U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Nino Edition

(had, not has. I get that it's been overturned, more or less)

If you want a real mindfuck, look at the way the first amendment is drafted vs the other nine in the Bill of Rights. "Congress shall make no law..." I mean read literally, that's pretty explicitly only about the federal government. Yet if you consider that the rights enumerated in the first amendment are among the most important reasons the colonies supposedly revolted against King George, it would make no sense whatsoever to imply "but your state govt can restrict your freedom of speech, religion, assembly, etc., just not congress." Yet they specifically put that clause in the first amendment and NOT in the other 9 amendments in the bill of rights. I can't even make sense of that really -- I don't know if there's some explanation in the historical record, but to me it just looks like sloppy drafting/constitution by committee.

*tbf the 7th amendment does mention courts of the United States specifically, so that amendment arguably could be read to have a different result in the states.

are you impugning Madison and James Wilson

this is getting shared a lot right now but for good reason

https://progressive.org/op-eds/howard-zinn-despair-supreme-court/

which contains this nice bit of constitutional headfuckery:

If the Constitution is the holy test, then a justice should abide by its provision in Article VI that not only the Constitution itself but "all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the Supreme Law of the Land."

If u think about it aren't the borders between states just imaginary lines

I kinda forgot about the Roberts furor. I remember him being lampooned in a Broadway show in 05

Cant wait til 2024, when electoral votes allocated to corporations are considered Constitutional and Amazon decides the election

life begins at the moment of incorporation, when god gives each corporation a soul.

I might have to unbookmark this thread/America

lol Neil Gorsuch is already to Kav's left:

A Supreme Court argument on Wednesday over the detention of immigrants during deportation proceedings seemed to expose a divide between President Trump’s two appointees, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

The question in the case was whether the federal authorities must detain immigrants who had committed crimes, often minor ones, no matter how long ago they were released from criminal custody. Justice Kavanaugh said a 1996 federal law required detention even years later, without an opportunity for a bail hearing.

“What was really going through Congress’s mind in 1996 was harshness on this topic,” he said.

But Justice Gorsuch suggested that mandatory detentions of immigrants long after they completed their sentences could be problematic. “Is there any limit on the government’s power?” he asked.

…

“Because Congress’s use of the word ‘when’ conveys immediacy,” Jacqueline H. Nguyen wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel, “we conclude that the immigration detention must occur promptly upon the aliens’ release from criminal custody.”

Justice Kavanaugh disagreed, saying the 1996 law put no time limits on the detentions it required.

“That raises a real question for me whether we should be superimposing a time limit into the statute when Congress, at least as I read it, did not itself do so,” he said.

Justice Breyer said the solution was to allow immigrants detained long after release from criminal custody to have bail hearings. He said those would allow immigrants who were not dangerous and who posed no flight risk to return to their communities. “The baddies will be in jail,” he said, “and the ones who are no risk won’t be.”

Justice Kavanaugh disagreed. “The problem is that Congress did not trust those hearings,” he said. “Congress was concerned that those hearings were not working in the way that Congress wanted and, therefore, for a certain class of criminal or terrorist aliens said, ‘No more.’”

Sandra O has news.

After reading those excerpts from her highly articulate letter announcing the news, I find myself wondering if she is currently capable of reading that letter aloud. Not that it matters, really. Bon voyage, Sandra.

Reminds me of the apparently true story that when Reagan was at last persuaded to write the letter announcing his own dementia he sighed, asked for paper and pen, wrote it right then without revision, and within a week had finally let go of the remains of his sanity.

Ugh.

RBG

(fell and broke three ribs)

judge jeanine pirro, your limo is here

cool that the fate of our country is in the hands of an 82-year old hospitalized woman

beginning to think the idea behind the Supreme Court is really dumb

Otm

she's 85 btw

the idea behind the Supreme Court is dumb because it might be people we politically oppose running it for the foreseeable future?

it was the Supreme Court that desegregated schools....

Counterpoint: it was the Supreme Court that OK'd school segregation in the first place.

the fact that it's Yet Another System for a dishonest party to game to their political benefit is what's dumb about it

Gaming for life.

rbg should've retired a long time ago

this shit of people staying in offices into their 70s & 80s, i am not really a fan

otm

net harm done by Supreme Court over its history + likely future harm dramatically outweighs net good

All you have to do is google "Melvin Fuller Court"

Also, the Supreme Court's "desegregation" of schools is not really effective unless you have state and local support

*Melville, sorry

brown v board was obv a v important symbol but it didnt do shit without federal enforcement. it was basically ignored for a good decade.

too bad framers forgot to include SC tactical enforcement unit

(btw Ike was sending in National Guard to enforce in Little Rock 3 years after the decision so it wasn't exactly just treated as a suggestion)

im familiar with the little rock 9 which was at that point an exceptional case and not the norm (hence the qualifier "basically").

Gorsuch fans are going to enjoy today’s SCOTUS arguments over civil asset forfeiture. When the Indiana Solicitor General said the Excessive Fines Clause doesn’t apply to the states, Gorsuch looked incredulous and said: “Come on, General. Really?!”

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) November 28, 2018

…General?

i'm assuming it's general counsel but idk

apparently Mmes. and Messers. J. traditionally address Solicitors General as "General" in contravention of all logic

That is good news. I passionately hate civil asset forfeiture.

Yeah based on Stern's whole thread there, with both Gorsuch and Sotomayor going in, it's going to be shredded at long last. I almost wish Sessions was still in office just to choke on that.

"Gorsuch fans"

can't wait to see who dissents here

Thomas and Alito

Thomas will probably argue that police unilaterally have the right to claim poor minority people's property

THOMAS: It's not in the 1787 Constitution? *checks with clerk* JUSTICE THOMAS DISSENTS

lol now imagining him referring to himself in the third person all the time a la Bob Dole

JUSTICE THOMAS HAS NEVER BEEN A FAN OF LONG DONG SILVER

JUSTICE THOMAS WOULD LIKE A GLASS OF ORANGE JUICE

Also a joy

Civil asset forfeiture is such a farce that it took Stephen Breyer no more than a single transcript page to twist the government's lawyer into arguing that speeding tickets could be grounds for forfeiture lololololol pic.twitter.com/3ODsw9dFks

— Eric Boehm (@EricBoehm87) November 28, 2018

Thomas will probably argue that police unilaterally have the right to claim poor minority people's property