U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

Dayenu

You're right,this is worse than his tone-- Gorsuch cast the 5th vote in a 5 to 4 decision to execute this man--

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/04/21/gorsuch_votes_to_let_arkansas_execute_ledell_lee.html

Lee insisted upon his innocence from the day of his arrest through the night of his execution. He implored Arkansas to let him take a DNA test and compare the results to DNA collected at the scene of the murder he allegedly committed, but the state refused. Lee also presented evidence that his trial attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel and that the presiding judge lacked neutrality: At the time, the judge was having an undisclosed affair with the assistant prosecutor. (They later married.) Lee’s counsel on appeal appeared in court so drunk that he slurred his words. Moreover, Lee asserted that Arkansas’ use of midazolam to render him unconscious before stopping his heart was cruel and unusual in violation of the Eighth Amendment: The drug may not actually induce unconsciousness and has caused other executions to go terribly awry.

But the Supreme Court split 5–4 on the Eighth Amendment question, with Gorsuch joining the conservatives in permitting Lee’s execution to move forward.

regardless of his guilt or innocence, it is a good thing that the death penalty exists so that we can make sure that the state can preserve the capability to kill bad people in the future.

I read that lees public defender was so stinkin drunk someone suggested they drug test him

The other Arkansas prisoner scheduled to be executed on the same day as Lee:

Stacey Johnson was convicted of the 1993 rape and murder of Carol Jean Heath. His conviction rested largely on testimony from the victim's 6-year-old daughter, but records obtained by the defense after the trial indicate that the girl told her therapist that she had not seen anything and was being pressured by her family to identify Johnson. Technology available at the time of Johnson's trial was not sensitive enough to provide DNA results from the sexual assault evidence collected from the victim's body, but newer methods may be able to rule out Johnson and even provide a match to an alternative suspect.

I'm less concerned about the midazolam than the second step of lethal injection, pancuronium bromide, which causes an intense, body-wide burning sensation for the minutes between when the anesthetic wears off and the potassium chloride stops the heart. There is a perfectly pain-free execution method, inert gas asphyxiation, but death penalty proponents oppose it because they believe that convicts should feel pain. This documentary, How to Kill a Human Being, in which former UK Conservative MP Michael Portillo examines the available methods, is eye-opening.

cool

http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/329981-trump-eyeing-second-supreme-court-seat

Trump's nominating himself?

so what will be Topic A at this dinner, when it happens?

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/330161-trump-will-host-dinner-for-supreme-court-justices

The White House has reportedly cancelled a dinner with the justices of the Supreme Court

postponed, i thought

“Having eight was unusual and awkward,” Justice Alito said, according to The Journal article. “That probably required having a lot more discussion of some things and more compromise and maybe narrower opinions than we would have issued otherwise, but as of this Monday, we were back to an odd number.”

Ugh.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/opinion/the-roberts-court-2017-edition.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

UNELECTED JUDGE

Interesting and good considering current makeup of the SC

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-wont-review-decision-that-found-nc-voting-law-discriminates-against-african-americans/2017/05/15/59425b1c-2368-11e7-a1b3-faff0034e2de_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_court-1010a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.771a3d05dcd4

The Supreme Court will not review a decision that found North Carolina’s 2013 voting law discriminated against African American voters, the justices said Monday.

A unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit had found in 2016 that North Carolina legislators had acted “with almost surgical precision” to blunt the influence of African American voters.

And last summer the Supreme Court had divided evenly on whether the law could be used in last fall’s election while the appeals continued.

But the election resulted in a new Democratic governor and a Democratic attorney general, and they had told the court they did not want to defend the law enacted by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature. The Republicans had asked to continue the appeal.

In an order saying the court would not review the lower court’s decision, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. cited the state’s changed political scene, and indicated that not all of the justices agreed with the lower court’s decision.

“Given the blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in this court under North Carolina law, it is important to recall our frequent admonition that ‘the denial of a writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case,’” Roberts wrote.

http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92522

Today the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a Fourth Circuit decision holding that a North Carolina voting law (one I’ve called the strictest set of voting rules rolled into one law passed since at least the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act) could not be enforced because it was passed with racially discriminatory intent.

....
"Given the blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in this Court under North Carolina law, it is important to recall our frequent admonition that “[t]he denial of a writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case.” United States v. Carver, 260 U. S. 482, 490 (1923)."

These days at the Supreme Court, getting the Court not to hear a voting case is a significant victory. While the Court could well issue an adverse decision in the future, the 4th Circuit opinion stays on the books for now, and it has already been relied upon to hold other strict voting laws illegal (as in the Pasadena Texas case,

That's 2 takes on the Justice Roberts Order

Yeah, ideally I'd like the court to uphold the decision so it applies nationwide, but given the current court I think that's a very good result, and in time for 2018.

Hopefully the SC won't get to this Texas case till after 2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/05/15/despite-todays-supreme-court-ruling-the-future-looks-grim-for-voting-rights/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.f4809980a334

The case to keep an eye on is the one coming from Texas, which in 2011 enacted one of the most absurdly discriminatory voting laws in the country. It required ID at the polls, but specified that certain kinds of ID more likely to be carried by Republicans (such as hunting licenses) would be considered valid, while kinds of ID more likely to be carried by Democrats (such as student IDs from state schools) wouldn’t. An estimated 600,000 legitimate Texas voters lack the kind of ID the law mandates, and so would be prohibited from voting.

The Texas law has been struck down by a district court, whose ruling was then upheld by an appeals court (which sent it back down for more fact-finding). In January, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the state, saying that they wouldn’t hear the case yet while the district court was still rehearing it. Then in April, the district court struck it down again. The Obama Justice Department had supported the plaintiffs, but the Trump Justice Department dropped that position.

That can all be a little confusing, but here’s what matters: With the conservatives on the Supreme Court now at full strength, they will probably hear the Texas case, and none of them have given any indication that they have a problem with the kind of restrictions Texas has in mind. If they uphold that law, it won’t just be Texans who are affected.

That’s because any such ruling would be a handbook for Republican legislatures everywhere, saying in essence, “Here’s how you can go about restricting the votes of racial minorities and young people. Do these things, avoid these other things, and your law will be upheld.”

Yeah, ideally I'd like the court to uphold the decision so it applies nationwide, but given the current court I think that's a very good result, and in time for 2018.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), 15. maj 2017 19:29 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They still have to redraw and do special elections in 17, right?

omg sad lol @ those valid ID distinctions

a hunting license wtf

whoa!

he Supreme Court ruled Monday that racial considerations pervaded the way North Carolina lawmakers drew congressional maps after the 2010 Census in order to maximize Republicans' advantage.

The 5-3 ruling, written by Justice Elena Kagan, was the latest in a series of decisions by the justices against the excessive use of race in redistricting, the decennial process of drawing new district lines for Congress and state legislatures.

Justice Samuel Alito dissented in part from the ruling, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Check out who joined the majority:

Odd breakdown in 15-1262 Cooper v. Harris: Kagan, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor v. Alito, Roberts, Kennedy

— Kimberly Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) May 22, 2017

fucking Kennedy.

Is that the name of Bill O'Reilly's next historical fiction novel?

can't wait for Gorsuch to start joining those five-vote majorities

Huh, is he not officially in the mix yet?

Thomas! HOLY SHIT

the case was heard before Gorsuch joined xpost

Baffled at what Thomas' reasoning could possibly be tbh

being butthurt over Anita Hill

legislative jiggery-pokery!

from SCOTUSblog:

Indeed. Thomas, Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor joined Kagan in full.

lol:

Excellent literary back and forth bw Kagan & Alito in the footnotes - Alito citing "Hamlet," Kagan "Inherit the Wind."
by David 10:16 AM

Kagan:

Although States enjoy leeway to take race-based
actions reasonably judged necessary under a proper interpretation
of the VRA, that latitude cannot rescue District
1. We by no means “insist that a state legislature, when
redistricting, determine precisely what percent minority
population [§2 of the VRA] demands.” Ibid. But neither
will we approve a racial gerrymander whose necessity is
supported by no evidence and whose raison d’être is a legal mistake.

Analysis:

There is a lot of detail but here is my bottom line: This decision by Justice Kagan is a major victory for voting rights plaintiffs, who have succeeded in turning the racial gerrymandering cause of action into an effective tool to go after partisan gerrymanders in Southern states. That Justice Kagan got Justice Thomas not only to vote this way but to sign onto the opinion (giving it precedential value) is a really big deal. Despite what is written in the text of the opinion, Justice Kagan, in a couple of footnotes (footnotes 1 and 7), attempts to solve the race or party problem by moving the Court much closer to the position of treating race and party as proxies for one another in the American South. Points 8 -10 below explains this in detail.

Justice Alito, in his partial dissent for himself, the Chief Justice, and Justice Kennedy, is incensed at the decision, seeing it as inconsistent with the Court’s earlier decision in Easley v. Cromartie. He begins his dissent with: “A precedent of this Court should not be treated like a disposable household item—say, a paper plate or napkin—to be used once and then tossed in the trash. But that is what the Court does today in its decision regarding NorthCarolina’s 12th Congressional District: The Court junks a rule adopted in a prior, remarkably similar challenge to this very same congressional district.”

it's very strange that this is the same court (mostly) that invalidated the Voting Rights Act, but now is consistently concerned about racial disenfranchisement. Huh, if only Congress could pass some law to address that very thing hmmm

GOP abuse of 1992 amendments to the Voting Rights Act is how we got into this mess (structural disadvantage to Dems, Tea Party control over GOP).

Kagan (or her clerks most likely) writes rather good legal prose. Her opinion's a model of clarity.

Circuit court nomination issue-- Republicans are gonna get rid of the blue slip rule

Leaders are considering a change to the Senate’s “blue slip” practice, which holds that judicial nominations will not proceed unless the nominee’s home-state senators signal their consent to the Senate Judiciary Committee....Removing the blue-slip obstacle would make it much easier for Trump’s choices to be confirmed. Although Trump and Senate Republicans have clashed early in his presidency, they agree on the importance of putting conservatives on the federal bench.

...Were Republicans snickering in private for six years because Democrats continued to be Boy Scouts during the Obama presidency, respecting the blue-slip rule despite blanket Republican opposition of the kind that Republicans now say will prompt them to kill it? Probably. Was it the right thing to do anyway? I guess I'm still unsure. But it sure doesn't look like it....

...both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama simply gave up nominating judges in states where there were any Republican senators. They would object as a matter of course and their objections would be honored. George Bush, by contrast, continued nominating judges everywhere. Democratic senators sometimes objected, but not always—and Republicans often ignored their objections anyway when they controlled the Senate.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/05/blue-slip-rule-its-last-legs

quoting
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/senate-republicans-consider-changing-custom-that-allows-democrats-to-block-judicial-choices/2017/05/25/d49ea61a-40b1-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html?utm_term=.1ab864b5fdf2

they'll probably do it and regret it in a few years, same as with the SC filibuster

I think the calculation is that federal judges hold lifetime appointments, and they will stuff the courts with young conservatives who'll rule for a generation, enough to suppress any later regrets.

yeah I hate to break it to them but people die all the time

They have the presidency for four years and control of nominations for that long. There's a shit ton of unfilled judgeships as of today due to their earlier foot dragging and obstructionism. The long term is not of interest to them. Trump may not have much interest or success in nominating to fill administrative political appointments, but the Federalist Society will feed him judge nominees as fast as he can send them to the Senate.

The long term is not of interest to them.

right. Like I said, they'll come to regret it in a few years.

As recently as a month ago I worried, especially reading a New Yorker article about the vehemence of the Federalist Society funnel, that Trump would comply, but he doesn't seem to give a shit either! If I were a Republican, this is the development that would most astound and infuriate me.

xp In a few years? They probably figure they can come up with a new set of tactics under the new rules, something just as unconscionable as their last set of tactics, but about as effective. Maybe poisoning Democratic nominees?

yeah Trump clearly hates making appointments/doing job interviews

xp

Maybe poisoning Democratic nominees?

maybe their new buddies at the Kremlin could give them some tips

Trump clearly hates making appointments/doing job interviews

And yet he loved doing a reality show based around hiring / firing...

I'm sure it was always the firing people that attracted him. First, it's a stark assertion of power in a way that hiring is not. Second, good hiring requires a working understanding of other humans, but firing only requires a simplistic dissatisfaction, for any reason or for no reason.

The Senate acted Thursday on Trump’s first appeals-court nomination, elevating U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar of Kentucky to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. Thapar was confirmed 52 to 44 on a party-line vote, with four Democrats not voting. Thapar’s nomination did not raise blue-slip concerns, because both of Kentucky’s senators are Republican and Thapar is a favorite of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

They got this one through, and they're gonna get a lot more through I think. Trump doesn't have to interview every one of them.

no but he does have to actually nominate them