Federalism is not Dead ... yet

Why U ask is the Republic safe for another day? Well, for starters, because Mexican national Humberto Leal is dead. Say what? Ok, Humberto, on his own merit, is not a figure of historic significance. Let's just say, he was no John Birch, who as a Christian missionary in Red China in 1948, willing gave his life in the battle against the godless communist hordes of Mao. John Birch got a Xenophobic Society named after him. Mr. Leal got only a Presidential "Pardon", which less than 48 hours later, was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, holding that State Rights trumped federal foreign policy prerogatives.

Now, who among U is not intrigued by this axis of fate that caused a murdering rapist (who was convicted in a Texas State Court after a fair trial with competent counsel followed by more than a decade of state and federal appeals) having a President saying that international law requires that his conviction and sentence must be overturned. Oh, and by the way, prior to getting his temporary free pass from the President, Mr. Leal openly acknowledged his guilt in torturing, raping and crushing the skull of a 16 year old child, thereby ending her ordeal of excruciating pain and suffering. Citing a violation of a valid US treaty obligation to allow every foreign national arrested for the commission of a felony access to his/her consular representatives, the President filed an appeal Thursday before the Supreme Court to enjoin Texas from carrying out this duly authorized execution. The Court took so little time in dismissing the DOJ petition that Leal met his just fate without even a thirty minute delay in Texas administering its lethal injection. In its Opinion, the Court ruled that the federal government's preference for currying foreign approval and seeking to ensure full consular access for Americans arrested abroad was irrelevant to the petitioner's legal obligation to demonstrate that the defendant was being treated unlawfully in either his conviction or the imposition of a just sentence of execution.

Humberto Leal, while born in Mexico, had lived in the United States since age two, some 39 consecutive years. Heck, from the "progressive" elitetist point of view, Leal had long ago become an American citizen by the mere long duration of his domestic life of crime. Only those federal bureaucrats, so privileged to reside on such a high moral plain (blessed with a "broad vision" of world government), would champion the cause of a monster, a confessed child torturer, when the rule of American law and justice had been upheld by a sovereign state acting in furtherance of a governmental realm expressly reserved to it by the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution - exercise of its police powers to enforce state criminal law. Long live the Republic, at least 'till tomorrow.