"Mere innocence is no bar to conviction, or execution," a California criminal defense lawyer once explained to me. He was right, it turned out. Counterpunch's Michael J. Fellows goes into this and other unpleasant absurdities of legal reasoning (alas, not an oxymoron) of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Those of us who believe in substantive rights view the Constitution as a floor below which the government may not go. For Scalia and other right-wing conservatives, the Constitution is a ceiling above which the government has no responsibility to go, no matter how awful the outcome. These two Constitutions are enormously different, and result in significantly different outcomes for real people in real courts attempting to vindicate real rights.