It could. What it calls for is for Congress to pass the laws they want enforced, not to say, "Hey, EPA, come up with some way to stop water pollution." The idea is to have Congress pass the law and then the executive branch enforce the law, not to have Congress abdicate its legislative authority to the executive. Whitney v. California (1927) 274 U.S. 357 was a 9-0 case (technically, 7 in the majority and with a concurring opinion of the remaining 2, but all 9 concurring in the outcome). It was overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) 395 U.S. 444, 42 years later. That's the first one I thought of, at least. Dredd Scot was a 7-2 case that was later overturned (not unanimous, but with more in the majority). Planned Parenthood v. Casey was a weird mishmash of two partial majority decisions, concurrences, concurrences in part and dissents in part but could sort of kind of be considered 9-0 as no justice was a blanket dissent. There are other similarly divided concurrence in part cases as well.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/scotus-ends-the-ninth-circuits-homeless-policy-experiment The End of an Experiment The Supreme Court’s ruling in Grants Pass returns homeless policy to state and local governments—where it belongs. Jun 28 2024 by Judge Glock For almost six years, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has conducted an experiment in homeless policy. Circuit judges have used a singular reading of the Constitution to overturn local laws against street sleeping and camping. The results were disastrous and led to more homelessness and chaos in the Western states under the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction. On Friday, Justice Neil Gorsuch, with five other Supreme Court justices, put an end to that experiment. Gorsuch’s strong but reasoned opinion returns homeless policy to states and local governments, where it belongs. It also offers a chance for these governments to act against the growing problem of street encampments. In 2018, a panel of Ninth Circuit judges decided the case of Martin v. Boise, ruling that the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment clause against “cruel and unusual punishments” prevented cities from enforcing laws against street sleeping or camping, if homeless people didn’t have sufficient alternatives. Any hopes that the Boise case would have helped the homeless were quickly dashed. Homelessness in the Ninth Circuit states increased by over 25 percent by 2022, while in the rest of the country it decreased. Nonetheless, in that year the Ninth Circuit extended its decision in Boise, ruling in the Johnson v. Grants Pass case that even civil fines against some types of camping and sleeping were unconstitutional. Gorsuch’s opinion overturning the Grants Pass ruling lays waste to the Ninth Circuit’s arguments. First, he shows that the claim that the Eighth Amendment prevents camping laws is absurd on its face. The Eighth Amendment is about preventing types of punishments, such as beatings, not about banning whole categories of laws proscribing certain behaviors. The punishments authorized by the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, such as civil fines and a ban on camping in public parks, were both restrained and common. Gorsuch’s opinion also points out a fact many activists like to deny: homeless encampments are dangerous and violent. Rulings that prevent the clearing of those camps can lead to more violence. Gorsuch notes that by one estimate, over 40 percent of the shootings in Seattle are linked to homeless encampments, despite the homeless being a small fraction of the city’s overall population. As others have pointed out, the main victims of these acts of violence are other homeless people. About 25 percent of Los Angeles’s murder victims are homeless, for example, though they make up about 1 percent of the population. It’s difficult to see how the Ninth Circuit’s rulings have helped the situation for the homeless on the West Coast. Today, California alone contains almost half of the nation’s unsheltered homeless. Seattle’s King County saw a new record of homeless deaths last year, 415—an increase of more than a third from the previous year’s total, which was also a record. Los Angeles sees about 2,000 homeless people die a year, a figure up almost 300 percent since 2014 and which even local officials believe is an undercount. Despite valiant efforts by the Left to portray the attacks on the Ninth Circuit as a right-wing effort, the court’s rulings on the homeless united a broad spectrum of opponents. The National League of Cities, representing more than 19,000 American municipalities, and individual cities from San Francisco to Colorado Springs asked the Supreme Court to review the Grants Pass ruling. Justice Gorsuch included a footnote in his opinion, taking up most of a page, that listed all the people and organizations that petitioned the court to review the case¸ including everyone from California governor Gavin Newsom to the International Municipal Lawyers Association. The homeless advocates’ argument rested on the idea that homelessness was an involuntary status and that local governments couldn’t punish people simply for their status or for activities that flowed from that, such as sleeping. But the activists’ position brought up some uncomfortable questions. During the oral argument, Justice Gorsuch wondered whether, if sleeping in public was necessary for the homeless, might cooking in public be, too? Justice Amy Coney Barrett pointed out that defecating was also necessary. Should cities be forced to allow public defecation? And how would cities prove that homelessness was “involuntary”? As the opinion notes, most residents of homeless encampments refuse shelter beds even when they are offered. Local governance is a formidable challenge that involves weighing diverse preferences and enforcing rules across the vast panoply of human behavior. While the Grants Pass ruling does not guarantee that Western states and cities will handle homelessness well, it at least gives them a chance. They will certainly do better than distant judges who could not begin to comprehend the difficulties of dealing with growing encampments filled with human suffering. Judge Glock is the director of research and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
"That Justice Jackson sided with Fischer shouldn't, in theory, come as a surprise. . . . {I}t probably is surprising to many onlookers, for at least a couple of reasons. First, the common narrative, it seems, is that this Supreme Court is more radical, extreme, and polarized than ever before. As I wrote earlier this week, that's not at all reflected in the data: The early part of this term was defined by a historic number of unanimous decisions, and today's 6–3 decision being composed of a heterogeneous group is actually quite common. It just rarely drives the news." https://reason.com/2024/06/28/ketan...ices-in-upending-hundreds-of-january-6-cases/ Ketanji Brown Jackson Joins Conservative Justices in Upending Hundreds of January 6 Cases by Billy Binion The Supreme Court on Friday narrowed the interpretation of a federal criminal law under which many January 6 rioters have been charged, throwing hundreds of such cases into at least partial uncertainty. It was yet another 6–3 decision. But despite the immensely politically-charged nature of the case, it was also yet another time that the votes did not come down along exclusively ideological lines. The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the latter of whom wrote a concurring opinion urging the government to keep criminal laws constrained to their actual text. (Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.) As Reason's Jacob Sullum outlines, the Supreme Court's decision centered around Joseph Fischer, a former Pennsylvania police officer who was charged with several offenses related to his conduct at the Capitol riot. According to the government, that lawlessness included, among other things, that he "forcibly assaulted a federal officer, entered and remained in a restricted building, and engaged in disorderly and disruptive conduct in the Capitol." But prosecutors tacked on another charge using the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which criminalizes "alter[ing], destroy[ing], mutilat[ing], or conceal[ing] a record, document, or other object, or attempt[ing] to do so, with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding," or, per the following provision, "otherwise obstruct[ing], influenc[ing], or imped[ing] any official proceeding." Those convicted face up to 20 years in prison. Fischer challenged that charge, arguing that the statute as written requires the alleged obstruction in question be tied to the impairment of records, documents, or objects, which would not apply to him. The federal judge who initially evaluated Fischer's petition sided with him; a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed that; and the Supreme Court reversed the reversal. That Justice Jackson sided with Fischer shouldn't, in theory, come as a surprise. She is the only former public defender on the current Court; in the judiciary broadly, you are far more likely to find former prosecutors on the bench. So it stands to reason that she understands first-hand the downsides of government getting creative with criminal statutes, as prosecutors sometimes do. Nevertheless, it probably is surprising to many onlookers, for at least a couple of reasons. First, the common narrative, it seems, is that this Supreme Court is more radical, extreme, and polarized than ever before. As I wrote earlier this week, that's not at all reflected in the data: The early part of this term was defined by a historic number of unanimous decisions, and today's 6–3 decision being composed of a heterogeneous group is actually quite common. It just rarely drives the news. And then, on top of that, of course, there's the fact that Joseph Fischer is a criminal defendant in one of the most politically-loaded cases of this century. But Jackson's concurrence is a reminder that the application of criminal law should not be infected by personal animus toward any given defendant. "Our commitment to equal justice and the rule of law requires the courts to faithfully apply criminal laws as written, even in periods of national crisis," she writes. "We recognize this intuitive fact—that there is a certain category of conduct the rule is designed to prohibit—because we recognize, albeit implicitly, that the drafters of this rule have included these particular examples for a reason. We understand that, given the preceding list of examples, this rule was adopted with a clear intent concerning its scope." To buttress her case, Jackson looks to the history of the statute, which was enacted in response to the revelation that Arthur Andersen LLP, auditor for the disgraced energy corporation Enron, had torched potentially incriminating documents. "There is no indication whatsoever that Congress intended to create a sweeping, all-purpose obstruction statute," Jackson concludes. In response, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that he is "disappointed by today's decision, which limits an important federal statute that the Department has sought to use to ensure that those most responsible for that attack face appropriate consequences." Fortunately for him, he is still free to prosecute people for violating the laws that Congress enacted, which isn't an unfair limitation.
I try not to hyperventilate over **** like this, but man, Chevron being overruled is some ominous ****. Like things might really change in a significant way in this country for the worse for the coming generation in a number of ways. Also, hilarious that Gorsuch allowed that “nitrous oxide” error to be published in such an important decision lol. Unintentionally underscores that most judges don’t know ****ing anything about science or the real world more generally.
mostly underscores how little people understand the extent to which decisions are a product of an entire army of law clerks and court personnel in addition to the authoring justice https://slate.com/news-and-politics...e-justices-actually-write-their-opinions.html mistakes happen, wouldn't get too bent out of shape about it. Embarrassing? yes. But we're talking about very smart people here.
what does that have to do with anything? If you’re the justice signing the opinion, it’s your ****ing job to do the final editing to ensure something that stupid doesn’t see the light of day. what we are doing is trading in one set of bureaucrats that we could at least control and had SM expertise for another class of bueracrats who have zero expertise regarding the SM and who are much easier to bribe. IMO, this will go down one of two ways - there will be the establishment of rocket dockets for various different types of regulatory litigation where judges will w**** themselves out to the highest bidder in setting national regulatory standards. Alternatively, it could devolve to the states which would result in balkanization of this country.
lol. if you're worried about the Chief Justice messing something up, I'm gonna go ahead right now and play the whataboutism card and suggest you direct your concern to the current President of the United States. related: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/23/barack-obama-oath-inauguration Obama retakes oath of office after inauguration stumble White House says president sworn in again as precaution but original oath is still constitutionally binding Thu 22 Jan 2009 07.45 EST Out of "an abundance of caution", Barack Obama has taken the oath of office a second time because a word was out of sequence when he was sworn in on Tuesday. The surprise move came after Tuesday's much-noticed stumble, when the US supreme court chief justice, John Roberts, jumbled the words, prompting Obama to follow suit. According to the US Constitution, the president must solemnly swear "that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States". But on Tuesday, Obama said: "I will execute the office of president of the United States faithfully." The White House counsel, Greg Craig, said the repeat was motivated by "an abundance of caution," and the White House insisted Obama has been president since midday on inauguration day – ignoring those who suggested that because the ceremony ran late, the country may technically have been without a president for a few minutes. more at the link
Because of course, the current judicial system is anything but partisan/politically driven. The current supreme court for example. Completely apolitical...
no, IN FACT, "Courts can now substitute their judgement for subject matter experts at fed'l agencies" is incorrect. Courts need to rule on the legal issues--not scientific or technical issues--rather than having scientists or technicians "rule" on legal issues for which they have no training. Big difference.
I'm seeing good discussion here on Chevron. It really isn't as consequential as many commentators have made it out to be due to it being disfavored "zombie precedent" for over a decade now. It's also on used on narrow cases, or more precisely, on confusing close calls. Still so swamped with work, but I'll jump back in eventually.
USSC camping ruling just green-lit arresting and imprisonment of homeless people. I hope you angry at taxes people are ready to pay for a surge in prison costs. On the plus side, if you own for-profit prison stock, you’ll at least be getting paid for it, too.
