Guys like Scalia see the role of the justice system as systematically enforcing the laws as written. They believe that as they are unelected, they have no moral right to simply make things up as they go along, and thus that their work should be mechanical and predictable - even if it results in a suboptimal outcome.
Now, the implications of the above quote are pretty disturbing, at the same time, can I really disagree with it? I am not a constitutional scholar and don't know if it's accurate, but if the constitution really has nothing in that allows for a retrial if new evidence comes to light, that sounds like a bug in the constitution and would need to be fixed. If you skip that bit and ask judges to just do what makes sense to them instead of what's written, then the democratic process ends up being bypassed.
So even if someone disagrees with that point of view, I'd hope they can at least understand it.
The problem with that line of argument is that it is trivially hypocritical. As someone else has pointed out, the constitutional prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment" would have been sufficient grounds.
It is also more complexly hypocritical, as his opinions are constrained by the Constitution only as much as those of the other justices, which is to say only when convenient.
Guys like Scalia see the role of the justice system as systematically enforcing the laws as written. They believe that as they are unelected, they have no moral right to simply make things up as they go along, and thus that their work should be mechanical and predictable - even if it results in a suboptimal outcome.
Now, the implications of the above quote are pretty disturbing, at the same time, can I really disagree with it? I am not a constitutional scholar and don't know if it's accurate, but if the constitution really has nothing in that allows for a retrial if new evidence comes to light, that sounds like a bug in the constitution and would need to be fixed. If you skip that bit and ask judges to just do what makes sense to them instead of what's written, then the democratic process ends up being bypassed.
So even if someone disagrees with that point of view, I'd hope they can at least understand it.