From criminal immunity to concentration camps, the Catholic majority on SCOTUS must be proud

[erronis]

https://sabrinahaake.substack.com/p/from-criminal-immunity-to-concentration
Sabrina Haake

They picked the worst possible time to disarm federal judges.

Concentration camps are often compared to prisons, but that comparison is inaccurate. In the United States, inmates arrive in penitentiaries only after they have been convicted of serious crimes, under criminal processes constrained by the US Constitution at all times. Starting with probable cause (which brown skin is not); then arrest (you have the right to remain silent); followed by voluntary pleading (coerced confessions are thrown out); leading to formal trial (bench or jury, defendants’ choice), based only on admissible evidence (hearsay/unsupported opinions are not admissible), Constitutional constraints apply at every juncture. If they falter, appellate courts are watching.

While innocent people assuredly have been wrongly convicted since our penal system was created in the late 1700s, their wrongful convictions were not produced by system design. Before Trump, wrongful, sloppy, or vengeance-driven criminal convictions of the innocent were the product of flawed men, not a flawed system.

People in concentration camps, in contrast, reflect an illegal system. The crucial distinction between prison and concentration camps is that concentration camp detainment is independent of any judicial review; inmates in camps have not been convicted of any crime. Concentration camps are most often used for political reasons, or to incarcerate people whom the governing regime sees as a threat.

A sinful celebration of cruelty

Rounded up under maniacal whims of an autocrat, concentration camp inmates don’t represent the rule of law, they represent an autocrat’s lust for power. This week, Donald Trump, accompanied by grinning ghouls Kristi Noem and Ron DeSantis, toured their newest and cruelest toy to date, Alligator Alcatraz, where they laughed in anticipation of the upcoming cruelty.

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