All around piece of shit, James McKinney, had a horrific childhood fraught with abuse. He started drinking and smoking weed by age 11, dropped out of school, ran away from home, shit like that. You kinda feel for the guy, but still, as an adult, he’s a total douchebag.

Anyway, he eventually committed robbery with his half-brother and two people were killed. So McKinney was convicted and sentenced to death.

No one wants to die, including McKinney. So because of the PTSD he suffered as a young kid, he believes that to be a mitigating factor in why he’s such a piece of shit now. Which is maybe true, but so long as you’re not delusional, you fucking know it’s wrong, and that you shouldn’t do it. So I’ve personally got little sympathy.

However that’s not important, I’m not trying this case.

So why are we here at SCOTUS? Well, SCOTUS in Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 (1982), determined that any mitigating evidence should be considered in a death penalty case, and therefore McKinney thinks his PTSD diagnosis is mitigating, and therefore would like not to be executed, please and thank you.

And also, in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002), SCOTUS ruled that Death Penalty must be imposed by a jury sentencing hearing, and not by a judge. But Arizona was like, “Fuck you, that ruling happened after this mother fucker was convicted.”

But McKinney’s lawyer is nothing but creative. He wants a resentencing based on Eddings, which he believes must consider McKinney’s PTSD. Then he thinks that resentencing must be held to today’s standard as a result of Rings, that a jury must award the death penalty.

So now SCOTUS must determine whether this prick gets a needle in his arm or not.

The “liberal” justices agreed with McKinney. They make a fairly compelling argument that if SCOTUS makes a constitutional ruling, that the constitution shouldn’t be subject to timing. In other words, if it’s unconstitutional, it was always unconstitutional. It shouldn’t be deemed only unconstitutional after they hand down their ruling. Thus, they believe all such ruling should be retroactive and applied as such, to any relevant case.

However, Ginburg and her merry band of left-leaning cohorts are in the minority. The right-leaning majority decided that an appellate court can decide if they fucking want, and there’s no reason to retroactively change this. Ruling for Arizona, and goodbye McKinney.