For the second time in just three months, a federal judge has declared capital punishment by the federal government unconstitutional.

Some how, these judges must have confused being a judge with being a lawmaker because the rulings clearly show the two are legislating from the bench rather than interpreting the constitutionality of a law.

On Tuesday U.S. District Judge William Sessions ruled the death penalty to be unconstitutional because the laws that support it do not protect defendants’ rights.

“If the death penalty is to be part of our system of justice, due process of law and the fair trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment require that standards and safeguards governing the kinds of evidence juries may consider must be rigorous, and constitutional rights and liberties scrupulously protected,” he said in support of his ruling.

It is amazing that this guy is a judge.

He is suppose to interpret a Constitution he cannot even understand.

The Sixth Amendment reads “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witness against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor and to have the assistance of council for his defense.”

Isn’t it ironic there is no mention of this “rigorous” evidence that played such a role in Sessions’ ruling.

How about the other ruling?

In July, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff started this mess. In his ruling he cited evidence indicating that innocent people have been put to death.

Nobody wants innocent people to die, but it will happen.

We do not have a perfect justice system, plain and simple.

But that does not make it unconstitutional to execute someone.

If that were so, it should be unconstitutional to jail people.

After all, who knows how many innocent people are behind bars?

It’s a shame that years ago no one questioned the death penalty; it is fact that innocent people died.

But now we have DNA testing among many other advances in technology to ensure we get the right guy and we suddenly have judges declaring it unconstitutional.

It’s obvious these judges are trying to promote their political ideology by legislating rather than interpreting what is already written.

They are anti-death penalty.

But why?

They probably don’t really understand the logic behind the death penalty.

The most valued right in this country is the right to life.

Not freedom of religion or of the press, but the right to simply be alive.

In order to exercise the rights guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights, one must first have a right to life. Without that most basic right, no other rights truly exist.

When person commits a crime, they put themselves in a position to lose rights. For example, according to the Second Amendment, citizens have the right to bear arms.

But when they are convicted of a felony, that right is lost.

The right to vote works the same way.

Because of the importance of the right to life, one must face the ultimate consequence for robbing a person of their right – death.

If a person takes the right away from the innocent, they lose the same right that they took from their victim.

If a person doesn’t want to be executed, don’t murder someone.

The death penalty is also the only way to be completely positive that the killer will never kill again.

But all too often, people allow emotion rather than logic to rule their train of thought.

The argument is used, “what if the person on death row was your son – would you still want him to die?” Hopefully this in not part of the thought process that goes into writing laws. For every emotional argument against an issue, there is an emotional argument in favor of the same issue.

“What if the person on death row killed your son, would you still want them to get to live a life filled with weightlifting and cable television?”

It could go on forever; that’s why emotion should not play a role in determining if the death penalty is constitutional.

Emotion is used because some thing is not liked.

It is used against the death penalty because of the difficulty showing that it’s unconstitutional.

Both Justice Sessions and Justice Rakoff have proved that.

Zach

Calef

is a junior in apparel

merchandising design and production from Cedar Rapids. He is a member of the Daily’s editorial board.