The Roberts Court - Updated

SCOTUS split 5-4 on allowing exonerating, post conviction DNA analysis to be used in court. Roberts said in his opinion, "Allowing Osburne to prove his potential innocence risks 'unnecessarily overthrowing the established system of criminal justice.'" Because the justice system was intended to keep innocent people in jail? This on top of the decision yesterday that eliminated age discrimination in civil cases.

I'm too disgusted to rant. So Matt gets the quote of the day on this story.

The two cases handed down yesterday are just two new additions to the trend observed by Jeffrey Toobin, “in every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.” That’s conservative jurisprudence in a nutshell.

The Bush legacy that will haunt us for generations.

Update: Glenn reminds us that we can't solely blame the conservatives for this atrocity. The Obama DOJ also strenuously argued for this same position before the court, although they were under no compulsion to do so.

I didn't expect all that much from an Obama administration. I fully expected to be at odds with many of his policies, however, given his background as a constitutional scholar and former advocate for civil rights, I did expect him to roll back some of the worst encroachments on civil liberties of the Bush regime, not embrace them. But as Glenn points out, "in the areas of civil liberties, secrecy, and his Justice Department generally, the administration has been nothing short of abysmal." Glenn is right. It's a disturbing trend and progressives would do well to push back harder against it.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]