The right has two reasons to hate the Roper ruling

Yesterday’s ruling prohibiting the execution of minors made for a good read, but part of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s reasoning is likely to catch the attention of conservatives in a big way.

“Our determination,” Kennedy added, “finds confirmation in the stark reality that the United States is the only country in the world that continues to give official sanction to the juvenile death penalty.” […]

For the Supreme Court itself, perhaps the most significant effect of yesterday’s decision is to reaffirm the role of international law in constitutional interpretation.

The European Union, human right lawyers from the United Kingdom and a group of Nobel Peace laureates had urged the court in friend-of-the-court briefs to strike down the juvenile death penalty.

In saying that this strong expression of international sentiment “provide[s] respected and significant confirmation for our own conclusions,” Kennedy lengthened the recent string of decisions in which the court has incorporated foreign views — and decisively rejected the arguments of those on the court, led by Scalia, who say it should consider U.S. law exclusively.

This has become an increasingly touchy point for the right, particularly in Congress. Conservatives are disappointed by the ruling on its face — their “culture of life” doesn’t include teenaged felons — but this international angle will really draw their ire.

We weren’t exactly the only country on earth to sanction the juvenile death penalty, but then again, we wouldn’t want to be joined by the company we keep either — some of the other countries to embrace executions of minors are Iran, Pakistan, China, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia. The United States, the beacon for freedom and human rights around the globe, is supposed to be better than this.

But the fact that high court justices would even consider such issues is a cause for grave concern to the right-wing. Indeed, the fact that the Supreme Court has, on occasion, cited international law and/or legal traditions in rulings is considered scandalous among dozens of congressional Republicans.

Last year, Reps. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) spearheaded a wacky scheme called the “Reaffirmation of American Independence Resolution,” would express the sense of Congress that judicial decisions should never cite foreign laws, even in passing.

Feeney, in particular, is so concerned about this, he suggested he’d consider impeachment for high court justices who made note of international legal developments in their rulings. He even suggested on his website that the U.S. may someday be governed by the laws of “Jamaica, India, Zimbabwe, or the European Union.” (How he arrived at these specific examples, we’ll never know.)

And while hundreds of these silly resolutions are introduced in every Congress, it’s worth noting that the “Reaffirmation of American Independence Resolution” actually picked up support from the far-right wing of the House Republican caucus and had 74 co-sponsors by the end of the session.

Clearly, these conservatives haven’t thought this through very well. Most American legal traditions (separation of powers, respect for private property, trial by jury, etc.) were inspired by international precedents. Indeed, it’s ironic that the far right would want to ban any consideration of foreign legal history, while at the same time insisting that we should do more to honor Biblical legal traditions, which originated in the Middle East a couple of millennia ago.

Nevertheless, keep an eye on the right’s reactions to yesterday’s Roper ruling. Kennedy’s emphasis on foreign standards will, I suspect, become a rallying cry for characters like Feeney and Goodlatte.