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Mr. Nice! posted:They also said states cannot give a tax preference to retired state employees that they do not also give to retired federal employees. What’s the reasoning there? Seems weird to me.
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Feb 20, 2019 17:20
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FlamingLiberal posted:I hope this is the beginning of the end for civil forfeiture but considering how much money the cops make from it I doubt it will go quietly I hope civil forfeiture dies at all but the federal, white-collar level, basically stuff that gets run out of the SD of NY. Cops should have never gotten the power to straight up rob people after pulling them over. Feds, however, end up dealing with the huge sprawling theft-from-the-public types of stuff (like shkreli, wells fargo, or enron) and they absolutely should have the ability to seize and impound corporate and personal assets so penalties and restitution can be facilitated or else a clever BK filing here and a few overnight deed transfers there means thousands if not millions of victims never get to be made whole. Stealing a van because you "smelled weed" during a taillight stop = bad Freezing the assets of Don Blankenship to ensure collection of fines and environmental recovery costs = good How that gets parsed into law is probably constitutionally unenforceable though.
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Feb 20, 2019 17:21
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I think they establish a difference here between actual fines that were adjudicated and the cops just trying to take poo poo Like the case where the cops seized the house where a drug deal happened which belonged to the defendant’s grandmother or something
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Feb 20, 2019 17:39
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 Opinions! JAMES DAWSON, ET UX., PETITIONERS v. DALE W. STEAGER, WEST VIRGINIA STATE TAX COMMISSIONER Holding / Majority Opinion: If you spent your career as a state law enforcement officer in West Virginia, you’re likely to be eligible for a generous tax exemption when you retire. But if you served in federal law enforcement, West Virginia will deny you the same benefit. The question we face is whether a State may discriminate against federal retirees in that way. For most of his career, James Dawson worked in the U. S. Marshals Service. After he retired, he began looking into the tax treatment of his pension. It turns out that his home State, West Virginia, doesn’t tax the pension benefits of certain former state law enforcement employees. But it does tax the benefits of all former federal employees. So Mr. Dawson brought this lawsuit alleging that West Virginia violated 4 U. S. C. §111. In that statute, the United States has consented to state taxation of the “pay or compensation” of “officer[s] or employee[s] of the United States,” but only if the “taxation does not discriminate against the officer or employee because of the source of the pay or compensation.” §111(a). Section 111 codifies a legal doctrine almost as old as the Nation….[E]ventually the intergovernmental tax immunity doctrine came to be understood to bar only discriminatory taxes. It was this understanding that Congress “consciously . . . drew upon” when adopting §111 in 1939. It is this understanding, too, that has animated our application of §111. Since the statute’s adoption, we have upheld an Alabama income tax that did not discriminate on the basis of the source of the employees’ compensation. But we have invalidated a Michigan tax that discriminated “in favor of retired state employees and against retired federal employees.” We have struck down a Kansas law that taxed the retirement benefits of federal military personnel at a higher rate than state and local government retirement benefits. And we have rejected a Texas scheme that imposed a property tax on a private company operating on land leased from the federal government, but a “less burdensome” tax on property leased from the State. … A State violates §111 when it treats retired state employees more favorably than retired federal employees and no “significant differences between the two classes” justify the differential treatment. Here, West Virginia expressly affords state law enforcement retirees a tax benefit that federal retirees cannot receive. And before us everyone accepts the trial court’s factual finding that there aren’t any “significant differences” between Mr. Dawson’s former job responsibilities and those of the tax-exempt state law enforcement retirees. Given all this, we have little difficulty concluding that West Virginia’s law unlawfully “discriminate[s]” against Mr. Dawson “because of the source of [his] pay or compensation,” just as §111 forbids. The State offers this ambitious rejoinder. Even if its statute favors some state law enforcement retirees, the favored class is very small. Most state retirees are treated no better than Mr. Dawson. And this narrow preference, the State suggests, should be permitted because it affects so few people that it couldn’t meaningfully interfere with the operations of the federal government. We are unpersuaded. Section 111 disallows any state tax that discriminates against a federal officer or employee—not just those that seem to us especially cumbersome. … Our precedent confirms this too. In Davis, Michigan argued that a state law expressly discriminating between federal and state retirees was really just distinguishing between those with more and less generous pensions. We rejected this attempt to rerationalize the statute, explaining that “[a] tax exemption truly intended to account for differences in retirement benefits would not discriminate on the basis of the source of those benefits” but “would discriminate on the basis of the amount of benefits received by individual retirees.” The fact is, when States seek to tax the use of a fellow sovereign’s property, the Constitution and Congress have always carefully constrained their authority. And in this sensitive field it is not too much to ask that, if a State wants to draw a distinction based on the generosity of pension benefits, it enact a law that actually does that. Because West Virginia’s statute unlawfully discriminates against Mr. Dawson, we reverse the judgment of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion, including the determination of an appropriate remedy. Lineup: Ginsburg, unanimous. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-419_n75o.pdf TIMBS v. INDIANA Holding / Majority Opinion: Tyson Timbs pleaded guilty in Indiana state court to dealing in a controlled substance and conspiracy to commit theft. The trial court sentenced him to one year of home detention and five years of probation, which included a court-supervised addiction-treatment program. The sentence also required Timbs to pay fees and costs totaling $1,203. At the time of Timbs’s arrest, the police seized his vehicle, a Land Rover SUV Timbs had purchased for about $42,000. Timbs paid for the vehicle with money he received from an insurance policy when his father died. The State engaged a private law firm to bring a civil suit for forfeiture of Timbs’s Land Rover, charging that the vehicle had been used to transport heroin. After Timbs’s guilty plea in the criminal case, the trial court held a hearing on the forfeiture demand. Although finding that Timbs’s vehicle had been used to facilitate violation of a criminal statute, the court denied the requested forfeiture, observing that Timbs had recently purchased the vehicle for $42,000, more than four times the maximum $10,000 monetary fine assessable against him for his drug conviction. Forfeiture of the Land Rover, the court determined, would be grossly disproportionate to the gravity of Timbs’s offense, hence unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause. The Court of Appeals of Indiana affirmed that determination, but the Indiana Supreme Court reversed. The Indiana Supreme Court did not decide whether the forfeiture would be excessive. Instead, it held that the Excessive Fines Clause constrains only federal action and is inapplicable to state impositions. We granted certiorari. The question presented: Is the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause an “incorporated” protection applicable to the States under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause? Like the Eighth Amendment’s proscriptions of “cruel and unusual punishment” and “[e]xcessive bail,” the protection against excessive fines guards against abuses of government’s punitive or criminallaw-enforcement authority. This safeguard, we hold, is “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty,” with “dee[p] root[s] in [our] history and tradition.” The Excessive Fines Clause is therefore incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. When ratified in 1791, the Bill of Rights applied only to the Federal Government. Barron ex rel. Tiernan v. Mayor of Baltimore, “The constitutional Amendments adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War,” however, “fundamentally altered our country’s federal system.” With only “a handful” of exceptions, this Court has held that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause incorporates the protections contained in the Bill of Rights, rendering them applicable to the States. A Bill of Rights protection is incorporated, we have explained, if it is “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty,” or “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” … The Excessive Fines Clause traces its venerable lineage back to at least 1215, when Magna Carta guaranteed that “[a] Free-man shall not be amerced for a small fault, but after the manner of the fault; and for a great fault after the greatness thereof, saving to him his contenement . . . .” … Adoption of the Excessive Fines Clause was in tune not only with English law; the Clause resonated as well with similar colonial-era provisions. See, e.g., Pa. Frame of Govt., Laws Agreed Upon in England, Art. XVIII (1682), in 5 Federal and State Constitutions 3061 (F. Thorpe ed. 1909) (“[A]ll fines shall be moderate, and saving men’s contenements, merchandize, or wainage.”). In 1787, the constitutions of eight States—accounting for 70% of the U. S. population—forbade excessive fines. … Notwithstanding the States’ apparent agreement that the right guaranteed by the Excessive Fines Clause was fundamental, abuses continued. … Today, acknowledgment of the right’s fundamental nature remains widespread. As Indiana itself reports, all 50 States have a constitutional provision prohibiting the imposition of excessive fines either directly or by requiring proportionality. … In short, the historical and logical case for concluding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Excessive Fines Clause is overwhelming. Protection against excessive punitive economic sanctions secured by the Clause is, to repeat, both “fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty” and “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767 (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis deleted). The State of Indiana does not meaningfully challenge the case for incorporating the Excessive Fines Clause as a general matter. Instead, the State argues that the Clause does not apply to its use of civil in rem forfeitures because, the State says, the Clause’s specific application to such forfeitures is neither fundamental nor deeply rooted. In Austin v. United States, 509 U. S. 602 (1993), however, this Court held that civil in rem forfeitures fall within the Clause’s protection when they are at least partially punitive. Austin arose in the federal context. But when a Bill of Rights protection is incorporated, the protection applies “identically to both the Federal Government and the States.” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 766, n. 14. Accordingly, to prevail, Indiana must persuade us either to overrule our decision in Austin or to hold that, in light of Austin, the Excessive Fines Clause is not incorporated because the Clause’s application to civil in rem forfeitures is neither fundamental nor deeply rooted. The first argument is not properly before us, and the second misapprehends the nature of our incorporation inquiry. … Timbs sought our review of the question “[w]hether the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause is incorporated against the States under the Fourteenth Amendment.”...We[] decline the State’s invitation to reconsider our unanimous judgment in Austin that civil in rem forfeitures are fines for purposes of the Eighth Amendment when they are at least partially punitive. As a fallback, Indiana argues that the Excessive Fines Clause cannot be incorporated if it applies to civil in rem forfeitures. We disagree. In considering whether the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates a protection contained in the Bill of Rights, we ask whether the right guaranteed—not each and every particular application of that right—is fundamental or deeply rooted. Indiana’s suggestion to the contrary is inconsistent with the approach we have taken in cases concerning novel applications of rights already deemed incorporated. For example, in Packingham v. North Carolina, 582 U. S. ___ (2017), we held that a North Carolina statute prohibiting registered sex offenders from accessing certain commonplace social media websites violated the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. In reaching this conclusion, we noted that the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause was “applicable to the States under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” We did not, however, inquire whether the Free Speech Clause’s application specifically to social media websites was fundamental or deeply rooted...Similarly here, regardless of whether application of the Excessive Fines Clause to civil in rem forfeitures is itself fundamental or deeply rooted, our conclusion that the Clause is incorporated remains unchanged. For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Indiana Supreme Court is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. Other Opinions: Concurrence (Gorsuch): The majority faithfully applies our precedent and, based on a wealth of historical evidence, concludes that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause against the States. I agree with that conclusion. As an original matter, I acknowledge, the appropriate vehicle for incorporation may well be the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause, rather than, as this Court has long assumed, the Due Process Clause. But nothing in this case turns on that question, and, regardless of the precise vehicle, there can be no serious doubt that the Fourteenth Amendment requires the States to respect the freedom from excessive fines enshrined in the Eighth Amendment. Concurrence (Thomas): I agree with the Court that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines fully applicable to the States. But I cannot agree with the route the Court takes to reach this conclusion. Instead of reading the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause to encompass a substantive right that has nothing to do with “process,” I would hold that the right to be free from excessive fines is one of the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. … The Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[n]o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” “On its face, this appears to grant . . . United States citizens a certain collection of rights—i.e., privileges or immunities—attributable to that status.” But as I have previously explained, this Court “marginaliz[ed]” the Privileges or Immunities Clause in the late 19th century by defining the collection of rights covered by the Clause “quite narrowly.” Litigants seeking federal protection of substantive rights against the States thus needed “an alternative fount of such rights,” and this Court “found one in a most curious place,” —the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which prohibits “any State” from “depriv[ing] any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Because this Clause speaks only to “process,” the Court has “long struggled to define” what substantive rights it protects. ... The present case illustrates the incongruity of the Court’s due process approach to incorporating fundamental rights against the States. Petitioner argues that the forfeiture of his vehicle is an excessive punishment. He does not argue that the Indiana courts failed to “‘proceed according to the “law of the land”—that is, according to written constitutional and statutory provisions,’” or that the State failed to provide “some baseline procedures.” His claim has nothing to do with any “process” “due” him. I therefore decline to apply the “legal fiction” of substantive due process. When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, “the terms ‘privileges’ and ‘immunities’ had an established meaning as synonyms for ‘rights.’” Those “rights” were the “inalienable rights” of citizens that had been “long recognized,” and “the ratifying public understood the Privileges or Immunities Clause to protect constitutionally enumerated rights” against interference by the States. Many of these rights had been adopted from English law into colonial charters, then state constitutions and bills of rights, and finally the Constitution. “Consistent with their English heritage, the founding generation generally did not consider many of the rights identified in [the Bill of Rights] as new entitlements, but as inalienable rights of all men, given legal effect by their codification in the Constitution’s text.” The question here is whether the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines was considered such a right. The historical record overwhelmingly demonstrates that it was. … The right against excessive fines traces its lineage back in English law nearly a millennium, and from the founding of our country, it has been consistently recognized as a core right worthy of constitutional protection. As a constitutionally enumerated right understood to be a privilege of American citizenship, the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines applies in full to the States. Lineup: Ginsburg, joined by Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Concurrence by Gorsuch. Concurrence by Thomas. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-1091_5536.pdf [internal citations inconsistently omitted throughout]
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Feb 20, 2019 17:51
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Corsair Pool Boy posted:I had to look up per curiam and I'm still not sure I understand what it means or why; I thought it meant unanimous, but given that dissent clearly I was wrong. "per curiam" means "by the court" and it basically just means the Court isn't identifying who wrote the majority opinion. Corsair Pool Boy posted:How often are per curiam decisions made? It depends, but around high single to low double digits per year by the Supreme Court. 8 for the 2016 term, 8 for the 2015 term, 8 for the 2014 term, 5 for the 2013, etc. https://harvardlawreview.org/2017/11/supreme-court-2016-term-statistics/ http://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/507-520-Statistics_Online.pdf http://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/statistics.pdf http://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/vol128_statistics.pdf eke out posted:hey it only took 151 years after the ratification of the 14th - not bad! Indiana didn't contest excessive fines applying against the states, just that it didn't apply to civil forfeiture. Ogmius815 posted:What’s the reasoning there? Seems weird to me. Generally one sovereign can't tax another sovereign's employees; letting a state tax a federal employee on a neutral basis is an exception.
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Feb 20, 2019 17:59
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quote:JAMES DAWSON, ET UX., PETITIONERS v. DALE W. STEAGER, WEST VIRGINIA STATE TAX COMMISSIONER What makes the carve-out for law enforcement legal in the first place? If it's illegal to discriminate against federal law enforcement, why is it legal to discriminate against other state/federal workers, or any other workers for that matter?
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Feb 20, 2019 18:27
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:What makes the carve-out for law enforcement legal in the first place? If it's illegal to discriminate against federal law enforcement, why is it legal to discriminate against other state/federal workers, or any other workers for that matter? Apparently it’s because, but for a statute giving permission, state governments couldn’t tax incomes paid by the federal government to its employees at all. Congress waived that immunity from taxation, but that waiver came with conditions.
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Feb 20, 2019 18:30
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:What makes the carve-out for law enforcement legal in the first place? If it's illegal to discriminate against federal law enforcement, why is it legal to discriminate against other state/federal workers, or any other workers for that matter? The carveout for law enforcement isn't the issue - West Virginia can give an extra benefit to law enforcement employees if it wants. What West Virginia can't do is give an extra benefit to state law enforcement employees but not to similarly situated federal law enforcement employees. Ogmius815 posted:Apparently it’s because, but for a statute giving permission, state governments couldn’t tax incomes paid by the federal government to its employees at all. Congress waived that immunity from taxation, but that waiver came with conditions. Basically this.
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Feb 20, 2019 18:37
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FAUXTON posted:How that gets parsed into law is probably constitutionally unenforceable though. I'm confident there's a way to effectively produce that outcome using standards requirements.
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Feb 20, 2019 19:28
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Discendo Vox posted:I'm confident there's a way to effectively produce that outcome using standards requirements. Well, here the court basically said "if I can only fine you $X for this case, I can't forfeit your car worth $4X." That's pretty easy to measure.
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Feb 20, 2019 19:31
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What's the reason Gorsuch and Thomas are hung up on privileges & immunities vs due process? Is it just a grumpy judge thing where they think the court has been going about it wrong since the 19th century and their way is more correct, or is there some weird partisan salience where expansive privileges & immunities doctrine is the Konami code for fetal personhood?
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Feb 20, 2019 19:46
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Dead Reckoning posted:What's the reason Gorsuch and Thomas are hung up on privileges & immunities vs due process? Is it just a grumpy judge thing where they think the court has been going about it wrong since the 19th century and their way is more correct, or is there some weird partisan salience where expansive privileges & immunities doctrine is the Konami code for fetal personhood? Not sure about Gorsuch, but Thomas does not believe in stare decisis, period. If he believes an ancient decision was wrong, thats the end of his analysis, and he'll vote to overturn it. Many SCOTUS judges have suggested that it was wrongly decided, but its too late, and due process is good enough. As for the political impact of reviving privileges and immunities, I think its probably neutral, there could potentially have been huge rulings both ways. Back when they were trying to incorporate the 2nd amendment, the lawyer for some bizarre reason tried to argue privileges and immunities as his preferred method of incorporation, which attracted lots of amicus briefs from liberal lawyers excited at the idea.
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Feb 20, 2019 19:51
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Thomas has been publishing those types of concurrences about the 14th since he was confirmed. He’s very consistent in his weirdness.
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Feb 20, 2019 19:53
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hobbesmaster posted:Thomas has been publishing those types of concurrences about the 14th since he was confirmed. He’s very consistent in his weirdness.
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Feb 20, 2019 19:56
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Dead Reckoning posted:What's the reason Gorsuch and Thomas are hung up on privileges & immunities vs due process? Is it just a grumpy judge thing where they think the court has been going about it wrong since the 19th century and their way is more correct It's this one, Thomas has been tilting at this windmill for a while (side note: I actually agree with him on the original issue). The only difference between the two forms of incorporation in my opinion is that using the P&I clause makes the logic of deciding new cases easier to understand and work through, but when that's counterbalanced against overturning all the accumulated precedent (which Thomas doesn't care about of course) it's not worth changing at this point. I don't think there's any "one weird trick to overturning Loving through P&I incorporation" plans floating around, just a few people overly worked up about minor differences in Constitutional interpretation.
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Feb 20, 2019 20:01
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Dead Reckoning posted:What's the reason Gorsuch and Thomas are hung up on privileges & immunities vs due process? Is it just a grumpy judge thing where they think the court has been going about it wrong since the 19th century and their way is more correct, or is there some weird partisan salience where expansive privileges & immunities doctrine is the Konami code for fetal personhood? hobbesmaster posted:Thomas has been publishing those types of concurrences about the 14th since he was confirmed. He’s very consistent in his weirdness. Dead Reckoning posted:I know, and I like that about him, but I'm wondering why he (and Gorsuch) are weird about this particular subject. Lawgoon thread just discussed this, thankfully. Two reasons: 1. It's linked to a legal argument they want to use to ban all abortions, and even worse, 2. Privileges or Immunities applies to US citizens, but Due Process applies to everyone under the constitution's jurisdiction. You can, uh, think about the potential uses there.
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Feb 20, 2019 20:02
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Discendo Vox posted:Lawgoon thread just discussed this, thankfully. Two reasons: There's a lot more. quote:In the words of constitutional historian David Currie, the present debate reflects the “incessant quest for the judicial holy grail…the discovery of a clause that lets [judges] strike down any law [they] do not like.”
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Feb 20, 2019 20:12
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FAUXTON posted:I hope civil forfeiture dies at all but the federal, white-collar level, basically stuff that gets run out of the SD of NY. Cops should have never gotten the power to straight up rob people after pulling them over. Feds, however, end up dealing with the huge sprawling theft-from-the-public types of stuff (like shkreli, wells fargo, or enron) and they absolutely should have the ability to seize and impound corporate and personal assets so penalties and restitution can be facilitated or else a clever BK filing here and a few overnight deed transfers there means thousands if not millions of victims never get to be made whole. Uh, how about we just set up the laws to make asset freezing easier and more effective so due process can levy appropriate fines and punitive damages? I don't care what level of the system it's at, the cops should NOT be extrajudicially...erm, reallocating wealth in any form. Let them sit on it to make sure it's not liquidated or moved during proceedings (with proper oversight) but there's enough bad judgement displayed by law enforcement at all levels through history that they can't be allowed to make that call ever. Do you think the 1960s FBI was making just decisions all the time? Do you think we can't end up there again? ulmont posted:"per curiam" means "by the court" and it basically just means the Court isn't identifying who wrote the majority opinion. But why? I guess that's what it boils down to for me I don't understand the value in doing it vs. just signing decisions/opinions. It feels shifty and deliberately opaque but the motives around that don't make sense with lifetime appointments.
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Feb 20, 2019 20:16
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Corsair Pool Boy posted:But why? I guess that's what it boils down to for me I don't understand the value in doing it vs. just signing decisions/opinions. It feels shifty and deliberately opaque but the motives around that don't make sense with lifetime appointments. In the beginning, the idea was that a case was so easily resolvable and non-controversial that it didn't need a specific author. It evolved into the Supreme Court ducking controversial issues, where you could in odd cases have a per curiam compromise position and then 9 concurrences / dissents from the per curiam opinion. The worst example of being deliberately opaque here was Bush v. Gore, where the Republican majority tried - completely unsuccessfully - to hide the ball that it was them loving the country over in 2000. Much more here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1967661
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Feb 20, 2019 20:22
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ulmont posted:Well, here the court basically said "if I can only fine you $X for this case, I can't forfeit your car worth $4X." That's pretty easy to measure. Yeah, but it doesn't seem to help when there is no crime to set the X. Also what bothers me in this case is that the state went to a separate civil case after the criminal penalties have been decided. Like if that's part of the punishment, should it not be decided during sentencing? (How does compensation for actual damages due to a crime usually work?)
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Feb 20, 2019 20:39
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OddObserver posted:Yeah, but it doesn't seem to help when there is no crime to set the X. That's how civil asset forfeiture works. You can't just seize random property - it has to be connected to a crime. In this case, "dealing in a controlled substance and conspiracy to commit theft." OddObserver posted:Also what bothers me in this case is that the state went to a separate civil case after the criminal penalties have been decided. Like if that's part of the punishment, should it not be decided during sentencing? No. The civil asset forfeiture is a case against the asset for having been used in a listed crime. The prosecuting attorney has to bring a separate case to prove the asset was used in a listed crime - and therefore forfeit - or return the property. https://codes.findlaw.com/in/title-34-civil-law-and-procedure/in-code-sect-34-24-1-1.html https://codes.findlaw.com/in/title-34-civil-law-and-procedure/in-code-sect-34-24-1-3.html OddObserver posted:(How does compensation for actual damages due to a crime usually work?) It depends. If the crime has restitution as a penalty, the amount of restitution is set as part sentencing. If the crime doesn't, the victim has to bring a separate civil action to prove actual damages (it's usually easy to prove actual commission of the fault with a criminal conviction in hand, though, but of course lots of criminal offenders don't have money to repay those amounts regardless).
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Feb 20, 2019 20:56
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Corsair Pool Boy posted:Uh, how about we just set up the laws to make asset freezing easier and more effective so due process can levy appropriate fines and punitive damages? I don't care what level of the system it's at, the cops should NOT be extrajudicially...erm, reallocating wealth in any form. Let them sit on it to make sure it's not liquidated or moved during proceedings (with proper oversight) but there's enough bad judgement displayed by law enforcement at all levels through history that they can't be allowed to make that call ever. Do you think the 1960s FBI was making just decisions all the time? Do you think we can't end up there again? Not sure what part of my post you're arguing against here, you just seem to be angrily rephrasing it all and then asking if I think Hoover was legit.
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Feb 20, 2019 20:57
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Mr. Nice! posted:SCOTUS just incorporated the 8th excessive fines clause against the state overturning Indiana's asset forfeiture of a $42,000 land rover when a maximum fine for the crime was $10,000. Now do corporations!
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Feb 20, 2019 21:23
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Rigel posted:As for the political impact of reviving privileges and immunities, I think its probably neutral, there could potentially have been huge rulings both ways. Back when they were trying to incorporate the 2nd amendment, the lawyer for some bizarre reason tried to argue privileges and immunities as his preferred method of incorporation, which attracted lots of amicus briefs from liberal lawyers excited at the idea.
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Feb 20, 2019 21:36
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Corporate personhood exists so you can do business with and tax a corporation as a single entity. It does not mean a corporation is literally a person.
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Feb 20, 2019 21:55
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AGGGGH BEES posted:Corporate personhood exists so you can do business with and tax a corporation as a single entity. It does not mean a corporation is literally a person. And so the corporation can have religious beliefs.
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Feb 21, 2019 00:12
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AGGGGH BEES posted:Corporate personhood exists so you can do business with and tax a corporation as a single entity. It does not mean a corporation is literally a person. You know this and we know this, but the conservative majority on the SCOTUS says otherwise because that's what their bosses demanded.
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Feb 21, 2019 04:40
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eke out posted:this is just thomas alone concurring in a denial of cert but still, lol A man who has rightfully been dragged through the mud for being a sexual predator doesn't like a ruling that prevents him (or his rear end in a top hat friends) from easily suing critics to silence them? I'm shocked. Truly.  FlamingLiberal posted:I hope this is the beginning of the end for civil forfeiture but considering how much money the cops make from it I doubt it will go quietly It's about as likely to go away as Payday loans, unfortunately. If it was actually used against big targets, like say a bank that was caught willingly laundering billions for drug cartels, then ok sure maybe keep it. But it's only used to gently caress poor people and enrich law enforcement.
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Feb 21, 2019 04:52
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AGGGGH BEES posted:Corporate personhood exists so you can do business with and tax a corporation as a single entity. It does not mean a corporation is literally a person. I meant more that corporations have personhood under the law, but the privileges and immunities clause specifically only extends to citizens (which it defines as persons born or naturalized.)
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Feb 21, 2019 05:00
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FAUXTON posted:Not sure what part of my post you're arguing against here, you just seem to be angrily rephrasing it all and then asking if I think Hoover was legit. I read your post as saying it should be OK for the cops to confiscate property sometimes, I'm saying it should always be subject to pretty strenuous judicial oversight. If I'm misreading that, my bad.
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Feb 21, 2019 06:15
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Corsair Pool Boy posted:I read your post as saying it should be OK for the cops to confiscate property sometimes, I'm saying it should always be subject to pretty strenuous judicial oversight. If I'm misreading that, my bad. Yeah definitely not OK for cops to steal personal assets.
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Feb 21, 2019 06:44
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Could incorporating the 8th make it harder for counties to foreclose and sell properties with tax delinquencies, including delinquent penalties of 10-20%, far below the property’s value? Or create situations where a prior owner to lost their home in that fashion could seek some relief? Could this cloud the title for the current owner? For reference, Cuyahoga County charges a flat 10% delinquency charge per year plus interest on delinquent property taxes. They either foreclose directly and order a sheriff’s auction, or sell the debt in tax certificate sales that give the purchaser the right to foreclose if the homeowner doesn’t meet their payment terms. Lots of people have lost their homes over owing $20k in taxes and fines on $200k houses because that $200k home has annual taxes of $8-9k and it doesn’t take much to fall behind, particularly if you’ve owned the house for decades and are on fixed income.
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Feb 21, 2019 13:01
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Jealous Cow posted:Could incorporating the 8th make it harder for counties to foreclose and sell properties with tax delinquencies, including delinquent penalties of 10-20%, far below the property’s value? Or create situations where a prior owner to lost their home in that fashion could seek some relief? Could this cloud the title for the current owner?
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Feb 21, 2019 15:34
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FlamingLiberal posted:It seems like this case dealt with criminal issues, not civil. Great point. Thanks
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Feb 21, 2019 15:36
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FlamingLiberal posted:It seems like this case dealt with criminal issues, not civil. I thought those forfeiture cases were civil. Like Starte of Ohio vs $20,000 cash and poo poo like that.
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Feb 21, 2019 16:21
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Ron Jeremy posted:I thought those forfeiture cases were civil. Like Starte of Ohio vs $20,000 cash and poo poo like that. Yes but, or possibly yes and. The case is civil but is based on the cash / truck / etc having been used in a crime. Based on that the court said this was sufficiently related to a criminal punishment that the excessive fines clause kicked in.
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Feb 21, 2019 16:36
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Can the 'corporations are people and entitled to the same things people are like freedom of speech' principle be explained relatively simply? Once you get to corporate personhood I can understand how you rule in favor of Citizens United, but I struggle with how you get to that idea - businesses are barely mentioned in the documents in question, and I have trouble believing Jefferson and all thought entities like the British tea companies deserved the same rights as rich white men.
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Feb 21, 2019 20:29
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Corsair Pool Boy posted:Can the 'corporations are people and entitled to the same things people are like freedom of speech' principle be explained relatively simply? Once you get to corporate personhood I can understand how you rule in favor of Citizens United, but I struggle with how you get to that idea - businesses are barely mentioned in the documents in question, and I have trouble believing Jefferson and all thought entities like the British tea companies deserved the same rights as rich white men. The core idea is that corporations are legal entities which can hold property and so forth -- legally speaking, owning property is a "legal right". That's basically what a corporation is -- it's a legally created fictional entity that has some of the rights of actual people. It can own things, sue, be sued, etc. On the other hand, there are some rights it clearly doesn't have -- to vote, to marry, etc. Constitutional rights are also legal rights, so the question is whether or not a "corporate person" is entitled to a given constitutional right in the same way that a "corporate person" can own property, or not entitled, in the same way it can't vote or marry. From there, quote:As Thom Hartmann notes the Supreme Court embraced Conkling’s reading of the 14th Amendment in a headnote in 1886 in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road: “Before argument, Mr. Chief Justice Waite said: ‘The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.’” This was not part of the formal opinion. But the damage was done. Later cases uncritically cited the headnote as if it had been part of the case. https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/hobby-lobby-argument Basically, "corporate personhood" is a bit of a distraction; corporations have *some* of the rights of people, and not others. The question is over *which* rights the corporations have, and the USSC has generally been very expansive on that (basically on the theory that corporations are made up of people).
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Feb 21, 2019 20:36
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Basically, "corporate personhood" is a bit of a distraction; corporations have *some* of the rights of people, and not others. The question is over *which* rights the corporations have, and the USSC has generally been very expansive on that (basically on the theory that corporations are made up of people). I've always hated this line of thinking. The people of the corporation have their individual rights that they're free to exercise, why do corporations get access to the same rights? Like for hobby lobby, the owners are free to worship how they see fit, but why does the corporation get to have any say in how it's employees? Campaign donates are the most glaring and egregious. Again, the owners are free to donate as individuals, why is there an additional ability for them to donate using their business's money? Especially considering that not everyone in the business would endorse who the company is spending money on.
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Feb 21, 2019 21:07
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I don't understand how the constitution can guarantee any human rights for corporations, when corporations are a creation of federal law and can all be legislated back out of existence tomorrow
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Feb 21, 2019 21:14
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