Side note: Though I didn't know him personally, Goodwin graduated from Stanford the same year I did, which is humbling. Next year is our 15 year reunion. I can hear it now: What did you do this year, Goodwin? I testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee to point out that Judge Alito's record indicates a tendency to defer to government power. How about you, Marty? I made broccoli casserole a lot, and I flossed regularly.
But that's Goodwin. He was Big Man On Campus and certainly would have been voted Most Likely to Testify Against A Conservative Nominee to the Supreme Court if we had ever voted for such a thing.
Goodwin (I feel like I should still be able to call him that) talked about a case on police use of force:
The first is a memo he wrote in 1984 as assistant to the solicitor general, analyzing a case where police saw a burglary suspect running across a backyard. The suspect reached a fence, and an officer called out: "Police! Halt!" When the suspect tried to climb the fence, the officer shot him in the back of the head, killing him. The suspect, Edward Garner, was an eighth grader with a stolen purse and $10 on his body. He was not armed, and the officer did not think he was. The sole reason for his killing was to prevent his escape.
Judge Alito's memo, speaking for no one but himself, said, "I think the shooting can be justified as reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment." In a remarkable passage, he argued that using deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect rests on, and I quote, "the general principle that the state is justified in using whatever force is necessary to enforce its laws." In 1985, the Supreme Court rejected this view.
As a kid, I remember playing cops and robbers and indeed, that was the rule: "Stop, or I'll shoot!" But we were just kids. Our sense of morality evolved. Now the idea seems ludicrous. Our society is not prepared to give a police officer the authority to act as judge, jury and executioner right on the spot. The sentence for running from the police should not be immediate death.
Since Alito's view was rightly rejected by the Supreme Court in 1985, I wonder if kids today yell "Stop, or I'll post an APB and we'll pick you up later tonight at your girlfriend's apartment where you'll inevitably be wearing no shirt!"
Tags: Alito, Goodwin Liu, Supreme Court
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