SCOTAL Itch
 

It's the first Monday of October, which means the Supreme Court of the United States is again open for business! SCOTUSblog has a massive linkfarm of previews right here.

The constitutionality of the individual mandate provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- which even the government is asking the Court to review -- figures to occupy center stage and generate a massive political stink come June 2012, but that's far from the only interesting issue. Tomorrow, for instance, the Court will hear argument in a couple of cases involving whether the right to counsel under the U.S. Constitution applies to state law habeas corpus and similar proceedings. The Court hasn't expressed much interest in such state law post-conviction proceedings before.

This here thread can serve as a dumping ground for news, views, questions, tirades, etc. regarding the new Supreme Court term.

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:fixed:

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If only all our shameless currying for thread title of the month came out this well.

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I'm looking forward to the it's-a-free-exercise-of-religion-to-fire-a-disabled-employee case.

#WWJD

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Is that the Hosanna-Tabor case or some other abomination that I have yet to hear of?

I hope it's Hosanna-Tabor, because lol Wallbuilders.

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Yeah that's it. We had a similar one here, but it was age discrimination, not disability.

Also the eyewitness evidence case, Perry v. New Hampshire, should be very interesting indeed (something of a Wisconsin corollary here).

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Well, THAT was no fun! The suspense disappeared before the opinions began. :sadcheer:

Anyway, the transcript of today's oral argument in Hosanna-Tabor is available here. You can't help but love how in Scalia's mind the wall of separation between religion and government is sky high and impregnable in cases such as this, but dissolves completely in other contexts.

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If I knew that teaching a religious class made one a minister, I'd be afraid to teach comparative religions!

So many bosses!

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I only came here to tell you to be careful and not nick a blood vessel like I did when I scratched my scrotum because I totally read the thread title as scrotal itch.

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Today the Court decided to hear United States v. Alvarez, which involves whether and to what extent the government can criminalize false claims of having received a medal or decoration during military service. :ff:'s prior discussion of the Stolen Valor Act and the Ninth Circuit case that SCOTUS just agreed to review is available here.

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United States v. Jones is scheduled for oral argument on November 8. The issues are whether the pigs violate the Fourth Amendment when, without consent or a warrant, they (1) install a GPS tracking device on someone's vehicle and/or (2) use the device to track the vehicle's movements on public streets. Some lawprof commentary on why the case isn't the no-brainer ya might think is available here and here.

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Today the Supreme Court agreed to hear Arizona v. U.S. The issue is whether the lower federal courts (U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit) properly enjoined enforcement of certain components of Arizona's S.B. 1070, the We Hate Us Some Brown-Ass Messicans but Nonetheless Consider Them an Indispensable Component of our Much-Beloved Prison Labor System Act, discussed here.

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This here poast is a repository for briefs filed in the pending Supreme Court cases dealing with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We'll arrange 'em by issue.

CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE:

- The merit brief of the Solicitor General on behalf of the government is here (pdf, 130 pages). The government argues that statutory requirement to procure health insurance coverage or face a financial penalty is (1) valid under the Commerce Clause in conjunction with the Necessary and Proper Clause, and (2) a proper exercise of the taxing power.

- An amicus brief (pdf, 46 pages) filed by AARP in support of the individual mandate is available here.

SEVERABILITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE:

The issue here is whether the individual mandate is "severable" from the rest of the PPACA. If so, the rest of the legislation stands even of the mandate is ruled unconstitutional. If not, a finding that the individual mandate is unconstitutional will drag down some or all of the remaining PPACA provisions.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit previously ruled that the individual mandate is unconstitutional but wholly severable from the remainder of the Act.

- A group of private litigants challenging the 11th Circuit's severability ruling filed its brief (pdf, 235 pages) today. Severability, the litigants correctly argue, involves determining Congressional intent. The litigants contend that the individual mandate operates as a giant subsidy for the insurance industry, a subsidy that essentially funds the PPACA's prohibitions against denying coverage or charging increased premiums because of preexisting conditions, along with numerous similar prohibitions. The argument is that without the individual mandate Congress would not have enacted the insurance regulations, and without those provisions the rest of the PPACA is an empty shell. Thus, so the argument goes, we've gotta conclude that Congress did not intend any other provision of the PPACA to stand absent the mandate.

- The states challenging PPACA also filed their brief (pdf, 169 pages) on severability today. The thrust of the state's argument is the same as that of the private litigants.

WHETHER THE ANTI-INJUNCTION ACT BARS THESE LAWSUITS:

#

CONSTITUTIONALITY OF PPACA'S MEDICAID EXPANSION PROVISIONS:

#

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If I understood the report I heard on NPR recently, Montana's Supreme Court has recently restored a 100-year-old state ban on direct spending by corporations on political candidates. That's a direct challenge to the Citizens United ruling, no?

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The Montana case is linked here. Whether that ruling qualifies as a direct challenge to Citizens United depends on who you believe. The majority in the Montana case determined that Citizens United wasn't controlling based on what they considered significant differences between the laws under consideration in the two cases. The dissenters in the Montana case said that Citizens United is a shitty decision but controlling nonetheless.

The Montana decision just came down, and the losers haven't yet sought SCOTUS review. When they do, I suspect that they'll have a much better chance of getting in than most.

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And yes, firing a disabled employee is indeed a free exercise of religion:

Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC at 13-14 (pdf, 39 pages).

The vote was 9-0. The Court had no trouble deciding that the fired employee in this case was a "minister" for purposes of this constitutionally-mandated exception to employment discrimination laws, but declined to establish definitive criteria for use in other cases. Thomas would require that courts defer to the churches on that issue.

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What a fucked-up country.

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Heard that on NPR yesterday. Seriously, is Thomas's entire career an elaborate troll? Is his Clarence mask going to slip off one day to reveal Gallagher or something?

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Supreme Court Overturns 'Right v. Wrong' | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

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The Texas redistricting decision is in, and it's completely unsurprising!

The 2010 census revealed that Texas had 4 million more residents than it had in 2000. Re-drawing district lines for both federal and state legislative offices was necessary to comply with the constitutional one person, one vote standard. The Republican-dominated state legislature got to work and devised a comprehensive redistricting plan.

Thing is, Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act provides that states with a history of voting discrimination must get approval from the Attorney General or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before any change in voting procedures (redistricting included) can take effect. It'll come as no surprise to anyone that Section 5 applies to Texas.

The state legislature immediately submitted its redistricting plan to the district court for approval. That case remains pending.

In the meantime, private plaintiffs filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas seeking to block the redistricting plan on the ground that it discriminates against Hispanics in violation of the VRA and the federal Constitution. The Texas court held a trial but declined to rule in advance of the D.C. court's resolution of the preapproval case.

With primary elections approaching, the Texas court held hearings and issued an interim redistricting plan. The state legislature blew a gasket and demanded that the Supreme Court stay the interim plan pending appeal. The Supreme Court granted the stay, which for all practical purposes meant that a majority of the justices had already decided the legislature would win.

Today, a mere eleven days after oral argument, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in favor of the Republicans state legislature, holding that the Texas court's interim plan is insufficiently deferential to the Republicans state legislature.

Adding further credence to Sock Puppet's suggestion that Thomas' career is but a really big troll, ol' Clarence wrote a short concurring opinion reiterating his view that Section 5 of the VRA is an unconstitutional infringement on state sovereignty. Unless and until the state legislature's plan is found to violate the Constitution or the substantive provisions of the VRA, that plan controls in any upcoming election. (Entertainingly enough, Section 5 and the preapproval process set forth therein is likely the only reason the Texas court hasn't yet ruled on the substantive challenges to the state legislature's plan.)

Perry v. Perez (pdf, 13 pages)

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According to Wired, the Supreme Court has now ruled that certain works in the public domain may be yanked back and put under copyright again. :shakecopyright:

I'm not sure about the meaning of the legislation—if it affects the copyright status of works published in 1923 and after only. If before 1923, whether it affects those works that were published by foreigners whose works are under copyright in Life + 70 countries or if they're also going to apply it to Americans whose work is still under copyright in Life + 70 countries.

Can any of our specialists in legalize help me out here?

Whatever the ruling, it seems like it might have the most appalling repercussions for those of us who work with public domain texts, scores, and films. :sadno:

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The Court ruled today that attaching a GPS device to a suspect's car and using to monitor the car's movements on public streets is indeed a search for Fourth Amendment purposes. It was pleasantly surprising to see a unanimous Court go all :lolfruits: on the government's no-search argument.

The vote was unanimous, but the reasoning was split. Scalia's position, which garnered five votes (himself, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas and Sotomayor), is that traditional trespass-based Fourth Amendment analysis -- which was good enough for the Framers and is therefore good enough for us, goddamnit -- plainly mandates the conclusion that what the government did here was a search because in 1791 actions like the ones at issue here would have constituted a common law trespass to chattels. We needn't bother ourselves with that Johnny-Come-Lately "reasonable expectation of privacy" shit, which dates back only to 1967, because subsequent decisions that line of cases only supplements (but doesn't displace) trespass analysis. The government waived its alternative argument that the search was reasonable, thereby comporting with the 4th, by failing to raise it in the lower courts.

Alito and three other justices (Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan) believe that continued use of the old school trespass analysis is both silly and unwarranted under current law. The reasonable expectation of privacy test should be the only rule. Alito wrote that relatively short-term GPS use would not qualify as a 4th Amendment search, but the 28 days at issue here crossed the line. Alito doesn't say where the line is or how we should go about finding it. That, he says, is for future cases.

Sotomayor wrote a short concurring opinion generally agreeing with the narrow approach Scalia used to resolve this particular case but suggesting that under reasonable-expectation analysis the time has come to shitcan "the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties" as "ill suited to the digital age."

U.S. v. Jones (pdf, 34 pages)

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Pretty much!

Golan v. Holder (pdf, 69 pages)

Me neither. After reading the syllabus and first 4 pages of the majority opinion I'm all :eyesbleed:

Seems that the U.S. steered clear of the 1886 Berne Convention for over a century. Even after joining up in 1989 we didn't actually do much to enforce the Convention in this country. That, of course, pissed off more than a few of the other Berne signatories.

The legislation at issue in this case came out of the same overall dialogue that resulted in creation of NAFTA and the WTO. Viewed in that light, how can the legislation possibly be any good?

Congress responded to the 1994 Uruguay agreements with a statute (Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreement Act) that, according to the Court:

The full text of the statute is now codified here and here.

The statute does confer copyright protection on works considered to be in the public domain here in the U.S. One of the issues was whether the Copyright Clause of the U.S. Constitution authorized the legislation. The plaintiffs in this case wanted the Court to hold that the language "for limited Times" in the CC prohibited conferring copyright protection on works in the public domain. The Court rejected that (along with a First Amendment argument) by a 6-2 vote.

Might take a closer look at this one, but only after my eyes stop bleeding.

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This sounds like it might be moderately good news for us at LibriVox, because we were worried that many of our works would be re-copyrighted because they are public domain in the U.S. (pre-1923) but not in countries where it's Life + 70. A.A. Milne, P.G. Wodehouse, George Bernard Shaw, Friedrich Nietzsche in English translation, Hilaire Belloc, etc. would all be affected if that were the case. But now it seems like it's just going to be works that were published after the January 1, 1923 cutoff date. That might affect some of the works in the LibriVox catalog, but not very many. At a guess, the only thing I can see going back under copyright from LibriVox is Anthem by Ayn Rand, and frankly I wouldn't miss it.

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The Supreme Court proceedings are off to a flying start in this one. The losing parties have filed an application (pdf, 45 pages) with Justice Kennedy (in his capacity as circuit justice for the Ninth Circuit) to stay the Montana Supreme Court's decision pending the outcome of their request for SCOTUS review.

In fact, they're going a few steps further than that. They're asking that SCOTUS (1) treat their stay application as a petition for certiorari, (2) grant cert and (3) summarily reverse the Montana Supreme Court because its ruling is so completely contrary to Citizens United that it can't possibly stand.

Justice Kennedy has requested that the state file a response by 2/15.

The lawyer for the parties challenging the Montana law is the guy who ultimately won Citizens United. Dude's whole life revolves around destroying campaign finance reform through litigation.

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The Montana Supreme Court's campaign finance decision looks doomed. SCOTUS granted the stay application presented to Justice Kennedy, which means that the Montana ruling is stayed until SCOTUS decides whether to take the case. Of course, the fact that SCOTUS granted the stay means that at least five justices think the parties challenging the Montana case have a "substantial likelihood of success on the merits," which kinda makes granting cert. a foregone conclusion.

Justices Ginsburg and Breyer wrote:

Unfortunately, they were among the dissenters in Citizens United, and there's no indication of a change of heart by anyone in the Citizens United majority. Even Ginsburg and Breyer voted to grant the stay "[b]ecause lower courts are bound to follow this Court’s decisions until they are withdrawn or modified[.]" That suggests no one is taking seriously the Montana Supreme Court majority's argument that its case is sufficiently distinguishable on its facts to render Citizens United inapplicable.

There's not enough time left in the current SCOTUS term for the case to get decided through normal channels. It'll carry over until next term unless a majority of the justices think that a summary reversal is appropriate.

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The first oral argument in the health care cases took place today, limited to the issue of whether the federal Anti-Injunction Act bars lawsuits challenging the individual mandate prior to government action to enforce the mandate. A yes answer would mean that all the lawsuits challenging the mandate magically disappear. However, based on an admittedly quick 'n' dirty review of the argument transcript, a yes answer appears about as likely a young, hoodie-wearing African American male being viewed and treated as an actual human being in Florida. AFAICT, none of the justices is interested in dismissing the pending ACA cases on Anti-Injunction Act grounds.

No huge surprises there. Even the Justice Department opposes the AIA argument. The Court had to appoint an amicus curiae to argue in favor of dismissal.

The big issues, which it now looks highly likely the Court will decide, are whether the individual mandate is a valid exercise of Congress' commerce power and/or taxing power and whether the health care law's Medicaid provisions is an unconstitutionally coercive exercise of the spending power. The odds of a Court this conservative upholding the mandate look p. slim.

The transcript and audio files of today's arguments are available here.

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After attempting to read some of this legalese crapola, I'm starting to favor a consitutional amendment making English the official language of the United States. This is the US dammit, learn to speak English or get out. :shakefist:

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Why is the Obama administration arguing against the Anti-Injunction Act, if the odds are so slim the mandate will be upheld? Won't it be really damaging to have a decision against it before the election?

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ETA: n/m I misunderstood the question.

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That's a damn fine question. Not only has the administration done a total about face on the AIA issue, but it's gone all-in on the mandate as well, arguing that if the Court invalidates the mandate it must also throw out the provisions of the Affordable Care Act requiring coverage for preexisting conditions and prohibiting increased premiums based on preexisting conditions.

I doubt it, but the administration and Justice Department might be convinced they'll win on the merits. That's borderline delusional, but hey, the higher-ups in the Clinton administration managed to convince themselves beyond all doubt that the whole "oral sex isn't sex" thing would be a slam dunk public relations winner. :shrug:

You'd certainly think so. I suspect the administration has a massive spin campaign ready to go the instant the decision is announced, maybe something along the lines of how the Supreme Court's ruling establishes that President Obama is the only thing standing between us and a wingnut Hobbesian state of nature.

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I've never pretended to be anything other than a fool, so engaging in fool's errands like predicting the outcome of appellate cases from statements made during oral arguments doesn't bother me.

Looks like the best the administration can hope for is a 5-4 loss on the individual mandate issue. The split is, well, unsurprising:

AGAINST: Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia,Thomas,1 Alito

FOR: Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan (maybe)

The transcript of yesterday's arguments regarding constitutionality of the individual mandate (pdf, 133 pages) is here.

Today's arguments are about (1) how much of the Affordable Care Act fails if the individual mandate gets shot down, and (2) constitutionality of the Medicaid expansion provisions. Reports indicate that the first issue is reducing the justices to a state of gibbering incontinence.2 Wouldn't be surprised to the Court formulate some broad, squishy criteria and remand the case to the court of appeals for the brutal work of applying those criteria to the ACA on a provision-by-provision basis. Hell, they might even remand to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing.

1Thomas almost never says anything during oral arguments and yesterday was no different. However, his ideological leanings and past actions on the Court leave no room for reasonable debate about how he'll vote.
2Of course, some are closer to that particular destination than others.

ETA:

The Medicaid arguments are over, and it looks to me like the challenge to the ACA's Medicaid expansion provisions will fail in a big way. The argument from the states is that requiring expansion of Medicaid benefits on pain of losing all existing federal Medicaid funds is an unconstitutionally "coercive" exercise of Congress' spending power. I'd say that most of the justices agree that an unconstitutionally coercive exercise of the spending power can exist, but not a one of 'em (except maybe Thomas) thinks this is it.

Transcripts:
Medicaid (pdf, 102 pages)
Severability (pdf, 100 pages)

Ain't nothin' left to do in the ACA cases 'cept wait for a decision.

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Yeah I just went to lunch and heard the 5-minute news update at noon on NPR, and started thinking about how, after striking down the mandate, they will just drop a completely incomprehensible footnote1 that does not actually address severability. Then they can come back and endorse whatever the Fourth Circuit comes up with.

1We need not recite a precise and overly mechanical checklist of relevant factors in order to resolve this issue, and therefore decline to do so here. Of course, these principles do not, in general, lend themselves to reduction independent of factual context, but rather arise where a particular statutory provision exists in sufficiently discernible proximity to - and evinces substantial operative connection with - a circumstantial and constructive nexus of fact and law that touches upon or affects a Constitutionally-cognizable interest as contemplated by the body of case law. These competing interests must be weighed against countervailing interest to the extent required by the Constitution.

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:laugh:

emailing that footnote to Scalia's head law clerk :brb:

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I'm getting a real eye opener about some my friends and acquaintances from all this. People I never expected to be so callous & mean-spirited actually are.

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Dude gets pulled over for a traffic infraction in 2005. Cop runs an on-the-spot computer check and finds a bench warrant issued in 2003 in connection with dude's failure to show up for a hearing to enforce a fine levied on a criminal charge some seven years earlier. Dude had paid the fine shortly after the bench warrant issued, but the warrant remained in the state's computer system.

Dude spends six days in the Burlington County (N.J.) jail, after which he's transferred to the Essex County jail. The day after the transfer, dude was released when the authorities finally got it together enough to figure out that the computer entry showing an outstanding warrant was wrong.

At the first jail dude was "check[ed] . . . for scars, marks, gang tattoos, and contraband as [he] disrobed" and "instructed to open his mouth, lift his tongue, hold out his arms, turn around, and lift his genitals." At the second jail he was "instructed to remove [his] clothing while an officer looked for body markings, wounds, and contraband. Apparently without touching the detainees, an officer looked at [his] ears,nose, mouth, hair, scalp, fingers, hands, arms, armpits, and other body openings."

Dude filed a civil action against the government entities operating the jails per 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that jail officials violated his Fourth Amendment rights by subjecting him to unreasonable searches. The trial judge sided with the plaintiff, ruling that the searches were unreasonable as a matter of law. The court of appeals reversed.

Today, SCOTUS's Fab Five (Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas and Alito) sided with the government. Shorter Kennedy:

Well, you know, "strip search" is kind of a squishy term. I guess what happened to this guy might qualify, but hey, it's not like they shoved stuff up his ass or anything. Jeez.

And the ludicrously minor nature of the offense for which the plaintiff landed in jail just plain doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah, the Fourth Amendment is a big deal, and it's our job to say what the law is and all, but come on! Jail officials are the ones who know the security needs of their institution best, and those security interests are of paramount concern. If jail officials decide that intensive ... um ... visual inspection is needed to identify dangerous coloreds Messicans ganstas and druggies and thugs (oh my!), who are we to second-guess them?

Kennedy's majority opinion includes a brief section suggesting that the Court's announced rule might not apply in cases where a detainee in custody for a minor offense won't be wandering around in the general population or have significant contact with other detainees. In those instances, strip searches might indeed qualify as constitutionally unreasonable depending on the specific facts and circumstances. One of the justices in the majority wouldn't endorse even that trivial a limit on jailer discretion. Can you guess who?



Florence v. Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington (pdf, 41 pages).

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http://www.laapush.org/environmental...t_justices.JPG
Look buddy, you went to jail. It doesn't matter how you got there,
we're still gonna need to look at your butthole.

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Obama Warns 'unelected' Supreme Court Against Striking Down Health Law | Fox News
That's their job, to review legislation that is challenged on Constitutional grounds, right?

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I see Stevens, Souter, Rehnquist and O'Connor in that photo. None of 'em was perfect, of course, but you can't blame any of the current abominations on them!

............
http://agileproductdesign.com/blog/images/inigo.jpg

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Good grief.

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Who are we to questions the Supremes who in turn don't know who they are to question local police procedures!

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It's not directly SCOTUS-related, but goddamn. So much for never going full retard.

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Someone should explain the concept of separation of powers.

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See, this is why I hate law and rules and stuff, I can't keep up here! First it was all those guys, no, you can't make 'em have insurance, and then Obama, oh but who got elected tough guy, and then some other dude is all, three pages single spaced sucker man! This is way too complicated for me, make it stop.

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I take it as a sign that Judge Smith is righteously irritated with the President et al.

Good for him. Presidents often need a reminder that it isn't all about the President.

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Not at all! Your post p. much sums up the entire shootin' match.

:nope:

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Obama shoved his foot in his mouth hard and pissed off judges pretty much everywhere I am sure.

He needs to admit he fucked up, IMO, pure and simple. "I said stupid stuff, I am sorry I said stupid stuff, and of course I know it was stupid, but I am human and I am upset and I fucked up and I'm sorry. Please continue with the review your Honor with my apologies"

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Men in Black.

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:yup:

And followed up the very next day by hammering that foot deep into his gastrointestinal tract:

"A law like this has not been overturned at least since Lochner. Right?"

~ President Barack Obama, Harvard-educated lawyer and former senior lecturer in constitutional law at U. Chicago Law School

Wrong.

I was very much looking forward to the super-slick public relations campaign that would deftly turn an adverse ruling by the Supreme Court into a major victory for a genuinely progressive agenda. If the President's comments are the opening salvo in that campaign, well, lol. One-legged man, ass kicking contest, etc. Cries of judicial activism sound every bit as stupid coming from Obama as they did coming from G.W. Pencilcock.

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I am watching the SCOTUSblog liveblog of today's opinions just in case. If it doesn't come down today, there are two opinion days next week, Monday and Thursday. They could add more. Thursday is the last day of the term.

At least four opinions this morning, which means there are 9 (I think?) opinions left to be issued this term.

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No health care opinion or immigration opinion today. Try again on Monday.

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SCOTUS seems to have a habit of leaving the interesting decisions until the very end. Not sure if it's procrastination, or a sense of theatrics. I suspect the latter.

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SCOTUS decision day always seems to coincide with the American Library Association annual conference. Normally I don't notice, but the year they were deciding if libraries could be compelled to install filters it was all anybody talked about.

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:eager: Court starts at 10. Opinions are announced going in reverse order of seniority, so even if today is the day it will probably take a little while to get there.

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Summarily reversed 5-4.

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Decision in Arizona v. U.S. Ninth is affirmed in part and reversed in part. Three of four key provisions (3, 5, and 6) are invalidated as pre-empted. One is not. The court should not have enjoined enforcement of 2(B), requiring police officers to check immigration status of anyone arrested. No further info yet. Opinion should be posted shortly.

ETA: Opinion by Kennedy. 5-3. Scalia would uphold the whole thing.

ETA2: No more opinions today, apparently. Opinion day on Thursday.

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Can you explain what both of those mean on the ground please?

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So section 3 says that not complying with federal immigration regulations is a misdemeanor under Arizona law. Section 5 makes it a misdemeanor for an an unauthorized alien to look for work. Section 6 allows warrantless arrests when the officer has probable cause that a person has committed a deportable offense. All of these are struck down because federal law preempts the state action, so they will no longer be the law.

Section 2(B) requires cops to check the immigration status of people if there's a reasonable suspicion that the person is an alien unlawfully present in the US. The Court upheld this provision as not preempted by state law, on pretty narrow grounds. The opinion said that future challenges, including preemption challenges, may be brought against 2(B), depending on how the language is construed by state courts in Arizona. It also provided a roadmap on how to interpret the statute. So for now, that is still the law, but may be challenged again depending on how the state interprets and applies it.

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Supreme Court rules juvenile life without parole cruel and unusual - latimes.com

This is a good ruling, because judges should have some level of discretion in sentencing, IMO. Mandated sentences are usually simply too broad a brush.

OMG U LAWYERGUYZ SPLAIN THIS TO MEH
 

SC Justice Kagan recused herself because she participated in the original law's defense.

But now we have Clarence Thomas presiding over this case, even though his wife received tens of thousands of dollars as a Tea Party lobbyist to lobby against health care reform. Apparently Thomas has never heard of recusal from judicial conflict of interest:


Is there some ridiculous obscure case law that I'm unaware of?

Or is this yet another case of one standard for progressives, but a different standard for conservotards?


* and by "LAWYERGUYZ", I do not mean Jerome or Chief Justice yguy.

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Don't worry about how the Supremes rule on health care. As explained in the following, it does not matter. :nope:

Earth Still Probably Doomed No Matter Which Way Court Rules

Stand with your back to a mirror, turn your head around to face it, and wave goodbye to your ass.
:wave:

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That right there is jacked up. The per curiam reversal is here. The Montana Supreme Court majority went on for page after page after page explaining why the state statute under consideration in that case was different from the federal statute at issue in Citizens United, and why striking down the Montana statute was consistent with Citizens United's analysis.

So how does SCOTUS respond? Pretty much with a "lol no." Montana's arguments "fail to meaningfully distinguish" Citizens United. Why? Cuz we say so is why.

Reasonable people can disagree about whether the Montana Supreme Court successfully distinguished Citizens United, but it was clearly a damned fine effort and deserved full briefing at the very least. SCOTUS had already stayed the state court decision, so no "harm" would come from letting this case proceed in the usual course. So yeah, fuck this decision.

And here we are. Corporations = people and spending money = speech. That was the law before Citizens United, but now any restrictions on such "speech" are scrutinized harshly enough that they're almost guaranteed to fail.

Where actual speech is concerned, the standard argument goes that the cure for bad speech is good speech. So what do you do when a group of corporations spend half a billion dollars on an ad campaign smearing the president with abject bullshit in order to elect sociopathic lunatic "Mitt" (false name) Romney? Well, you just counter with speech of your own. All you need do is spend half a billion of your own money on a counter-campaign.

Don't have half a billion dollars? Well, get a job, ya lazy prick!

In the meantime, you might want to ask unions to help with your counter-campaign. Of course, the unions might not be all that flush either. Last week's 7-2 decision in Knox v. Service Employees Int'l Union, Local 1000 (pdf, 48 pages) went largely under the radar. Justice Alito verbally reamed a public sector employees union for charging fees to non-member employees of "union shops" and using some of those fees to fund political efforts. Absent express consent, that violates the non-members' First Amendment rights, you see. The legal principles aren't new, but the vitriolic ass-chewing was something rarely seen in a majority opinion.

Of course, that's only fair. After all, a corporation must obtain express consent from all its stockholders before using their money on polit ... oh, wait, no they don't. The corporation can spend its owners' money on whatever political issue its wingnut directors and officers deem appropriate.

Yeah. Helluva country we've got here, eh?

That comes as an extraordinarily pleasant surprise.

Also, lol Scalia. That dissent is a pretty good read. Dude isn't even pretending to be something other than a partisan Republican hack anymore.

:nope:

Thing is, SCOTUS justices have to self-police on recusal issues. There's no higher judicial authority to bring the hammer down when they fuck up (intentionally or negligently). At least three justices in the Bush v. Gore majority had serious issues with 28 U.S.C. § 455, but no one recused and no one got in any trouble over it.

You can always ask that the House of Representatives impeach and the Senate remove a wayward justice based on want of "good behaviour," but that just doesn't happen. Besides, have you seen the composition of the House Judiciary Committee lately? :D

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Today is the day. Should be around 10:15 EST.

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The 9th is upheld (i.e. the Stolen Valor Act is unconstitutional) 6-3. Scalia, Thomas, and Alito in dissent.

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Here it comes.

According to SCOTUSBlog, individual mandate survives as a tax. Roberts joins.

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CNN reporting that mandate was struck down.
SCOTUSblog reporting it survived.

Someone will have to retract their comments.

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SCOTUSblog reports the ACA survives intact, except for a limitation on the fed's power to terminate Medicaid funds.

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SCOTUSblog:

The bottom line: the entire ACA is upheld, with the exception that the federal government's power to terminate states' Medicaid funds is narrowly read.

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:alarm: Struck down! Upheld! My mother! My sister! :freakout:

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WaPo says upheld. This opinion must be a damn beast if it takes this long to get the holding right.

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Seattle Times reporting mandate was upheld:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ealthcare.html

While CNN still thinks it was struck down:
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/28...law/?hpt=hp_t1

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Wow, if the court upheld the opinion and CNN embarrassed itself on a huge story, what a good Thursday that would be!

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And now CNN tries to un-screw the pooch by issuing a correction.



http://www.freethought-forum.com/for...w_original.png

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Gee, I wonder if anybody got a screenshot of it!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v317/ChuckF/cnn2.png

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gtfo slowboat.

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Still no link to the opinion. I wonder if CNN's SCOTUS producer (described as "Supreme Court guru" in some CNN tweet) will resign because this very amusing fuckup. They already whitewashed their live blog.

ETA: Opinion. It's a whopper.

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Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!

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Interesting.

INTRADE, the online predictive betting / marketing site, places bets on how likely certain political or economic events are. This is an economic prediction market, operating under the hypothesis that the aggregate decisions / viewpoints of a large group of people are the most accurate predictor of any given outcome.

Up to 30 minutes before the announcement, INTRADE was prediting a 70-71% chance of this being overturned. Oops.

I've often been suspicious of the underlying hypothesis behind INTRADE, and whether or not INTRADE was actually sampling random opinions or had devolved into a libertarian polling device.

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This just in from the Internet Commission on Butthurt Events Tracking: There is a major event of Internet Butthurt occurring centered in the Eastern Half of North America. Preliminary reports indicate this is a case of CLASS ONE - VOLCANIC BUTTHURT. Readers are urged to take immediate precautions against this major event. This is not a drill. REPEAT: There is a major event of Internet Butthurt occurring centered in the Eastern Half of North America. Preliminary reports indicate this is a case of CLASS ONE - VOLCANIC BUTTHURT.

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Truth to tell, I would have been on the losing side of that bet. I was sure the Prez had frittered away his whole first term on this. Feeling a little better about things now. We still have the political mass behavior modification decision to deal with, but maybe, with a free, even if bought press, plus interwebz, the peoples can still figger it out as to what is really what.

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I'm wondering if the House will go ahead with the Holder contempt ruling today, in light of this. It might look like a vengeful Hail Mary.

:muahaha:

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:faint:

1) The Anti-Injunction Act does not bar these lawsuits challenging the individual mandate.

2) 5-4 (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, Alito): The individual mandate is not a valid exercise of the commerce power.

3) 5-4 (Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan): However, the mandate is a valid exercise of the taxing power and is constitutional on that basis.

4) 7-2 (Roberts, Breyer, Kagan, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito): The Medicaid expansion provisions exceed Congress' spending power by threatening states will loss of all federal Medicaid funding absent full acquiescence in the ACA's Medicaid provisions.

5) 5-4 (Roberts, Breyer, Kagan, Ginsburg, Sotomayor): However, the constitutional violation is remedied in full by shooting down the provision authorizing the Secretary of HHS to take away existing Medicaid funding is a state refuses to accept the expansion. The rest of ACA is unaffected.

6) Since the individual mandate stands, there's no need to address the larger severability issue. The dissenters - Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito - would hold that the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate and the Medicaid expansion takes down the entire ACA.

Christ. Other than (1) and (6), I saw exactly none of that coming.

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Nobody saw it coming.

The Supreme Court has taken a step to restoring its credibility today.

Now if only Scalia would voluntarily submit himself for impeachment due to massive conflicts of interest, then we would have a Supreme Court to be proud of.

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United States v. Alvarez (pdf, 49 pages).

The Court held 6-3 that the federal Stolen Valor Act, which criminalizes false claims of having received certain military medals, violates the Speech Clause of the First Amendment. There was no majority rationale, as the Court remained divided on whether and to what extent Congress may constitutionally criminalize false statements of fact.

FF's prior discussion of the Act is here.

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For realz! Listening to the speech. His star is rising in my eyes. :heart:

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People Who Say They're Moving To Canada Because Of ObamaCare

I hope at least most of them are kidding.

But they're not, are they?

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They were misquoted. They meant Somalia.

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No they're not. They're stupid see, and don't even know what they're bitching about

“If you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government.” —Arthur Laffer on CNN

"I got a letter the other day from a woman. She said, 'I don't want government-run health care. I don't want socialized medicine. And don't touch my Medicare,'" ~President Obama

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Speaking of which, when can we look forward to EinWhinyPlagiarian and Chief Justice yguy weighing in here on this momentous event?

:popcorn:

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I could even go for being Jerolled! :lol:

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:dddp:

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Oops, posted that to Conservatives Say Stupid Shit before I saw it was here.

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:lol:

Enjoy, Clutch!

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Most of America agrees with you on that point, regardless of this decision today. :yup:

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They are welcome neither for coffee nor for Nanny-State Approved Socialist Biscuits.

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What about the extra-scratchy Mao suits with multiple tags in the back of the collar that you can't remove without unraveling the whole thing?