Yes. We find out if the court will allow Biden to have government agencies assassinate Trump with impunity or not.
Amy Howe, writing for Scotusblog: https://amylhowe.com/2024/06/28/justices-rule-for-jan-6-defendant/ The Supreme Court on Friday threw out the charges against a former Pennsylvania police officer who entered the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks. By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the law that Joseph Fischer was charged with violating, which bars obstruction of an official proceeding, applies only to evidence tampering, such as destruction of records or documents, in official proceedings. Friday’s ruling could affect charges against more than 300 other Jan. 6 defendants. The same law is also at the center of two of the four charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith against former President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court heard oral argument on April 25 on Trump’s claims of immunity and has not yet issued its decision in that case. But Smith has argued that even if the court were to rule for Fischer, the charges against Trump could still go forward because they rested, in part, on efforts to use false electoral certificates at the joint session of Congress. The law at the center of Fischer’s case is 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), which makes it a crime to “otherwise obstruct[], influence[], or impede[] any official proceeding.” U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols concluded that because the previous subsection, Section 1512(c)(1), bars tampering with evidence “with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding,” Section 1512(c)(2) only applies to cases involving evidence tampering that obstructs an official proceeding, and he dismissed the obstruction charge against Fischer. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed Nichols’ ruling, concluding that the “meaning of the statute is unambiguous,” so that it “applies to all forms of corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding, other than the conduct that is already covered by” the prior subsection. On Friday, the Supreme Court vacated the D.C. Circuit’s decision, interpreting the law more narrowly to apply only to evidence tampering. Roberts explained that the general principles used to construe statutes instruct courts that “a general phrase can be given a more focused meaning by the terms linked to it.” Here, he continued, subsection (c)(1) provides several specific examples of evidence tampering that the law prohibits – such as altering a record and concealing a document. When subsection (c)(2) immediately follows those examples, he reasoned, “the most sensible inference” is that the scope of (c)(2) is limited by the examples in (c)(1). Indeed, he noted, if subsection (c)(2) sweeps as broadly as the government posits, “there would have been scant reason for Congress to provide any specific examples at all” in subsection (c)(1). The government’s expansive construction of subsection (c)(2) would have other effects as well, he suggested. It “would criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct, exposing activists and lobbyists alike to decades in prison.” When the case returns to the D.C. Circuit, Roberts instructed, that court can reconsider the obstruction charge against Fischer “in light of our interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2).” Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented, in an opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The court, she wrote, veered from the text of the law; the majority “simply cannot believe that Congress meant what it said.” Although “events like January 6th” may not have been the target of subsection (c)(2), Barrett acknowledged (noting in a parenthetical, “Who could blame Congress for that failure of imagination?”), she argued that the court should “stick to the text” when statutes “go further than the problem that inspired them.” Instead, here, she wrote, the court “does textual backflips to find some way – any way – to narrow the reach of subsection (c)(2).” In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland indicated that he was “disappointed” by the ruling, but he stressed that “the vast majority of the more than 1,400 defendants charged for their illegal actions on January 6 will not be affected by this decision. There are no cases,” Garland said, “in which the Department charged a January 6 defendant only with the defense at issue in Fischer.”
23-175 City of Grants Pass v. Johnson (06/28/2024) (supremecourt.gov) A big case for local law enforcement. Homeless people are no longer empowered to set up camp in public spaces with impunity.
Not only the increased odds against protection from unsafe drugs, unsafe aviation, unfair banking practices, and unsafe products... instead now your only recourse is to take the offending mega corporations to court into a judiciary already predisposed to rule in favor of the large corporations... and slowed down by an already overburdened court system. But that is the point of the 6-3 maga supreme court...
my wife the attorney--who by the way actually has a couple of constitutional law professors as clients! (true story)--upon hearing of the Chevron decision this morning: her first reaction was "I hope someone sues CDC right away and wins, so they will revoke the regulation prohibiting the importation of puppies into the United States under the guise of preventing the spread of rabies" so that she could go back to importing sled dog puppies for her race team. again, true story.
Interesting the maga court ruled against bannon... a crumb in advance of their anticipated ruling for trump on Monday.
Yeah, well, just quit flying. Exert market power. God but that ruling seems to stink, at first whiff.
And if you get a ticket, dont you have to give an address. The person probably cant afford the ticket so will they be thrown in jail if they cant pay it.....this just seems so petty and heartless. I hope this is a law cops will look the other way on the majority of the time.
You are supposed to either improve your situation or move along, not just set up a tent and live on the sidewalk/park/under the overpass for months/years/the rest of your life. Usually, the first remedy is being told that you can't camp here. Then they come back later and see you are still camped there, so they tell you to pack up your stuff and move along and wait for you to do it. Then they catch you against and give you a notice to appear in court where you will be facing potential fines/jail. Kind of like drunks start off with being told to catch a ride home and sleep it off, escalated to being put in the drunk tank, then to getting a drunk in public charge with the potential for fines and jail time. There are escalating consequences if you continue breaking the law. It isn't petty and heartless, people don't want vagrants camping out in front of their home or business or in the park, it is dangerous and worsens the quality of life for the public.
So doesn't this Chevron decision open the door to "activist" judges? Basically instead of the previous middle ground between bureaucrats and judges, this basically means judges get into the weeds and decide all the time (with likely conflicting opinions between districts, etc) for each petitioner? Seems like people are going to get bogged down in the court system instead of having a set of guidelines? I think it is interesting that Chevron was 6-0 40 years ago and now it is a 6-3 overturn I can see previous "close" cases overturned despite precedent but it is feels odd to see a unanimous decision overturned....I wonder how often the Supreme Court has done that....
Yes activist judges could make determinations in regulating or not regulating potentially dangerous situations, medicines, conditions for workers, drinking water, bridges and other infrastructure, air travel, etc.
