They told this to Kennedy, of course. The condemnation of Catholics as having two loyalties, having pledged fealty to the head of another state, and so on, is about as old as Protestantism. It’s true that Catholics believe they have a higher moral duty than to the state. But so does nearly everyone, right? If the state told me to participate in someone’s execution (even if via a duly enacted, prospective, general law) I would hope that I’d refuse and face the penalty. You can have that same hope based on religion or based on some other form of moral reasoning, though.

You forget Kennedy’s response: that in matters of the state, his faith was secondary to his sworn responsibility to uphold the Constitution. Which is the right answer. And apparently something the five Catholic Justices did not put into practice, judging by their abandonment of all previous conceptions of precedent.

And for all your insinuations that I’m adding to the “two masters” perception of Catholics, note that I said that the VATICAN has a problem with mucking around in the internal politics of other nations by putting pressure on Catholic politicians to conform to Church teachings in their public careers. Or did you miss where the issue of whether John Kerry could take Communion became a huge sticking point during the last Presidential election while not one word was said about Giuliani or Schwarzenegger?

Interesting stuff regarding Justice Scalia and the death penalty. Well, he’s hardly the first practicing Catholic to disagree with the Vatican about something; and we are all, Catholic or not, self serving far more than we admit. Still, I hope his son sets him straight. (“Fr. Scalia.” Indeed.)

One thing, though:

Thing about the Catholic Church, though, is that it’s not just a religion. The Vatican is a nation-state, albeit a small one. Its interference in the internal politics of other countries is just a hair more objectionable than the interference of, say, the head of the Anglican church.

They told this to Kennedy, of course. The condemnation of Catholics as having two loyalties, having pledged fealty to the head of another state, and so on, is about as old as Protestantism. It’s true that Catholics believe they have a higher moral duty than to the state. But so does nearly everyone, right? If the state told me to participate in someone’s execution (even if via a duly enacted, prospective, general law) I would hope that I’d refuse and face the penalty. You can have that same hope based on religion or based on some other form of moral reasoning, though.

That is: everyone believes that “the state” and “what’s just/right/moral” are not coextensive. The state fucks up sometimes. A lot of the time. And so anyone who believes they stand independent of the state and can criticize it is on firm ground, but they too serve a master besides the state: their conscience.

The worst atrocities in history, I might add, haven’t come from people serving “two masters” or other such slurs. The worst atrocities we’ve faced (genocide and certain horrific acts of war) come from too much fealty to the state. Anyone who wants to put their moral compass before their loyalty to Dubya is okay by me.

Meant to say… the words of judicial opinions aren’t owned by West! Opinions are public domain, which West recognizes — their copyright at the bottom of the opinions says “(C) 2007 Thomson/West. No Claim to Orig. U.S. Govt. Works.” The electronic database format West puts them in, and any original summaries or analysis, is all they can hope to copyright, I believe. (I’m no IP lawyer – I’m not even sure how to spell copywrite.)

I agree that you usually shouldn’t take chunks of opinions without citing them, but that’s more because you should be analyzing the argument for your own case than because you’re plagiarizing.

/ending disrail — sorry!/

It *is* copyrighted by West, after all. At least the headnotes are.

The official teaching of the Catholic Church (as Scalia, whose son is a priest, must surely know) is that the death penalty is wrong.

He’s on record as being very selective about stuff like that:

Justice Antonin Scalia, a devout Catholic and one of the Supreme Court’s most conservative members, says that Catholic judges who follow current Vatican teachings against the death penalty should resign. Speaking at Georgetown University on February 4, Scalia said he strongly disagrees with the church’s relatively new shift to oppose capital punishment in nearly all cases.

Scalia said a Catholic judge with moral concerns about the death penalty should resign because he or she would not in most states be upholding the laws that judges must swear to protect, according to the Associated Press.

In a conference in Chicago January 25, the justice said similarly: “The choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral is resignation rather than simply ignoring the duly enacted constitutional laws and sabotaging the death penalty.”

That’s not to say he doesn’t rely on his Catholic faith to guide him in other decisions. Scalia is the king of cherry-picking, after all.

The Vatican has long mucked around in politics, admonishing Catholic judges not to take part in divorce cases, death penalty cases, etc., and telling Catholic politicians outright that they are not to support certain issues, such as abortion or, most recently, same-sex marriage. Fortunately, most politicians — particularly in Italy — have told the Pope where to stick it.

Thing about the Catholic Church, though, is that it’s not just a religion. The Vatican is a nation-state, albeit a small one. Its interference in the internal politics of other countries is just a hair more objectionable than the interference of, say, the head of the Anglican church.

Oh, and Patrick? Bite me.

It’s all about the boilerplate, baby, but you have to wait until you graduate.

And remember to be careful with your pronouns. It’s not fun trying to go through a brief that alternates between calling the plaintiff he and she.

Really? I’m going to make myself sound like a dumb law student here, but I did not know this. I always assumed that you had to credit someone if you borrowed their exact words or their ideas. Crazy. You learn something new every day…

It’s all about the boilerplate, baby, but you have to wait until you graduate. Don’t do it in your seminar papers! And I guess there’s the danger that if identical briefs are submitted to the same judge, he or she might think you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

Litigation writing is different than other kinds of academic writing. When you write a brief as a lawyer, it’s not plagiarism if the judge takes your language directly without citing you. (In fact, that’s exactly what you want them to do!) Judges and lawyers can also take chunks of language and reasoning from other opinions and briefs and stick them in their own without crediting them. Sometimes you will credit the “original” authors, but it’s not required — you’d only do it if you want to invoke that court’s opinion as specific precedent.

In any other context, this kind of borrowing would be plagiarism. But it’s definitely not plagiarism in litigation.

Really? I’m going to make myself sound like a dumb law student here, but I did not know this. I always assumed that you had to credit someone if you borrowed their exact words or their ideas. Crazy. You learn something new every day…