Sunday, November 27, 2011

Article

I read a newspaper article yesterday in THE FRESNO BEE called “Scalia surprises in conviction overturns”.  The article talks about Scalia, a supreme court member, who is very conservative and is not afraid to voice his opinions.  He believes in going strictly along with what the constitution says.  He insists “on following the ‘original’ constitution”.  An example of how he views the constitution is this: “The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution say the ‘accused shall enjoy the right to challenge actual witnesses, but also the right to bare testimony from all those ‘witnesses’ against him.’  To Scalia, this clause not only gives defendants the right to challenge actual ‘witnesses’ who did not or cannot testify in court.  He takes this view even if the witness is dead.”
There is more to the article of other examples and viewpoints and also more detail on Scalia’s Conservative viewpoint, but I’m now just going to share what I thought about the newspaper article.  When I first read the article I didn’t agree with Scalia’s view.  For me, I focused more on the fact of how when the constitution was first written the framers wrote it loosely because they didn’t know what sort of things the future people of America, living under the constitution, would face.  The Constitution can be easily debated over and sometimes the meaning is not clear.  And then there comes around issues such as abortion, and I wonder, how does that issue fit into the constitution?  Since abortion wasn’t an issue during the time of the framers its not included in the constitution, so if we made decisions only off of the constitution then where would abortion fit in because they didn’t write about it “originally”?  The judicial branch interpreted the constitution under the idea of right to privacy, they say that abortion falls under a “person’s right”.  With issues like this I think its right for the judicial branch to decide where these issues stand because its not found in the constitution.  I find it ok that the judicial branch interprets the constitution because there are some things you cant find in the constitution.  The constitution is the highest form of law and all other laws come under it, so judicial branch needs to examine the law before the judicial branch can make a decision on cases.  Cases should be compared to what the constitution says, ideas in it, since it is the highest form of law.  If there is something that isn’t really a topic in the constitution then the legislative branch should see if its big enough of a deal and make an amendment to the constitution.

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