Bohemian South

The New York Times writes in an editorial:

The Florida Supreme Court decided on Wednesday that the state can proceed with the execution next week of a 64-year-old inmate named John Ferguson. His lawyers immediately said that they will ask the United States Supreme Court to stay the execution and to review the case on grounds that Mr. Ferguson is mentally incompetent and that executing him would violate his constitutional rights as defined by the court in two earlier decisions. Connect With Us on Twitter For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT. The court must review the case. At issue are not only Mr. Ferguson’s life but also two differing interpretations of what constitutes competence: one Florida’s, the other the Supreme Court’s.

Some conservatives are trying to purge three moderate justices facing a retention vote in November: R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince. The only Democratic appointees on the state’s seven-member court, they are being singled out for various rulings, including a decision in 2010 that blocked from the ballot a misleadingly worded constitutional amendment designed to permit the state to opt out of national health care reform. An effort to remove the two Republican judges who voted with them on the case failed two years ago. But this year’s antiretention drive, which is being led by a group based in Orlando with ties to the Tea Party, Restore Justice 2012, appears more robust, and it is being aided and abetted by the Republican governor, Rick Scott.

The lawsuit centered on a long-running fight between gun owners and state lawmakers over where firearms are allowed. Most gun rights advocates cheered when Georgia lawmakers lifted restrictions in 2010 that had long banned them from bringing their weapons into public gatherings. But the Legislature left intact restrictions that banned guns from being carried into government buildings, courthouses, jails and prisons, state mental health facilities, nuclear plants and houses of worship. Lawmakers also restricted owners from bringing weapons into bars without permission from the owner. Critics of the law argue that churches shouldn’t be covered by the restrictions, which mostly apply to public buildings.

A little sanity in Georgia is always welcome. Thank you, 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for this decision.

The opening of a New York Times editorial:

The North Carolina Judicial Coalition is a new tax-exempt organization, known as a super PAC, supported by wealthy conservative Republicans who are determined to make this year’s race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court ideological and expensive.

How can anyone, including Supreme Court justices, think that the Citizens United decision was good for democracy?Even a right-wing partisan court should have cared more about the country that it was appointed to represent.