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USSC decisions

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by NewRoxFan, Jun 15, 2020.

  1. Kim

    Kim Contributing Member

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    This one is nuanced, but bad. Gorsuch got the Statutes and history correct as this is his area of expertise. The majority, imo, decided to interpret bad law to rectify bad cases. Might as well throw Cosby back in jail now.
     
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  2. Kim

    Kim Contributing Member

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    From that Scotusblog article:
    “Denezpi’s single act led to separate prosecutions for violations of a tribal ordinance and a federal statute,” Barrett wrote. “Because the Tribe and the Federal Government are distinct sovereigns, those ‘offences' are not ‘the same.’ Denezpi’s second prosecution therefore did not offend the Double Jeopardy Clause.”


    Really? From Gorsuch's dissent:
    Unlike a tribal court operated by a Native American Tribe pursuant to its inherent sovereign authority, the Court of Indian Offenses is “part of the Federal Government.” 58 Fed. Reg. 54407 (1993). Really, it is a creature of the Department of the Interior.

    It was forced upon tribes to be approved and oversaw by the federal government. It is the federal government. This is purely ACB, Roberts, Kav, Thomas, Alito, and Breyer not liking that the rapist got a light sentence for rape and so here's a way to re-convict him of the same crime. But that's the whole point of the double jeopardy clause of the 5th! It's so that the government can't go, "whoopsie, we didn't like the outcome, let's do it again for the exact same thing." This court sucks in so many ways: partisanship, favoritism, juresprudence inconsistency (Gorsuch is guilty of this too)...it's the, "let's just do what we want" court. This is why I argue that this court could easily dismantle the modern understanding of 2A or make it 3x more powerful. They just don't care. Roberts, other than money as speech, used to care about small steps, court perception, and trying to keep decisions in incremental directions. I think he's just punted and/or lost control.
     
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  3. Nook

    Nook Member

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    The "sanctity of the highest court" is such a sham.

    Off and on the SCOTUS has been composed of partisan hacks.

    It is hard to take anything they say seriously.

    I don't know how women or minorities have any respect for the court historically.

    Dred Scott..... Plessy v. Ferguson.... the Buck holding.... the Civil Rights cases in the 1880's... Bowers.... Korematsu... Exxon.... Citizens United... Bush v. Gore

    The SCOTUS is full of morally devoid, self serving tools.

    Alito puts debunked white supremacy tropes in his draft decisions.... and writes of fears of gays coming after him for not supporting gay rights.

    They are all out of touch weirdos.
     
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  4. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    careful, big guy, you're sounding a lot like deb4 there :p
     
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  5. Nook

    Nook Member

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    Nah... It goes both ways, the partisanship isn't just by the Republicans, it is by the Democrats as well.

    There are just a lot of very bad decisions over the years by the supposed ultimate authority.
     
  6. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    surely you must admit there have been some good decisions though also, no?
     
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  7. Nook

    Nook Member

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    Of course, but that isn't really the standard for a Court that claims to not be partisan and is held in such esteem.

    My favorite quote is from the Bell case when the Court said "Three generations of imbeciles are enough" when talking about forced sterilization being wonderful.

    Other favorites include "A parade of horrors".... if free blacks can vacation or vote or exercise free speech.

    Only states could decide on the validity of child labor laws.....

    The Third Party Doctrine.....

    In 1986 the SCOTUS thought it was just dandy for Georgia to make homosexual sodomy illegal....


    At the end of the day the SCOTUS has not earned the prestige or pomp that it seems to believe it deserves. There is an erosion of faith in authorities in the USA, and there are consequences for it..... some of it is because the authorities fail too often.
     
  8. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    how about the dissents in the bad decisions?? often vindicated in later decisions
     
  9. Nook

    Nook Member

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    I know a couple of the worst decisions were 8-1.... some of the more recent decisions had 3-4 dissenters.

    Hard to get 8 out of 9 people to decide on where to eat, not to mention whether they should house Japanese Americans in camps or sterilize "imbeciles" or arrest gay men for having sex in Georgia after watching Top Gun at the theatre.

    There are some solid dissents, but that is really limited consolation isn't it? I think it is for the highest court.

    On a serious note someone needs to talk to Alito about some of the bizarre **** he decides to include ..... we don't need to know that he is scared of gay people getting revenge against him or that be believes in black baby genocide.

    It wouldn't be the end of the world if Sotomayor stopped openly praising the election of particular political party candidates like Boudin in San Francisco.
     
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  10. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    on a scale of 1 to 10 those two are pretty much the dullest tools in the shed, no?
     
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  11. Kim

    Kim Contributing Member

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    This is really complicated. I'm going to read into this more. I don't think it's as bad as progressive media is making it seem. And I'm usually pro the reporting places like Vox does.
     
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  12. Kim

    Kim Contributing Member

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    Okay, I had to listen to and read a lot about this, and I'm still not 100% confident I grasp it all, but it is interesting. LFG.

    Imagine 3 ladders of the criminal process. Ladder 1 --- Ladder 2 ---- Ladder 3. Let's say you're arrested and put on trial for murdering your roommate. In Ladder #1, you have your original jurisdiction trial, then direct appeal up the ladder or you state criminal justice system. Some states have 2 judicial levels, most states have 3. Texas has 3, with level 3 being split into two halves: Texas Supreme Court and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Texas and Oklahoma are weird like that. At least Texas has internet databases for court cases.

    Okay, so this is all Ladder #1. You get convicted at trial and get sentenced to death. You can then appeal that sentence to that next level of ladder 1 - this is a direct appeal. Some states appoint you an appeals lawyer, others do not. The US Constitution, via the 6th amendment, gives you the right to an attorney. That right used to be if you were poor, you would get an appointed attorney for trial. Then in the 1960's, that right became anyone can get an appointed attorney during questioning from police. But that's it. You do not have a constitutional right for a free appeals lawyer. It's up to states whether or not to give you an appeals lawyer.

    Okay, still in ladder #1. Over time, SCOTUS has evolved the 6A right to an attorney to also mean that if your attorney really really really sucks, like is a coke addict who slept through the trial and didn't do his job suck, then it's possible to appeal a trial decision based on those grounds that a lazy, coke addict attorney is equivalent to not having an attorney. This is appealing for ineffective counsel, a common modern tactic that doesn't work often. Most of the time, in ladder #1, step 2, your appeals lawyer must give every possible State and Federal appeals reason in his filings. Remember, all state courts are also bound by the constitution of the US. If your appeals counsel doesn't give a federal reason for appeals at this time in ladder #1, then you generally cannot go back later and say, I'm appealing for ineffective counsel. This is called procedural default.

    So let's say you're finished all the way up to the State Supreme Court (or in Texas, the Court of Criminal Appeals) and you lose your final direct appeal. That's it. Go to jail, go to death row, or get life without parole. But that's not it, lol. You have ladder #2 - Post Conviction Lateral Appeals at the State Level. You can throw out or retry decisions if the trial instructions were wrong, or ineffective counsel, or a bunch of stuff that varies from state to state. Some states give you lawyers for free for ladder #2, others don't. Some states say that you actually have to wait to bring up some issues for appeals until ladder #2 and some states say you can wait for some issues to be brought up on ladder #2. (quick aside - I really am annoyed by the crazy inconsistent federalism in this country, smh - so complicated, the legal differences from state to state) So here's a problem. Procedural default means that if you don't bring things up in ladder #1, then you can't do it later. But some states screwed that up and said some issues of appeal have to wait until ladder #2.

    That lead to the Martinez exception for ladder #3. Again, this is judge-made law, precedent, but not a Constitutional right. You see, ladder #3 is Post Conviction Lateral Appeals at the Federal Level. This is for federal reasons why an original case should be thrown out or overturned. If you don't have procedural default, and you extend 6A rights to mean that you have a right to effective post conviction appeals attorneys, then that would possible mean you have an endless iterative right to keep saying, I appeal because my previous attorney sucked so bad that it was like not having an attorney at all. So what the Martinez exception does is say that if a state doesn't provide you with a free appeals lawyer in ladder #1 nor in ladder #2 and if that state allow for or mandates you wait until ladder #2 to bring up certain claims, then you can actually bring up a claim of sucky lawyer in ladder #3, when normally you cannot due to procedural default.

    So essentially, if you have no lawyer on ladder #2, or a really really really really awful lawyer on ladder #2, or no lawyer in ladder #1 step 2, or a really really really really awful lawyer on ladder #1, step 2, then these can be reasons as to why it's okay to bring up for the 1st time on ladder #3 that your first original lawyer was really really really sucky - so sucky that he was unconsitutionally sucky to the point of being like not having a lawyer at all. And remember, you don't have a constitutional right to apellate lawyers. This is judge-made law that creates exceptions to allow for evaluating appeals of your original lawyer, which you do have a constitutional right to have effective counsel.

    But there's another problem. Congress, under Clinton, passed a law (ATEDPA 1996) that said no new evidence can be brought up in ladder #3 to deal with crap from ladder #1 if it wasn't brought up in ladder #1 or #2. That's the law. So what SCOTUS does is evaluate when laws conflict. Here, we have an arguable conflict between Congresssional made law and precedent from the Martinez exception in 2012. What SCOTUS did was say the Martinez exception still stands, but you can't bring in new evidence because that is overruled by ATEDPA 1996. If Martinez was intrepreted to be a new constitutional procedural right (which it wasn't), then the Martinez rule would be supreme over the congress passed law, but it wasn't interpreted as a consitutional right in 2012.

    So, imo, the conservative 6 got it right. Congress passed a law. You follow the law. If your lawyer sucks so bad that it's unconstitutionally bad, then have your appeals lawyer file for that reason in ladder #1. If ladder #1 is not available for that, then you can have your extra appeals lawyer (your post conviciton lateral appeals lawyer) bring up those arguments in ladder #2. And you still have ladder #3, but you just have to be sure your did things by the proper procedure in ladder #1 or ladder #2. In fact, Martinez still stands for some circumstances. If your original lawyer was so bad that he didn't say a word in the original trial and just slept, well, that is not new evidence - that would be in the court record. So if you are a beneficiary of the Martinez exception, and allowed to bring up a new claim in ladder #3 (remember, not everyone can do this), then you may not need to evidence if it's in the court record already.

    And to end all of this. States are allowed to have statutes or precedent or whatever state level law is needed to say that at any level in ladder 1 or ladder 2, new evidence of innocence is enough to throw out a conviction. Texas has this. Arizona does not. And according to SCOTUS, in this limited rare situation (ladder #3 Martinez exceptions), actual evidence is not enough to as that is still in conflict with Congress passed law.

    So freaking confusing, but SCOTUS got it right. Congress can just end all this with updating their laws.
     
    #672 Kim, Jun 22, 2022
    Last edited: Jun 22, 2022
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  13. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    that's really quite a clear explanation, appreciate your taking the time to tease all that out
     
  14. MojoMan

    MojoMan Member

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  15. Nook

    Nook Member

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    Right now we don’t have as much brain power on the Court overall as in the past.

    I think the fact that everyone wants young justices that are idealogically predictable has really hurt the Court.

    I do agree with you that those 2 are really no better than what you would find in most federal lower courts.
     
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  16. Nook

    Nook Member

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    It is the Supreme Court....... if history has taught us anything, it is never "case closed".
     
  17. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    "separation of church and state" is just a slogan, it's not in the constitution

    this was an easy case, the federal government already gives out pel grants which can be used to pay tuition at religious universities (i.e. Notre Dame)
     
  18. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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    another moron

     
  19. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Contributing Member
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  20. Ubiquitin

    Ubiquitin Contributing Member
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    Died on a cross
     

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