Inaction is more harmful than taking the wrong decision. The callous attitude of the Judges in the Supreme Court in recent times is affecting different sections of the society in the United States. Whether it is their reluctance to ban assault rifles or to withhold immigration reforms, the consequences are difficult to bear by the citizenry. There are several incidents of inaction in the past which disgraced the United States in the international arena. It is not surprising that neighboring countries are slowly isolating ties with the nation. Even allied nations choose to hold a neutral position. Inaction has far-reaching consequences than just affecting the parties involved in the case.
The 2015 stalemate in the Supreme Court on the new immigration reforms is a worrying development. There are eleven million illegal immigrants in the United States today. Majority of this population contribute heavily towards the American industries. They are not a burden unless the courts make it so. The stalemate judgment is an irony since the US Supreme Court is the last recourse for legal pursuits. The Judges choose to allow a stalemate instead of spending more time in deciding on a verdict. The consequence might be a future Republican Government attempting to deport eleven million illegal immigrants at the cost of ill will towards American citizens, diplomatic drawbacks from nations who will receive the immigrants, a substantial increase in crimes, new laws to punish all who harbor illegal immigrants, a spike in the already peaking incarceration rates, and several trillions of US taxpayer dollars (The Times Editorial Board, 2015).
These consequences create an adverse environment for everyone in the United States. It will be similar to a war zone and the prices of all products using illegal immigrants will increase significantly. The American economy will plunge into another recession and there may never be a way out of it. The exodus will not only consist of illegal immigrants, it will also include natural born US citizens whose parents are not legal residents. The possibility of foreign investment or essential resources from the neighboring countries will dwindle and result in the alienation of the entire nation. These are the consequences if a future government decides to take advantage of the Supreme Court’s stalemate judgment. No community or peoples in the United States will be able to escape the consequences.
In 2012, the US Supreme Court abolished the death penalty for juvenile offenders. Capital punishment has its prominence in the US Constitution. Nevertheless, the Court decided that young children should not be recipients. This decision was important; however, it came too late for the thousands of African American juveniles since Independence. Even in 2012, the US Supreme Court acted only due to the increase in international condemnation of the barbaric practice. Britain and France (America’s NATO allies) were the frontrunners calling for the abolition at the time. The inaction by the Supreme Court for centuries shamed the nation. Nonetheless, the lessons seem forgotten.
In 2015, a Pakistani couple, armed with assault rifles and an assortment of other firearms killed fourteen innocent people in San Bernardino (Los Angeles Times, 2016). Despite the carnage and the Courts remained uncommitted in abolishing rapid loading and rapid firing firearms in civilian hands altogether. Consequently, on 12 June 2016, the city of Orlando made history for all the wrong reasons by playing host to the worst shooting incident in US history. The disturbing aspect of this problem is that the US Supreme Court is still in evasive mode. While declining to review Connecticut’s ban on semiautomatic weapons, the Court did not use to case as an opportunity to comprehensively ban these weapons (Liptak, 2016). The Judges did not see fit to follow the example of the 2012 Roper v. Simmons, which was instrumental in abolishing the death penalty for juvenile offenders (Death Penalty Information Center, 2016). Their inaction allowed twenty preschoolers to fall prey to Adam Lanza’s hail of bullets at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 (Los Angeles Times, 2016). The indifference and inaction of the Courts when the American people are facing unprovoked firearm attacks in the least suspected places is appalling. While they are not going to allow illegal immigrants to gain legality in a country they contribute, the Judges and the Courts are silent on the matter of the legally immigrated Pakistani couple who mercilessly shot and killed fourteen people in cold blood (Los Angeles Times, 2016). It is unclear on what should happen because of inaction for the US Supreme Court to shed its selective action attitude. All the shooting incidents affected the American nation as a whole. It was not the case for only relatives of the victims. US citizens now realize that they are not safe even in their own country. As long as indifference and inaction continue to wreak havoc in the nation’s judiciary, there is no safety or the chance to evade economic recessions.
References
Death Penalty Information Center Staff (2016). U. S. Supreme Court: Roper v. Simmons, No. 03-633. Retrieved from: http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/u-s-supreme-court-roper-v-simmons-no-03-633
Liptak, A. (2016). Supreme Court Turns Away Challenge to Connecticut Ban on Semiautomatic Weapons. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/us/politics/supreme-court-gun-control-semiautomatic-connecticut.html?_r=0
Los Angeles Times Staff (2016). Deadliest U.S. mass shootings, 1984-2016. Retrieved from: http://timelines.latimes.com/deadliest-shooting-rampages/
The Times Editorial Board Staff (2015). A deadlocked Supreme Court has real consequences for 4 million people. Retrieved from: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-supreme-court-obama-immigration-dapa-daca-20160623-snap-story.html
