Death Penalties: The Supreme Court's Obstacle Course
Berger, Raoul
itself and, to the matter at hand, of Ham Jordan's labored effort to make high melodrama of low political comedy. Am I unfair? Judge for yourself: "I left my office only once all morning, "writes...
...m, Clay La Force, John L011dri, Larry FIyrn[, 1 *. Slanlj" Evana, Dana ,4 rndrq.V!&, Arfhpr¢ Whql!gn, Richard Lugar, Nnnry flog n brie, C11arIei Pe lee i. John LukerCa...
...I'll have him cleared and taken to the White House barbershop -it's closed on Wednesdays . . . ' " Had enough...
...arc 0.1 P1,tirsge and h nd111.E i n-•1 a dsd, In:luud is nut ri1Li l Mr s S us ir..t Zip L I I-: 1, u...
...That is probably not true and is surely not sufficient...
...A r uori'c Mw rlno...
...W r mu st -.a rill y 4)U t hai SOmc ISSL1cs are sin linliled supply beCiU SC Of realer demand...
...i nil .end i I I h VIFU r t•hs•L I. 1FC mIIins-L• 5Tr1Jcr Flea%e..c L,1und t•'II n'w or i4urnt IS rlanua rti I hr,' u* h Deco nFbr4 1902) aL 35 treh...
...Jr + Qjitilaf, r-t V4 h•rw Guxard Jtidd1 1kti D' F'eilng f~ Marai,m r0 GC4KE 0 O rw I I fI DEATH PENALTIES: THE SUPREME COURT'S OBSTACLE COURSE Raoul Berger / Harvard University Press/ $17.50 Walter Berns IFI.•J.s wt nd me I hr alai I I• IL...
...Even the advocates of capital punishment (and I am one of them) must agree that this sort of discriminatory sentencing is forbidden by the Constitution...
...He recognizes the necessity of the oil wells, and the vigor of boom times-but he doesn't have to like' it...
...L•l,ct•y rd alho-fc...
...or if V•oIJ wan...
...1-i.1...
...Williamson explains: "So the Energy Boom came to Wyoming, which still called itself the Cowboy State...
...Still, investigations into the "true meaning" of that amendment make up a kind of cottage industry, one employing hundreds of legal historians-the State of Virginia has even put together a source book to facilitate their investigations-and Berger's findings were by no means unique...
...Published in 1977, some years after the Court had used material based on previously untapped sources...
...Imgn, F.' plgglrII $. Forbes...
...Wyoming is to me America-or rather, what was America," the author confides about halfway through Roughnecking It...
...w. M ii4ael Naralr, l ith3ri Per le_ Hugh F(enngr_ F rink $hakeFpedr._ Wrl Iran PrDX?nara, PaIrick Coagraxe, Jean-Fra"cai R wel L u rc i Rt7rZ.nl.'l o- Chap Hus1...
...That is certainly true, but anyone likely to read this book will already know it, and those who don't know it-the "people"-are not likely to read the book...
...This is a "larger" story, all right, but it was probably easier to set down...
...J Peter Grace_ Mal, -Gen...
...Say, write a book...
...el ualM tit...
...At the other end of the spectrum are, the Commissary Commandos, who stage a spectacularly boozy rampage each summer...
...This, as Berger iterates and reiterates, was not the judgment embodied in either the Constitution or the Fourteenth Amendment...
...r 1 3 Ft1.l,irl...
...Berger thinks that, apprised of the facts, "the people . . . will not be at a loss for corrective measures," but he leaves his readers at a loss for the corrective measures they should take...
...LL is ereei pt,s.ible that a h (dlroroa I f rain our aw•ard.wmmnR edilnr, K. Fminer[ T;•rrell, Jr...
...He has not left the world the way he found it...
...0141+11 tA4riie ihitk -J lam WIA I,!a.l $rFMFk ZIP DOE ii&fty L ._J Who reads The American Spectator...
...They make about $14 an hour, and drive large four-wheel-drive vehicles such as GMC Jimmys, Ford Broncos, High Sierras, and Jeep Renegades...
...Judge for yourself: in the course of this book, the author drinks approximately 384 cans of beer, kills perhaps two fifths of Walker's, picks off a number of innocent animals whose only mistake was having merrily bounded into his range, and helps wreck four trucksthings all men love to do...
...t,nrt Of...
...It is likely to be ignored because it is largely a repetition of the earlier one...
...As the book's title implies, Berger also took issue with the proposition that the judges are entitled to make whatever law they please out of the Constitution's provisions, and that they are so entitled because, all things considered, we the people are better governed by them than by our elected representatives...
...it brought massive public drunkenness, shootings, car wrecks, prostitutes, drug, pushers, and, some people said, mobsters...
...but the shrewd Washington political handicapper knows better than to dismiss lightly anything Lou Cannon has to say about Ronald Reagan...
...Men like Ed Cantrell, the focus of the almost eerily controlled "Ballad of Ed Cantrell," about a sheriff's killing of one of his own officers...
...But this author chose the more difficult method of writing the story, and has thus turned out a truer, more intimate study...
...In sum, here was the proverbial story waiting to be written...
...In the course of his revels, however, Williamson had to perform the difficult task of writing about his friends...
...AIMrsand r . IhinI I i)rR, Henry FL4s#Frrp*r, Claylan Fjr i eheyr, F.1 i lion Fr ledman, Daniel Pa1riitk Mayrr,Iren, M Idge aeeier, Jarnea O_ 'tr'11$an, G1r14 ONO kleyI Wo Allen, Jci*ph Gvors, IrMtng Kr IF!al, Henry Farrii.~, A Ian Ahel3", Char Ikon Hg*I J 1. Sonalgr J pic+ G#rn, E dwln J, J=*i,Iaer, J r . Ger,I r 449 Him rngFtprlD., Jam n Hi IchG4Gk, G en A lexsnner 1-la,i...
...ri • 5 J141rF i riikr..1n 141 Ofrr% Con9nM1n-er • ' Ronald ReagarF NJ' Ea naL, ( Irk 4Q m o +lU JIIf1If11, {'jret•r Nil F11cr1Kn l',Fl h• 1%%Uc irl t 1CFetsandr 5¢lrh.rnils1o Will: L:MF: I4-154J1 rl F I . D%:x1crou c? J minis rarlpe-k Ofrh u1 P1dIr.P1...
...When they are not drilling, driving, or drinking, they go shooting with various pieces of the highpowered arsenals they usually carry Joe Mysak is a reporter for the Daily Bond Buyer...
...They have all been sentenced under the new rules, derived from the Furman case in 1972, and he may be justified in the opinion that they deserve to die...
...But, of course, as even the ' Sho4cf m...
...He has set the agenda on most issues, outlined the priorities...
...m You missing tiara issues at 7'hd' A r ia'rrr rlv t SJH•, rLu.F If yru rill al' ha v rill i5%t-d thoug4I• ~ IV '' pro~oYleg ssa, x bs 'illiarll F builder .. Judlr 3"ranni% VL3 fir.,fi, InFIm 1u r i i ER~ L " ' r' ys r idse...
...Whatever the judgment of historians, Reagan has made a difference...
...N,irmgn Mp II-9F_ l 1arg $441 he L W...
...Like his hero Roosevelt, he has tried to lead the nation in the direction he thinks it should go rather than follow it in the direction he believes it is going...
...Author of a previous work on Reagan's early political years, Cannon with his latest book brings.his studies up to date, through the President's campaigns and the first year of the Reagan Administration...
...Anyone who had _taken the trouble to read what had already been published could have known that the equal protection clause was not intended to abolish school segregation or to require legislative districts to be approximately equal in size of population...
...There was no particular native set...
...If not, to put matters into perspective, imagine a situation in which James Baker-having been outfitted by the CIA in the White House barbershop-is dispatched overseas in dark glasses, a hairpiece, and false mustache, to conduct secret negotiations on behalf of Ronald Reagan...
...Robert L Bsrkt"_ lDavw S1ci krnir . R ¢hard Al Inn, EP neat Ldiov£r...
...in Kemmerer, Wyoming, Chilton Williamson was just another transient pioneer...
...he was the Great Communicator because he was believable...
...he listens to them sympathetically, but eschews conversion because of their strictures concerning the consumption of spirits...
...This reviewer doesn't happen to share that opinion...
...That was a study of the origins- of the Fourteenth Amendment and its transformation (or deliberatee distortion) by the Supreme Court...
...Now White House correspondent for the Washington Post, Cannon is universally recognized as journalism's preeminent Reaganologist, having covered his subject since the days in California when Governor Reagan was being dismissed by his critics as a Hollywood flash, all glitter and no depth...
...Is that possible?' "'Of course, Ham...
...went out west to see4hat was going-on, which turns out-to-have been: nothing less than the creation of the new wild west, a-return to the frontier of gold-rush days by way of the oil boom...
...Ham G. :Sum mera, Jr., SlrtvaTt!ii.h, and manxatere I 01117 THE AM ER ICA N SPECTATOR, P.0_ ;Sax 1969, RMar'ninplbfr, Indiana 1742 Pleaae enlee 3 Pleiee Pf'nl new N&MO rg-rrg.yal aub1Gr ip1 ion to Tile Ameroeir+ SA@erafar for one Addra5i yiar [12 d55-u45 F r4,r Only $14...
...Judge for yourself: "I left my office only once all morning, "writes Jordan, describing a key episode in his career as a hostage negotiator, "to call Stan Turner...
...Like the mountain man and Indian scout of old, Williamson Js something of an environmentalist, for all his hellraising...
...it brought air pollution where formerly there had been only pure Rocky Mountain air, bright and thin as Coors beer...
...In Roughnecking It he sharpens the technique he first employed in Saltbound, a book about a winter on Block Island...
...Tom wglr., Jprn 43 ,Jirlri'ir5 K I Ipatr iek, Geotpe Gi Ider, JAtk PEdr, DorFaId H. Rumileld, George 'ii 11...
...Are we to infer from his chapter on Congress's power over the federal judiciary that he would have the people demand legislation depriving the Court of jurisdiction to hear appeals in capital cases coming from the states...
...George $. Patton...
...With G.P...
...ti 4LI'ill 11 • l'+N • I 1.•rr, Brim n • 2 1}wwg1an M arf n hir • 1 In Inyl Ki I.ILII 04 F I C...
...When they are not drilling or driving back from the rig, they drink beer and Walker's whiskey...
...And 'he doesn't, although he keeps his environmentalist streak pretty well buried here...
...rlram rrorrch drr rdjiesi ltrl 1r RD* ird rft-dW iawrr of r"r AMWArm Sperfimbr ii rkr spire pi+*i&'d...
...Lo gtl Cxrra L1tpw% 44 a fisorito Issue, place }YKIr nrdcr Inday and fill 1110 g1RS Ira }''.'ur KblIcL11on uP TAN- AmirriCd+t Sp('a•iefur...
...Another twenty pages are devoted to the subject now being debated in various congressional committees, Congress's power to restrict the jurisdiction of the federal courts, a subject on which he has interesting but by no means original things to say...
...In Roughnecking It, he had no such problem...
...One can agree that the Constitution does not regard death to be a cruel and unusual punishment, and that, the Supreme Court notwithstanding, the Eighth Amendment does not require the punishments imposed to be proportioned to the crimes committed, and, anyway, that the Fourteenth Amendment was not intended to make the Roughnecks work on rigs in the oil patch...
...RL'drnrr, • K .'4m .W+ OF Jak%A w T1rr'.rrrnan • 10I.L'L'IIrr'L'L!}.xah1 • I I 1hL {..1.11!s 4;11-.1•.1f IjurwrRigh...
...1 1r-c MK x111...
...30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1983 nounced, and not merely by the partisans of school desegregation or of one person, one equally weighted vote...
...It is Reagan's achievement that he defined the ground of political discourse of both his governorship and his presidency," writes Cannon...
...JDtrn Gjmi;i4rlarn, i diIIiarn $#trrV, Nu I Xgzc4gk, Hgnryr 5a IKaioi i. Da,"d +.leiaerrrian, Mafti r_ Psrel Z_ CharIeri HoIner...
...Pmt met Nr!tW, JamoF R fKhlnrngO,r, Thpma$ Mixrpny, 5uW& GMmenl, Roc-Er Roaenblall, Anthony Harr.Qan...
...The book in hand, however, is likely to be ignored...
...The boom brought population explosions that caused settled small towns like Rock Springs to be buried under a sea of tent cities and tract houses as it soared in three years from ten thousand to nineteen thousand people...
...Randolrr Rir:aardaan, T Mina...
...to . a a a a w d adlir'ra - w tMT a,rrr m6 peer ad in-ra IO.e...
...E 5,1•n.1 hif y"ur ravwnlc Ihat•k i%kut3 Iwdaw...
...Jarnen G1aeiFrn3R_ JDtrn flgchii...
...As Berger could have WalterBerns is a Resident Scholar at anticipated, the book was widely reviewed and almost as widely de the American Enterprise Institute...
...wrlIl3rn M. K. Harnrrrgl...
...it brought indignation to the hearts of the Sierra Club...
...Simon and Schuster / $15.50 Joe Mysak There is opportunity in America...
...Ray Pr itd, Jam es Wech sler...
...Fewer than 100 pages are given over to the nominal subject of this book, the Supreme Court's handling of capital cases, but they are more than sufficient for his purpose...
...Should he come with equipment-and where do you want to meet?' "I tried to think of an inconspicuous place...
...Bloomington, Indiana 32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1983...
...Cole R'r relrh...
...That purpose was to show that the Court has, once again, been misinterpreting the Constitution and, more specifically, misinterpreting the clause forbidding cruel and unusual punishments...
...4TFrr F dlscnlh ,tnnu enrr, I.wi• - 52 511...
...Melvin Laskr, Nelson Raieny_ Roger Milliken...
...rJ11am • Arll4•nrin Women a'I IFr r, Ki ingcr . 4In M'J,u•S 1crti ak La J111 I P.G_ Wadelwrse r.' 112 I S1!I , l`%F11 •tr.ir...
...Sarkes Tarzian Inc...
...For those who think they know all there is to know about the triumphs and vicissitudes of the 1976 and 1980 Reagan presidential campaigns-the rise and fall of John Sears, the night Gerald Ford almost became Ron's running mate-Cannon's book offers fresh This latest of Raoul Berger's books is not likely to provoke anything like the reaction that greeted his Government by Judiciary...
...be sere w iadade it Ira, #!;6 W,rMMAO rb,1" YOM rite...
...In Saltbound, Williamson had to insinuate himself into a very closed, insular group of townie islanders...
...Alan Raxfiolkd...
...Roy r rin, J4#ORh HLzan, Euq-orie V. Rpa1...
...Leonard I3.rrn$nI...
...This participant-observer journalism is something Williafmson does very well...
...kaber1 B[orgerg, #ierh Stain, Rager S[ari, Waiter Goadrnari, Flarr, Jabs, Jerrrax hlan, Daww P ckard...
...Fr..l p r rlit-r adir#ii MW aid rk.r t*ra r* Tb,r ,+Lrrrife*,a $ err_ WM **4d w •i 4 r 0 t 0 0 ill...
...Roughnecking It is a perfectly rumbustious book...
...Ed ovard Banl leld, Vict-or L"k '. Rayrrnpw4J Aron...
...Also in the cast are the Mormons...
...ar r reason ride faL'.rrrirla...
...IN I'll -` . XJMY the Amendment to strike down public school segregation and malappor tioned legislatures, Government by Judiciary demonstrated that the Amendment's equal protection clause was not intended by those who wrote and ratified it to affect either school segregation or voting (to say nothing of how or where votes are counted...
...That, I think, is why he was attacked so vigorously...
...What these critics have failed to understand about Reagan, writes Cannon, is that he "was not believable because he was the Great Communicator...
...I I I _ F red Ikli, Phrlap Crarbe, George W. Ball, Tom S1otpard, William F. Bucklav...
...11w Rlr.c handy ordci firrm J11d send For y Liar haLk 153UCS l idli...
...INsUr incumbent Administration's worst media enemies would concede, nothing of the sort could ever come to pass...
...If the words have the ring of a political epitaph it is because Cannon is among those who believe Reagan will not choose to run for reelection in 1984...
...technology, made a huge find in the Pineville Field near Coalville, Utah, an event that "was the sort of success story the oil people had been waiting for...
...Eighth Amendment applicable to the states...
...Ad+n K. Wtrc.Awaid, Rotes[ Lekaellman, Led Reslafi..4rahur Lailar_ JEKoMˆ F. Clonr,',In, Col...
...J r . rhprR j j J Le!Cher...
...Simpls law Ihi' for nI...
...William FIiFher, Richprd M. F,I.ngn, AIYiIII#m IE...
...What happened next...
...Lou Cannon, though he deals with his subject matter from the outsidelooking-in, succeeds in making such a contribution in Reagan, the most definitive biography to date of the man who relieved Jordan and his boss of the onerous burden of enduring Washington for four more years...
...How easy this was is anyone's guess, but it should be noted that the author now lives in Wyoming, a happily married man...
...Pppenenq gnoloa@4 Cilyr El III me lalti 31a16 Yip y3M r -- --!-T ` # 31 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1983 none of his business, or our business, or the Supreme Court's business, because when' it proposed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1866, the 39th Congress did not intend to make it the business of anyone other than the authorities of a particular state...
...Mil 1+* Fried man...
...There are now more than 1,000 convicts on death row, and would he have the people insist that they now be executed, and with dispatch (however belated...
...but would he be justified in the opinion that, without Supreme Court review, the next thousand would truly deserve to die...
...Within a few years, Wyoming had become a synonym for everything that was going on in the American West to transmute, by a wild and sinister chemistry, the Old West into the New...
...I air • P 11 11u1 I1h-_ ILI...
...I had been thinking a lot about my meeting with the Iranian contact and was worried to death that we would be found out, probably destroying any chance of implementing the scenario...
...I had to be sure that this didn't happen...
...It could and probably has been done in a few visits by teams of magazine reporters and photographers, their slick words accompanied by even slicker fullcolor spreads...
...Gerald R. Ford...
...11 c4 her but 1.-.ur...
...Morris, who wrote in the mid-1800s, he knows that "the land of the heart is the land of the West...
...J r .:Slim ragl Moil_ H-bRtr RpI;i r Cpi rny, Errs "of t+r, Annq Arrnncroni_ Nor min P xIhorecz, Jell MacNellp, Doris Grum4IGh, Erti 1 van inn lyaarp, Paul McCracken, Brgtk Yal iii...
...M aIG4I m Mugger idge 1 A L SO: RorSird Reepan, Ben Waa1an bexp, Reregri rLe Ytif-bral harne, Frederlrak NdeFxr r , $.l...
...Tell him to come to the South Gate...
...That is, he went out and worked, drank, shot, and hunted-he became a roughneck even while writing this book...
...n W,n.riin Chuschlll • 4 H.1rl Pt^i1plr~~ • I V F'rinklln IJ...
...Only in the White House of the Carter years could such a "scenario" have been played'out, and only in the Supermedia• Age could a stilted apologia for the most banal quadrennial in American history be palmed off, at $16.95 a copy, as a serious contribution to public understanding of those events which, as Walter Cronkite used to say, alter and illuminate our times...
...What probably made Berger unique was his forthright willingness to abide by the consequences of his findings: to put the matter simply, rather than permit the Court to misread the Constitution's language (but only in preference to that), he would have been willing to accept racially segregated schools and grossly malapportioned legislatures...
...it . Vol 11.'%IF: 15-11*92 01 M wheel FmK A } H041le F'r,+1l.t1 • .G F!L•J,g3II '. rJT 1Fnr 04 I tdanlk #• i li'• NC- NRCI e%chrc rk%' ui I..1F Kt'u7m%i% • ' I I igh 1 ife ].1r...
...L. Lf .i'U 0411 L 10 ift will...
...I,.•lul...
...H#XO#w...
...TFE ,LMFEIICA]I SrFCTAT11R Cirvv IM ciry Derrrli P_0.Idt I% __•:yip...
...Roughnecking It is a deft journalistic performance...
...I kill L IF: 11 7)m1' • 1 &Lh.%nh'In, *` N11e nlJ ii Mr11rr M 1 JI14hM1 0Y9ni11Y *1 Niik...
...Like any pioneer, all he had to prove was that he was made of sturdy stuff...
...Stan, I would like to have someone from the Agency who works in disguises meet me this afternoon...
...In sum, however, it is Cannon's thesis that for all his reputation as the Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan is the most misunderstood American President in modern history-an amateur politician with a professional touch, consistently underestimated by his enemies...
...Nevertheless, by the Fourteenth Amendment every state is forbidden to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," and, Raoul Berger notwithstanding, that requirement is not met by any state that executes its black murderers, for example, and imprisons its white murderers or (as happened recently in Virginia) imposes a fine of a thousand dollars on its white killers...
...MIgh3B1 KInsley_ Tom 1N.ntyr, N,RRhan'+IJZ*r, Joh ri 0' Sual i'raro...
...His answer is that this is r Changing your address...
...Chilton Williamson knows how to catch a character and tell a story...
...R.nMr1...
...i nd n1a71x of r . ' 'bim r alter f as•urllC wri Ices_ Toa n,a'y b c, wiLhuul {lur SP-Etla1 arl ides nn Sot in mfil I ririurm nr the niLliC ear frerra' mn'cmfinr, why JknL4'ricjin w orn.c n make Iwacw Wers, a nd radical ProlCraLa ME 1!3m...
...What interests Williamson most is the cast of characters settling the new west, men like Sam Slade, the New York-born roughneck and driller, a hard-working rowdy of the instantly recognizable good-guy type...
...Jr., Raiiiek Buchpnan_ Alhmrl Sharrker, Lowia L&pham, FtpwP nd E,rIM, Robert IHprek, Jude Wannlpi_ Jack i{emp...
...They pique Williamson's curiosity about religion...
...h,11Jr~ n'3 TV + . J1-1.51h H viler fen WhllrakrTC•hambcn.and .11,ter If im • ' Toni Wti7I...
...In 1975, writes Williamson, American Quasar, using the most advanced in seismic data and drilling and computer...
...Siiwell, Sidney Hbak, .ti rri 'Fal lbw-&, Ed ich Erron, Den_ A. C_ Wgftm.'f r, Jam4n L. 8'ucklgk, EIIi#71 Aprjm$, Lgwim Lahrmin, Will lam ftandoI1 Heprs1...
...At least 87 of its 204 pages of text are given over to a treatment of that hardy perennial, incorporation of the Bill of Rights by the Fourteenth Amendment, and, for another example, to a rehashing of the dispute between him and his critics over the role of the Court...
...L4 iy`s m M liveLy and in1a'rr'.ting x fir'r' lead t.5 c.py iFn ths'-w and many o(her Lirpies...
...Thus, it may well be that the Great Communicator, while he enjoys the power and perks of life in the West Wing, has better things to do with his life...
...And women like Nancy Peternal, a local politician of the "activist" stripe, bent on preserving something of the west...
...f11 011 N1xnLall PLLJIw,rt•I, rI, F'40 .I.Irip 1 1 wini dill those gaps...
...Like Mark Twain in Roughing It over a century ago, Chilton Williamson, Jr...
...D around with them in their vehicles...
...IMPORT tier ~,ykI P u1I dralIRc...
...If so, is he really willing to leave the question of life or death to the states, which is likely to mean to local juries, knowing, as he ought to know, what those juries have done and might still be capable of doing...
...Paul L&xal L. J d 41 A. CRli rsno, Garry Trudeau, Diy'ld E Dews_ P J O'Rourke...
...0 ROUGHNECKING IT Chilton Williamson, Jr...
Vol. 16 • February 1983 • No. 2
