by Matt Barr

More contentious opinions from the Court

Chris Buckley lampoons the fractured, infighting Court (link via How Appealing). Note: link includes an audio commercial.

The Court struck down, 7-2, a controversial Connecticut state constitutional amendment granting full civil rights to raccoons. In a sharp dissent, Justice Stevens, a moderate liberal, suggested that Justice Scalia "was on drugs" when he wrote the majority opinion. "The Founders," Stevens warned, "purposely left vague whether raccoons, regardless of the fact that they carry rabies and upset garbage cans in the middle of the night, are second-class citizens." Furthermore, he wrote, "this will, and should, inspire fear among Connecticut's porcupines, whose civil liberties have already suffered irreparable harm at the hands of juridical Blackshirts." Supreme Court guards separated the two justices, and a brief recess was called....

In Bigelow v. M&Ms, the Court ruled, 7-2, that a candy manufacturer could not be sued by someone seeking damages for adolescent acne. In a scathing majority opinion, Justice Scalia wrote, "Those who bring such suits deserve far worse than acne. They should, per antiqua lege Romana, be put in burlap sacks with wildcats -- or, if Justice Stevens prefers, raccoons -- and thrown into the Potomac." In his dissent, Justice Souter said that the ruling violates the equal protection clause, "as not all Americans have access to cats and water, or, pari passu, burlap."

The Court ruled, 5-4, in Lamar Buford Podine v. State of Florida that a state is entitled to seek compensation for the voltage used in executions by electric chair. Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas cited the 16th-century precedent of tipping the headsman. In a dissent, Justice Stevens wrote, "Hel-lo, Clarence: Being put to death is not the same as getting a good table at a swanky qua swanky restaurant," and suggested that Thomas "check his Day-Timer to see what century this is." Justice Rehnquist, who co-wrote the majority opinion, suggested that there should "definitely" be compensation if the electric chair in question was powered by coal.

Read the whole thing.

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