blog.kennypearce.net

I guess this just shows that Souter can be as over the top and highly partisan in his rhetoric as Scalia can. This was one of those cases where both arguments seemed to make sense to me, because of a genuine ambiguity in the language of the statute. A federal law calls for automatic deportation for drug-related felonies, but it doesn't specify whether it has to be considered a federal felony or if a state felony is sufficient. Souter even acknowledges that in terms of the language of the statute it could be either way, but then he goes on to use this kind of nasty rhetoric anyway. That doesn't strike me as intellectually honest.

I didn't read the case in detail, and I don't know that much about law. The majority's ruling makes more sense to me, without having looked deeply into the issue.

Of course, I posted the quote not because of any strong interest in the case, but because I thought it was amusing.