Friday afternoon the U.S. Supreme Court, without
opinion, rejected California’s final attempt to ignore implementation of a
massive inmate release by year-end (9600 inmates) because of the state’s unsafe
and unsanitary prison conditions. In 2011, the Court found the California
prison system in violation of the constitutional prohibition of cruel and
unusual punishment and ordered the release of over 30,000 inmates to reduce the
state’s massive overcrowding to 115% of capacity.
For
the past 2 years, California’s Governor and DOC director have refused to comply
with the orders of the highest court in the nation and begin to operate
constitutionally sound prisons.
How
ironic that the department tasked with enforcing sentences against those who
break the law does so in violation of the law. Who – I wonder – goes to prison
for that?
And
second, PVC Bradley Manning was court-marshaled this week for delivering
millions of pages of documents concerning this nation’s war in Iraq to
Wikileaks. He did so because he felt the nation was engaged in an immoral
military action.
At
the close of the Second World War the victorious allies prosecuted thousands of
enemy officers for war crimes, crimes they defended on the grounds that they
were following orders. The Nuremburg Court found that no soldier could lawfully
ignore his conscience and simply “follow orders.” Or, as Martin Luther King,
Jr. said in his “letter from Birmingham Jail,” when man’s law conflicts with
God’s law, you must nonviolently oppose it and accept the consequences.
You
may not like what PVC Manning did, but at least you should respect him.
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