Sometimes it's hard to make sense of the decisions the Supreme Court makes. When they cherry-pick foreign legal decisions to cite as the basis for some of their more Left-leaning rulings, for instance, it can make anyone's head spin. Why, I often wonder, do they speak of the "values we share with a wider civilization" when they cite European court rulings, but ignore foreign laws that disagree with the Liberal agenda? For every decision they make citing the European Court of Human Rights, shouldn't there be a ruling based on Shari'a law or Chinese law?

In one instance, the Supreme Court effectively overturned the Tenth Amendment in the Lawrence v. Texas decision when they removed the right of Texas to make its own laws regarding sodomy. The Tenth Amendment states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Justice Anthony Kennedy noted in the decision that the European Court of Human Rights and other foreign courts had affirmed the "rights of homosexual adults to engage in intimate, consensual conduct." He also mentioned that privacy for gay men and women "has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom in many other countries." Yet the Supreme Court didn't balance this blatant Eurocentrism by ruling that women should be stoned for exposing the upper part of their feet, or that anyone who didn't bow to President Bush's portrait should be sent to a concentration camp to mine coal and make soccer balls for cheap export. If they were taking foreign laws and attitudes regarding homosexuality into account when making their decision, why didn't they rule that, as Shari'a law states, the Texas legal system should "Kill the one who does it and the one to whom it is done?" It's obvious that the Supreme Court made a decision not based on the Constitution, but their own prejudices and attitudes, then sought precedents by which to explain it.

In the great tradition of Roe v. Wade and Justice Hugo Black's "separation of Church and State," the Supreme Court recently found yet another part of the Constitution that no one had ever seen before (no doubt written on the back of the third page of the original, in lemon juice). This one said that juveniles cannot be sentenced to death, no matter how heinous the crime. States have now lost the right to mete out justice as they see fit. Justice Kennedy (again) joined Liberal Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Kennedy stated that those under 18 should not be subject to the death penalty because the "instability and emotional imbalance of young people may often be a factor in the crime." Kennedy further blamed "a lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility" and the "diminished culpability of juveniles" for their crimes.

Arizona youth Kenneth Laird, for instance, was only 17 when he broke into Wanda Starnes’ home while she was at work. He tied, gagged and locked her in a bathroom when she returned, then choked her with a rope and bashed her skull in. Laird then spent the next few days driving her truck and forging checks from her account. Mere youthful high spirits, no doubt. Nathan Ramirez was 17 when he and a friend broke into the Florida home of 71-year-old Mildred Boroski, tied her to her bed, killed her dog with a crowbar and looted the house. After the friend raped Boroski, Ramirez shot her twice in the head. He was obviously suffering from an underdeveloped sense of responsibility.

Dale Dwayne Craig was 17 when he fired three bullets into the head of Kipp Gullet as Gullet cried and begged for mercy after Craig abducted him. Stephen Virgil McGilberry killed four members of his Mississippi family with a baseball bat when he was 16. Tilmon Golphin and his older brother killed two police officers after committing robbery and grand theft auto, shooting the already-wounded men at point-blank range. Efrain Perez and Raul Villarreal were both 17 when they and three others gang-raped two girls, 16 and 14, before strangling and stomping them to death. One of the girls was strangled with her own shoelaces. Kevin Hughes sexually assaulted and strangled a nine-year-old Pennsylvania girl before setting her body on fire when he was 17. I suppose we should just be thankful he killed her first.

All these animals and more are now free of the death penalty, thanks to the Supreme Court and their reliance on foreign laws. "In sum, it is fair to say that the United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against the juvenile death penalty," Justice Kennedy wrote in the decision, also noting that the practice was banned by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The part that confuses me the most is how the same "children" who are deemed unstable, emotionally unbalanced, immature and lacking a sense of responsibility by this ruling are still somehow responsible and mature enough to get birth control or abortions without parental consent in states like California and Florida.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor warned us that "over time we will rely increasingly, or take notice at least increasingly, of international and foreign courts in examining domestic issues." Well, what do European court decisions matter to me? I don't live there, nor do I want European judges deciding my laws for me. Any judge who bases his or her decisions on any document other than the US Constitution or on any legal ruling made beyond our borders ought to be impeached. As an American, I insist that my laws be written only by my fellow Americans, and comply with my Constitution. If I want to live under the laws of another country, I know how to buy a ticket for the next plane or boat, believe me -- I don't need the illegal immigration of their judicial rulings.

In a 35-minute speech Monday, Scalia said unelected judges have no place deciding issues such as abortion and the death penalty. The court's 5-4 ruling March 1 to outlaw the juvenile death penalty based on "evolving notions of decency" was simply a mask for the personal policy preferences of the five-member majority, he said. ... Citing the example of abortion, he said unelected justices too often choose to read new rights into the Constitution, at the expense of the democratic process.