Kagan The Radical

We have all seen that famous clip of football coach Dennis Green, distraught over his team losing to the Bears, lamenting, "They are who we thought they were!"

We can say the same thing about Lady Kaga, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.  We knew that she was an extreme left-wing radical.  During her confirmation hearing, I believed her claim of being a moderate as much as I believed Liberace when he said he was not married because he could not find the right woman to settle down with.

Anyway, Kaga just recorded her first vote on the Court.  And she is who we thought she was.

What do you think of this legal reasoning: a convicted murderer on death row should not be executed because the drug the state wants to inject him with might not be safe?

Huh?

That's Kaga for you.

A little background on the death row killer:  he was sentenced to death for killing a man after he escaped from prison.  Oh yeah, he was in prison in the first place because he was convicted of second degree murder.

Let my pal Andrew take it from here:

Today we get our first opportunity to look at how our wonderful new Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is performing by evaluating her first vote as a Supreme Court Justice, which was in support of the issuance of a stay of the execution of murderer Jeffrey Landrigan. A bit about Landrigan: According to reports, Landrigan was first convicted of the first degree murder by stabbing of his best friend in 1982. While in prison for that murder, Landrigan murdered again by stabbing another inmate 14 times. Then he escaped from prison and murdered for the third time in 1989. During the sentencing hearing for the third murder (and who knows if there are more murders attributable to Landrigan), it was reported that Landrigan made a brief statement saying, "I think if you want to give me the death penalty, just bring it on. I'm ready for it." That does not sound to remourseful for all of the lives he shattered during his murder spree, does it? Twenty-plus prison years later (and untold amounts of taxpayer money wasted on him through police, incarceration, publicly funded defense lawyers), the execution was finally arranged and it is with this background that we now Kagan's vote for a stay.


While a vote for a stay of an execution issued by an Upper West Side-raised liberal judge would not be surprising in of itself, it is the reasoning behind her decision that is most shocking. Her vote in favor of the stay was because she had questions about the "safety" of the drug, sodium thiopental, which was set to be used to execute the convicted murderer. Indeed, the lawyers on behalf of Landrigan apparently were not arguing that there was no evidence to support a conviction, or that there was DNA or something which cleared the serial murderer. In fact, it appears that there is no dispute that Landrigan killed at least three times in cold blood. The lawyers for Landrigan, however, persuaded Kagan to the logic that a stay should issue because the drug was "not safe for its intended use." If you're scratching your head at the idea that anyone, much less a Supreme Court Justice, would agree with the logic that a drug meant to kill could be "unsafe" to the person you are trying to kill, then you realize the craziness of liberal logic. In short, they will think of anything to avoid imposing the death penalty.

Kagan's vote was the minority view and the drug apparently was safe for its intended use: Mr Landrigan reportedly died peacefully by lethal injection.