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The National Review is angry with Justice Anthony Kennedy for not consulting Islamic law in today's decision that the 8th Amendment forbids the lifetime imprisonment of juveniles who did not commit murder.
McCarthy is right about the hollowness of transnational judicial philosophy and Kennedy's Graham opinion is casuistry from start to finish.
Meh, that's one interpretation. Welcome to America!
Thomas's dissent pisses ether on to the face of Kennedy's majority opinion.
Shariah is such a fucked-up, class-based legal system* than only one nation in the world has adopted it as the judicial system: Saudi Arabia. Every other Muslim country has a secular judicial system the reigns over Shariah. (That's not to say those systems are just, and they don't commit travesties that affect minors; but they're not Shariah.)
The only other places you see Shariah being imposed is in parts of Nigeria, among the Shebab in Somalia, the Taliban and pockets of Islamic resistance in parts of Asia.
* Shariah is fucked up because the richer you are the more likely you can meet the blood money (diyyah) demands of the crime victims. Also: legal representation is optional — if you can afford it, great; if not, you represent yourself. Oh yeah, and adultery and apostasy are capital crimes, which is fucking preposterous. Most Muslims know these things.
So, no, NRO Morons, I don't think Kennedy needs to have "consulted Shariah" because it's clear he's not making comparisons to the American system and how the Shebab in Somalia (or even Saudi Arabia) view justice. He's talking about the civilized world. And baiting bigots about the Muslim thing is a red herring anyway: the question is whether sentencing minors to life for crimes that don't involve homicide is a good idea. Eyes on the prize, people.
Thomas makes a mistake in not recognizing that our age based system is equivalent of the shariah's puberty based system. It's just that here in 'Merica, we're a little squeamish about biology and prefer to go strictly by the numbers. Numbers that we curve a bit high because we're uncomfortable with teenagers having feelings.