Today in Supreme Court History: September 6, 1983

9/6/1983: The City of Richmond solicited bids for installing plumbing fixtures at the city jail. The J.A. Croson Company's bid was denied because it did not meet the "set-aside requirement" for minority contractors. The Supreme Court declared this decision unconstitutional in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989).

The Rehnquist Court (1989)

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Shamburger v. Cockrell, 536 U.S. 986 (decided September 6, 2002): Denies stay of execution and also denies cert. Stevens and Ginsburg would grant the stay (probably because both had come to believe that the death penalty, as practiced, is always a violation of Due Process). Shamberger was executed by lethal injection five days later. A student at Texas A & M, he had shot another A & M student during an off-campus burglary. This was one of many burglaries he had committed. The gun was a 9mm pistol he had bought with a stolen credit card he had already stolen from the victim (whom he had been stalking). He tied the victim up and gagged her with duct tape, and then shot her when he heard her roommate coming home. He confessed to the crime within hours after the attack and apologized to the family over and over, including on the day of execution. On appeal he had contested only the sentence (death as opposed to life imprisonment).

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm having a bit of trouble, though, seeing the due process violation in a case where the convict was unambiguously guilty, and not even denying it. You might argue "cruel and unusual", (Though the precedent for the death penalty being used really precludes that, IMO.) but due process? You don't get much more due process than here.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Mental illness?

[Martinned]

Just because he's guilty doesn't mean he should get executed.

[Mr. Bumble]

By virtue of being found guilty he was sentenced to death as provided by the law which is why he was executed.

[Bob from Ohio]

He executed her, fair is fair.

[Frank Drackman]

Whats amazing is he was the 26th murderer executed in Te-jas that year (How many this year? 5, can't blame that on the DemoKKKrats) and it was only September! and it only took 8 years to execute him. That POS Nidal Hasan is still contributing to Global Warming for his mass murder in 2009.

Frank

[F.D. Wolf]

Yes, you can "blame" (or "credit", depending on your point of view) Democrats for the dramatic drop in death sentences (and, consequently, executions) in Texas. Particularly, Harris County (which includes Houston), the third most populous county in the US, was known for decades as the "capital punishment capital of America", itself accounting for more death sentences than any state other than Texas. It was run by Republicans for decades, but changing demographics has made it solidly Democratic the last few election cycles. Consequently, you have a Democrat district attorney who doesn't pursue the death penalty often and Democrat judges less inclined to hand down death sentences.

[Frank Drackman]

Wow, I learned something, should have known, the same thing happened/is happening in Jaw Jaw (4 Executions in 2002, last one was in 2020), Damn Rapist in Fulton County murders a Judge, Court Reporter in the Court Room, Beats a (female) Deputy to a Pulp, Murders a Male Deputy, and later an INS agent, gets
a "Life" sentence.

Frank

[F.D. Wolf]

I was a senior at Texas A&M when that murder occurred. Needless to say, it really shook up the campus and the community.

[apedad]

Looks like Shamburger had company:

No. 02–5203 (02A195). Patrick v. Cockrell, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division. C. A. 5th Cir. Application for stay of execution of sentence of death, presented to Justice Scalia, and by him referred to the Court, denied. Certiorari denied. Justice Stevens and Justice Ginsburg would grant the application for stay of execution. Reported below: 34 Fed. Appx. 150.

No. 01–10584 (02A250). King v. Cockrell, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division. C. A. 5th Cir. Application for stay of execution of sentence of death, presented to Justice Scalia, and by him referred to the Court, denied. Certiorari denied. Justice Stevens and Justice Ginsburg would grant the application for stay of execution. Reported below: 33 Fed. Appx. 703.

No. 02–5735 (02A249). Powell v. Cockrell, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division. C. A. 5th Cir. Application for stay of execution of sentence of death, presented to Justice Scalia, and by him referred to the Court, denied. Certiorari denied. Justice Stevens and Justice Ginsburg would grant the application for stay of execution. Reported below: 35 Fed. Appx. 386.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks.

If Cockrell was the technical defendant in all Texas capital punishment cases then he must have been the world's most frequently named litigant.

[Dr. Ed 2]

How do you buy a gun with a stolen credit card?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Texas fully respects Second Amendment rights. It’s probably a 2A violation there to check into such things.

[ducksalad]

Early 90's so it was either a swipe or a carbon-paper impression of the raised lettering.

You're welcome.

[John F. Carr]

I remember when the clerk at the cash register would pull out a paper book of credit card numbers. In those days check processing also required movement of paper around the country. Local checks were more likely to be accepted than out of state checks.

[Dilan Esper]

I don’t think Ginsburg ever concluded the DP was always unconstitutional. I haven’t gone back and looked, but I think she was not publicly dissenting from all cert and stay denials in DP cases even at the end of her career.

[Dan Schiavetta]

today's movie review: Breaking Away, 1979

A friend of mine said, "You have to see this movie!" and I was glad I did.

Four "townies" in a college town, not only that, but the prestigious (and huge) University of Indiana at Bloomington. I was a cello major around that time and Bloomington was home to Janos Starker, the world's best cellist, and of course Bobby Knight's Hoosiers. The story is about these friends coming to terms with, and being proud of, their heritage as sons of "cutters" -- stonecutters who formed the original basis of the town's economy, but where the quarry is now unused and filled with water.

A lot has been said about how good-hearted and wonderful this movie is. It focuses on Dennis Christopher's character, a teenager who wins a high-speed bicycle in a contest and becomes obsessed with Italian bicycle racing, to the point of dropping Italian phrases and preferring Italian food. His mother obliges with the cooking but says, "Don't turn Catholic on us, dear!"

Paul Dooley plays his father, who really was a "cutter" in his youth and doesn't understand why his son seems to be running away from being an American. It's always a pleasure to see a sitcom guy in a serious role and most comic actors are good at it because comedy is harder to do than drama. (In comedy you have to hear the audience react; otherwise, you know you're dying up there.) Another good turn by a sitcom actor is by Charles Lane as the pediatrician in Sybil, 1976, see
https://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=4630
That movie of course marked Sally Field's very successful transition from sitcoms to serious roles.

Our four guys are constantly looked down on. The adult world keeps telling them, "You have no future," as exemplified by when the Jackie Earle Haley character is berated by his new boss at the car wash. I don't know if you've ever gotten that "you've got no future" look, but I have, in various settings (and at the moment I really do have no future -- my job is touch-and-go and we're about to lose our house). Getting that look was devastating (at first). For someone who grew up with that, the effect would be more deep-seated. Here they try to fight back with masculinity gestures -- it's a laugh when the Dennis Quaid character, puffing a cigarette, salutes a "Marlboro Man" billboard, and not so funny when, racing a trained University swimmer at the quarry with a clumsy dogpaddle, he hits his head on a rock and almost drowns.

The best comic scene is Daniel Stern getting his thumb stuck in a bowling ball in the campus rec center and flinging it around, trying to dislodge it, with terrified students running away.

After seeing our cyclist friend dedicate himself to Italian bicycling, we are just as shattered as he is when he gets to race with actual Italian cyclists who on a deserted stretch upend him with a well-practiced jab of a pole into his front wheel. We are just as inspired when he recovers. There was more to this kid than we thought.

I lived in a college town for years, as a graduate of that college, gradually turning into a townie. There was a town culture and a college culture, but the college students were not as supercilious as here. For one thing, it was not a prestigious college. Also you were just as likely to find students in the "sleazy" parts of town as you were townies. There were rich kids who were "slumming", that's for sure, and one wondered why with such a background they would go to a college like that. We couldn't even get an alumni association going because nobody wanted to admit that they graduated from there. IU was a different of course.

The movie spawned short-lived TV show, with Vincent Gardenia (a very Italian-American actor) inexplicably cast as the very-American father.

Haley had a short but important scene as Alexander Stephens, the Confederate Vice-President, in Lincoln, 2012. When told by Lincoln at the Hampton Roads Conference that slavery has to be abolished, he protests, "We won't know ourselves anymore." Federal encroachment onto local practices is a great grievance of our time, of course. Perhaps today's conservatives can identify with the "townies" in this movie, but it is an analogy which breaks down when you look at it more closely.

In the end our friends survive and inspire their friends and parents to become more proud of their heritage. Being a cutter is nothing to be ashamed of. The father even renames his used auto business "Cutter" and stops cheating customers. Any job is a job to be proud of if it's done with competence and integrity, and that includes cutting stone.

[Frank Drackman]

No mention of your Black Girlfriend(s)??? what have you done with Capt Crisis!?!?!?!?!?

[SRG2]

Janos Starker, the world’s best cellist

Better than Lynn Harrell, Paul Tortelier and Mstislav Rostropovich? (Piatigorsky presumably had stopped playing by then).

I once raced at the indoor track in the field house in Bloomington. What surprised me about the town was how expensive restaurants were for a place that wasn't one of the big cities. I guess with a huge student body they can keep prices high.

[Dan Schiavetta]

They all mastered their instrument but Starker played without a net to catch him. No constant vibrato to hide bad intonation. No facial emoting to distract from deficient playing. No recording in big reverberant churches to hide dryness of sound or choppy bowing.

He also said what he thought. He wasn’t afraid of anything. How could he be? He was a Jew in a Nazi prison camp. His two brothers disappeared, probably shot by the Russians. As he put it, “Nothing worse can happen to me than what has already happened.”

[SRG2]

As far as vibrato is concerned – well, you notice the absence of Yo-Yo Ma in my list…

I treasure my recording of Harrell’s unaccompanied Bach, and many years ago I was lucky enough to chat with Tortelier after he’d played the Elgar.

You should keep an ear out for a German cellist called Benedict Kloeckner. I saw him in a recital a few years ago in Munich, playing among other things the Paganini “Moses” variations. Stunning.

He also said what he thought

On BBC's R3, talking of Nigel Kennedy: "I am teaching half a dozen violinists who are better than he is."

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks, I will look out for Kloeckner.

And that does sound like something Starker would say.

I've played the Elgar, as a stand-in until the soloist showed up for dress rehearsal. The first movement isn't that hard, but then -- !

I am just barely good enough to play the 6th Bach prelude. Look at Brannon Cho’s renditionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6lUHv6fYWA

I’m also a double bassist and you should look up Mikyung Sung, from South Korea. I am like her in that I stand instead of sit, and use the underhand (German) bow grip. In fact I sound just like her, except for the out-of-tune notes, the scratchy bowing, grating tone quality, nervous twitching that makes it look like the concert hall has a gnat problem, and the total lack of musical expressiveness and sensibility.

BTW — in my view the German grip is the most natural grip for any bowed instrument. The problem is that getting all the fingers in there requires such a big frog that for every instrument except double bass, it throws the bow out of alignment. Also with a double bass you need real muscle power, and the German grip is a Class I Lever (where the fulcrum is between the effort and the load), whereas the French (overhand) grip is Class III (where the effort is between the fulcrum and the load). Class I is more efficient at transferring force.

[SRG2]

I cannot comment on grips, not having the technical knowledge. But I am confident that were I to use the German grip I would manage a passable sonic impression of a saw.

Cho's is a fine performance, though recorded in a church with a nice resonant acoustic! Not much in the way of range of colour, though.

[Dan Schiavetta]

True. I’m just noting Cho’s technical brilliance. His bowing choices are also interesting. I just use the same bowing all the way through.

As you know, the 6th Suite was written for a five-string instrument with a high E string. Today it is no challenge for a good player to play it on four strings. Despite the decreasing relative size of the classical music world, virtuosity is increasing. A lot of pieces which were considered unplayable when written are now played regularly. This means the teaching is better and practicing is more efficient.

I have two other thoughts on the Bach suites:

— the fifth suite calls for scordatura but on modern metal strings tuning the A string down to G reduces it to a flabby rubber band

— the fourth suite prelude is easier if you start each measure by playing that first low note upbow

[Magister]

I must have slept through the cello showdown in Breaking Away. Or is it only in the director's cut? 🙂

[Mr. Bumble]

"The movie spawned short-lived TV show, with Vincent Gardenia (a very Italian-American actor) inexplicably cast as the very-American father."
...and who do think should be cast as "the very American father"?

[Syd Henderson]

"Breaking Away" is one of those movies that I can watch over and over. And of course it ends with a laugh.

[Dilan Esper]

Haley had a short but important scene as Alexander Stephens, the Confederate Vice-President, in Lincoln, 2012. When told by Lincoln at the Hampton Roads Conference that slavery has to be abolished, he protests, “We won’t know ourselves anymore.” Federal encroachment onto local practices is a great grievance of our time, of course. Perhaps today’s conservatives can identify with the “townies” in this movie, but it is an analogy which breaks down when you look at it more closely.

FWIW I wasn't a gigantic fan of "Lincoln" overall- it was full of cliches- but I thought they did a nice job with that scene. The Hampton Roads Conference has always fascinated me. Why do it? Was it simply a huge miscommunication (where the Confederates thought Lincoln would make substantive concessions on the Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln thought the Confederates would negotiate a surrender rather than fight the rest of the war out)? Or were there indicators that some sort of deal might be made that then just failed to materialize at the conference?

And if you ARE going to have a peace conference, why so late in the war when everything is a fait accompli anyway? It's like if Hitler and Roosevelt had decided to hold a conference to try and settle World War II on February 25, 1945 or something.

Just an under-explained event in history, and I enjoyed the portrayal in the movie.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Lincoln placed great store in the conference, as we see in that scene when he denies that he was meeting with Confederate officials “in this city” (i.e., D.C.) — but then goes off to a riverboat in Virginia.

Vice President (as we know) was a trivial position in the federal government, but apparently not in the Confederacy, whose constitution different in interesting ways, not all connected with slavery. Stephens was one of the prime movers of the C.S.A. and went to the Hampton Roads conference with considerable authority to act. He was more sensible than Jefferson Davis who stupidly wanted to continue the fight.

My take on the conference was that Lincoln was trying to get the official Confederacy (while it still existed) to agree to the abolition of slavery as a condition of ending the war and readmittance to the union.

It’s an interesting touch that when Stephens arrives at the conference he is helped off his carriage by a slave, and he thanks the slave. "Much obliged!"

[ducksalad]

It’s an interesting touch that when Stephens arrives at the conference he is helped off his carriage by a slave, and he thanks the slave. “Much obliged!”

A good police officer will address you as "Sir" and use "Please" and "Thank You" while he's got you kneeling on the pavement with your hands on top of your head.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yes, because he's creating a defense against getting sued or complained about. Police are not all-powerful. But Stephens had no fear of getting sued by a slave.

[ducksalad]

I think it’s more a combination of training, instinctive professionalism, habit, etc rather than a conscious tactic to avoid legal problems. Similarly for Stephens – it was part of the whole Southern Gentleman thing.

Things like politeness, kindness (the immediate short-term version), and educated diction aren’t even correlated with ideas of equality. E.g. medieval codes of chivalry with respect to women.