a Mexican national currently on death row in Texas after being convicted of murder. Medellin was not advised of his rights under the VCCR, and he did not raise objections to this violation until after he had been convicted at trial. The Texas court, as is typical in most US courts, did not allow Medellin to raise this complaint on appeal due to what’s called a “procedural default rule,” in which a claimant is generally considered to have defaulted on (i.e., forfeited) claims that are not raised in a timely manner. Medellin, along with 50 other similarly situated Mexican nationals, filed a complaint in the ICJ, arguing that the Texas court’s application of the procedural default rule in these cases was a violation of the VCCR. The ICJ, in the Case Concerning Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Avena), agreed with this argument and held that Medellin was entitled to review and reconsideration of his conviction and sentence in Texas courts.

President Bush responded to this decision by walking a fine line. First, he argued that the ICJ’s Avena decision did not bind domestic courts. But at the same time, he issued an official memorandum to the Attorney General saying he would give Avena effect, and he argued that his memorandum was binding on domestic courts as a result of the President’s inherent constitutional power to conduct foreign affairs. Medellin then filed an application for writ of habeas corpus, relying on both the ICJ’s decision and the President’s memorandum. The case made its way up to the Supreme Court, and the Court was then confronted with two questions: (1) Is the ICJ’s Avena decision binding on domestic courts, and (2) Is the President’s memorandum binding on domestic courts?

There’s been plenty of commentary on the second question (which the Court answered, unsurprisingly, “no”), but it’s the first one that is probably of greater importance. The Court held that Article 94 of the UN Charter, which reads that each member party (of which, of course, the US is one) “undertakes to comply with the decision of the [ICJ] in any case to which it is a party,” does not mean that US courts are bound to follow ICJ decisions in cases to which the US is a party. The Chief Justice concedes that this means that the US is in violation of international law, but argues that for an ICJ decision to be binding on US courts, Congress must pass legislation making this as explicit as possible.

My initial reaction to hearing about this decision was fury. I’ve since backed off from that, but it’s still a disappointing decision. The Constitution explicitly makes treaties part of the “supreme law of the land.” It’s true that there has been a long-established distinction between self-executing treaties and non-self-executing treaties (being a non-self-executing treaty basically means that Congress must pass legislation implementing the treaty before it takes full legal effect). But if Article 94 does not impose an obligation on US courts, how exactly is it supposed to be enforced? As Justice Holmes famously declared, an unenforceable law is no law at all. If the Chief Justice first concedes that the US is violating international law, and then concludes that this international law is unenforceable without explicit congressional authorization, he is severely undercutting the credibility of the US’s commitment to respecting international law. If Congress and the President didn’t want to impose a legal obligation to comply with the ICJ, they either wouldn’t have voted to subject themselves to a treaty saying they would undertake to comply with the ICJ, or the Senate would have made its advice and consent contingent on implementing legislation (which it did not do).

One final note: While Justice Stevens’ heart seems to lie with the dissenters, he wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment but which strongly suggested that the Texas attorney general should commute Medellin’s death sentence. This, it appears, is nothing but wishful thinking, as the Texas attorney general announced after the Supreme Court handed down its opinion that he would be continuing to push for Medellin’s execution. Setting aside the implications regarding international law discussed above, it is important to recognize the degree to which the United States’ practice of the death penalty places us outside the norm of international practice, and the regularity with which it causes international tension and conflict.

About a year ago I got flamed by several people and groups with whom I am generally in strong agreement when I wrote that the Danish Muhammad cartoons that caused so much trouble should not have been reprinted in the Daily Illini out of sensitivity to the Muslim community. It was one in a series of events that led to me developing a reputation for being anti-free speech.

In recent days we have all been reeling from the massacre at Virginia Tech. We have also been fascinated and repulsed by the video of the killer that NBC released (and, with the type of cynicism characteristic of a massive media conglomerate, branded with the NBC peacock to force free advertising on other news outlets carrying the video). Spokesmen from NBC, from Nightly News anchor Brian Williams to the president of NBC, have defended the airing of the video as essentially newsworthy, or at least newsworthy enough to air over the objections of police officials and family members of the victims.

The airing of the video is, of course, exactly what Cho wanted. More importantly, the airing of the video and the media bonanza that the Virginia Tech massacre spurred are exactly what future killers will want for themselves. Nothing, of course, will prevent these sorts of events from ever happening again. But it is probable, if not a certainty, that copycat killings will occur as a direct result of the mountain of attention Cho received for his acts.

Consequently, I must live up once again to my reputation and join those arguing that, as a matter of journalistic responsibility, NBC should never have aired Cho’s video. Indeed, it seems sensible even for journalistic outfits, as they report on these tragedies, to not report as little as possible about the killer. Journalists will like to portray the issue as an ethical dilemma, but what really have we gleaned from Cho’s video that can be described as so newsworthy that its airing is worth the future loss of lives and the future anguish of families of victims? What have we gleaned from seeing his face or knowing his name? Why should we give this man a microphone and thereby encourage other psychos to emulate his violence? Is it really worth it?

A List of Those Who Agree With Me (At Billy Joe Mills’ Request)

• Peggy Noonan thinks Billy doesn’t have common sense: “It is only common sense that if a person like Cho leaves a self-aggrandizing, self-celebrating, self-pitying video diary of himself to be played by the mass media, the mass media should not play it and not publicize it, not make it famous. Common sense says that won’t help.”
• Mickey Kaus thinks Billy doesn’t have a brain: “It seems less like an ‘ethical challenge’ than a no-brainer. Why encourage other potential Cho’s to try for a similar publicity bonanza?”
• ABC News thinks Billy’s views are a social catastrophe: “This is a social catastrophe. Showing the video is a social catastrophe.”
• The National Review thinks Billy wants copycat killings: “Surely they know it will spawn copy-cats. So are they showing it because they would rather enjoy copy-cats?”
• The National Review also thinks Billy is sending a bad message: “But NBC News is about to give Cho an audience of around 10 million people for his deranged rantings. What kind of message does this send to other isolated, disturbed and angry youths who entertain the same violent thoughts as Cho?”
• The Huffington Post thinks Billy has no possible explanation for himself: “What is the possible journalistic explanation for splashing Cho’s self-dramatizing poses and self-justifying bullshit over network and cable air?”
• MSNBC thinks Billy is disrespectful: “Airing the video ultimately was disrespectful to the victims and their families. It also was exploitative of Cho’s condition and that of all severely mentally ill people.”
• A guest on Andrew Sullivan’s blog thinks Billy will cause more mass murders: “In the next few weeks and months, even over the next few years, expect to see copycat killings inspired by Cho’s actions. The more saturated the media coverage, the more such events we are likely to get.”
• Our very own Daily Illini thinks Billy has poor judgment: “Better judgment should have been used, especially considering that the images that have been aired cannot possibly be used for a greater understanding of this seriously disturbed individual or the havoc he wrought. What has happened this week has only helped to immortalize this murderer.”

That’s all I’ll list for now, but not because there isn’t a wealth of other people who share my view. Oh, two important groups I forgot: the families of the victims and the police officials involved in the case.

Anything else, Billy?