president, he would likely appoint justices that favored the death penalty. Many of the courts most important capital punishment decisions have been decided on a 5-to-4 vote. In these cases, the deciding votes have usually been those of Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy. Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist are also usually the other deciding votes. Bush has expressed his admiration for Scalia and Thomas, who maintain that the Constitution allows states to execute its prisoners. As you can see, the next President will probably change the balance of power in the Court’s review of capital cases. The court could either play a larger role by restricting the use of the death penalty, or they could give the states “free reign” to carry out their executions (Bright 1).The Supreme Court has the right to overturn a death penalty ruling under the Writs of Habeas Corpus. However, the Court has many procedural barriers, preventing many cases from being reviewed. For example, you must file a federal habeas corpus petition within a year of sentencing as stated in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, signed by Clinton in 1996 (Bright 3). Significant delays on habeas corpus proseedings are caused by successive petitions to district courts, delays in those courts, and repetitive appeals to the court of appeals. The habeas corpus restrictive rules simply delay the imposition of the death penalty and render it meaningless as a deterrent. The purposes of tough law enforcement is best served by full hearings instead of allowing the procedural chaos to defeat the substantive benefits of capital punishment (Schonebaum 21). The death penalty has been apposed ever since the Quakers set foot on this land hundreds of years ago. Since then, in almost every time period, one can find strong opposition by influential people or parties. The morality has been called into question thousands of times, linking it to other “mora...
