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Uglycat
Dec 4, 2000
MORE INDISPUTABLE PROOF I AM BAD AT POSTING
---------------->
SNL is going for trump's throat rn

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Ogmius815
Aug 25, 2005
centrism is a hell of a drug

Uglycat posted:

SNL is going for trump's throat rn

Well I guess he’s finished then.

(Yes I remember Sarah Palin). But she made an unbelievable rear end of herself more completely than SNL ever could.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Main Paineframe posted:

To get disqualified from Trump's case, it has to be about Trump's case. Hiring someone you're loving might be unethical, but unethical conduct isn't grounds to get disqualified from a case unless it specifically affects that case.

Alternatively, in theory, a prosecutor could do something so unethical that they just get fired period. Like, commit a felony themselves, openly, such that they get arrested for it, and then they can't prosecute anything at all, including Trump's case. But since they're in charge of the cops in their area . . . that generally only happens if the feds get involved. Like, for actual federal crimes.

I knew a prosecutor who openly drove around with expired plates on his car for like a year. Nobody did anything. I already talked about the prosecutor who kept loving subordinates in public restaurant bathrooms, which would get normal people arrested for all sorts of things. Prosecutors don't get arrested by cops for the same reason cops don't arrest other cops.

So even if Fani Willis did something obviously unethical . . . it probably wouldn't matter. This is america. Prosecutors do unethical poo poo all the time. It almost never matters.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


She didn't hire the guy she was loving. She hired him and then started loving him a year later. It's a whole different vibe.

withak
Jan 15, 2003


Fun Shoe
Is that grooming?

GhostofJohnMuir
Aug 14, 2014

anime is not good
it's bullshit of her to shtup the subordinate she hired for an unprecedented case on the national stage. I don't care if it follows industry ethical guidelines, it implies a level of naivete that's hard to believe

Staluigi
Jun 22, 2021

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

it's bullshit of her to shtup the subordinate she hired for an unprecedented case on the national stage. I don't care if it follows industry ethical guidelines, it implies a level of naivete that's hard to believe

it falls under the category of "implicit evidence that at some point a monkey's paw was used in a related wish"

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

mobby_6kl posted:

The DA is, obviously, supposed to want to lock him up, so there's no issue there of course.

But what about 3) "why is she doing this as an extremely expensive and time-consuming RICO case with like 20 defendants as opposed to a another, more effective way of locking him up".

Again, IANAL so I don't know if the defense can bring this up (as it doesn't hurt them), and if a disqualification from the case is a possible or likely outcome. But, I can see how this situation is problematic at least, and some actual lawyers think it might be a problem. Others see to disagree though :v:

If I remember the last episode of Law & Chaos, her position is elected too (:wtf:) so I think that might introduce even more complications.



Thanks for the quote, found the article.

It is a different situation. But looking at that in context, it doesn't seem to say that this case would require a new trial:

My interpretation is that he's saying:
a. Like in the Trump case, the innocence or guilt of the accused is not a factor
b. The judge and public defender loving outside the courthouse [lol] required a new trial

Having listened to several of his guest appearances as well as the other lawyers, I don't think a new trial ever came up as a possible remedy. The worst case always seem to be that it gets assigned to a different prosecutor.

Uh let me apologize. I misread that quote because I was sick as hell yesterday and my brain was working at a much lower level than I realize. I am sorry.

Murgos
Oct 21, 2010

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

it's bullshit of her to shtup the subordinate she hired for an unprecedented case on the national stage. I don't care if it follows industry ethical guidelines, it implies a level of naivete that's hard to believe

I agree. I’ve decided not to send her a Christmas card next year.

Workplace romance is a thing and it’s essentially never actionable without hard evidence of something that would be wrong irregardless of the romance.

Murgos
Oct 21, 2010
A lot of people ITT have latched onto “appearance of conflict” which is actually only a standard that corporate HR tries to hold you to because they are there to protect the company.

Gyges
Aug 4, 2004

NOW NO ONE
RECOGNIZE HULK

mobby_6kl posted:


If I remember the last episode of Law & Chaos, her position is elected too (:wtf:) so I think that might introduce even more complications.

I'm pretty sure virtually all DAs in the US are elected. We loving love making positions that should be outside electoral politics into elected positions.

Uglycat posted:

SNL is going for trump's throat rn

How are they still using the worst Trump impersonator in history as their Trump? Baldwin sucked, but he was infinitely better than some random old guy in a wig who apparently was once vaguely told about how Trump talks and acts.

Scags McDouglas
Sep 9, 2012

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

it's bullshit of her to shtup the subordinate she hired for an unprecedented case on the national stage. I don't care if it follows industry ethical guidelines, it implies a level of naivete that's hard to believe

Thanks, this is exactly the way I feel about it. We're arguing a lot about whether it's morally or legally questionable, but if this winds up impacting the case one iota, I think it's fair for anyone to say I Wish She Had Not Done This.

If the entire country is relying upon the outcome of this case, I think there are a few invisible lines that are pretty easy not to cross. I'm certainly replete with my own vices, but if I had the responsibility of this case one me (and the associated stakes) I'd be Ned Flanders-level vanilla just as a courtesy to the nation.

Scags McDouglas
Sep 9, 2012

Murgos posted:

Workplace romance is a thing

I'm not sure the analogy holds because this is an especially important 'workplace' at the moment. Usually the worst case scenario is an EEOC complaint, a lawsuit, dissolution of the company.

For this one, one of the bad scenarios is a Delay of Game on a case that crucially needs to keep moving for the betterment of the country.

The Question IRL
Jun 8, 2013

Only two contestants left! Here is Doom's chance for revenge...

Murgos posted:

A lot of people ITT have latched onto “appearance of conflict” which is actually only a standard that corporate HR tries to hold you to because they are there to protect the company.

In fairness "the appearance of conflict" is a legitimate reason for judges to recuse themselves in trials. (The classic example being that one of the parties is related to the judge. You don't have to prove that the judge is conflicted, just that to a 3rd party there I'd the appearance of a conflict of interest.)

The reality is in any case, when you started hearing or seeing this type of relationship between one of the parties and one of the investigators come out (regardless of if it had an effect on the investigation or not.) the safe legal decision should have been "one or both of these parties needs to be replaced with someone else.)

Just to keep everything above board.
That's before you get to the fact that with a former president involved, that all the I's should be dotted and T's crossed.

The fact that people don't want that done seems to come down to one of two reasons.

1) A fear that another person coming and taking over the case would just decide to kot prosecute Trump.

Or

2) You have a connection to the case. In which case, hello Ms. Willis.

Murgos
Oct 21, 2010

Scags McDouglas posted:

I'm not sure the analogy holds because this is an especially important 'workplace' at the moment. Usually the worst case scenario is an EEOC complaint, a lawsuit, dissolution of the company.

Show me the case where a company was dissolved because of the romance and not some other behavior that was actually illegal regardless of romantic involvement.

Scags McDouglas
Sep 9, 2012

Murgos posted:

Show me the case where a company was dissolved because of the romance and not some other behavior that was actually illegal regardless of romantic involvement.

I think you might be misconstruing my first point, which was fundamentally "worst case scenario, not that bad". I was proposing the literal, hypothetical worst, not something that happens often in practice.

So let me amend my argument. In a private company, the worst case scenario is absolutely nothing. In this particular instance, given the stakes, if there's even a 1% chance of it affecting the case 1%, it was a selfish move.

DTurtle
Apr 10, 2011


Scags McDouglas posted:

If the entire country is relying upon the outcome of this case, I think there are a few invisible lines that are pretty easy not to cross. I'm certainly replete with my own vices, but if I had the responsibility of this case one me (and the associated stakes) I'd be Ned Flanders-level vanilla just as a courtesy to the nation.
If the entire country is relying upon the outcome of this case, then you‘re already hosed. If the entire country is lost because of a single relationship developing while working together, then you‘re already hosed.

Unless something else comes up, then this entire thing is a nothingburger and you should stop taking over right-wing bullshit and catastrophizing.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

The Question IRL posted:

In fairness "the appearance of conflict" is a legitimate reason for judges to recuse themselves in trials. (The classic example being that one of the parties is related to the judge. You don't have to prove that the judge is conflicted, just that to a 3rd party there I'd the appearance of a conflict of interest.)

The reality is in any case, when you started hearing or seeing this type of relationship between one of the parties and one of the investigators come out (regardless of if it had an effect on the investigation or not.) the safe legal decision should have been "one or both of these parties needs to be replaced with someone else.)

Just to keep everything above board.
That's before you get to the fact that with a former president involved, that all the I's should be dotted and T's crossed.

The fact that people don't want that done seems to come down to one of two reasons.

1) A fear that another person coming and taking over the case would just decide to kot prosecute Trump.

Or

2) You have a connection to the case. In which case, hello Ms. Willis.

Uh, you do realize that the investigator is literally someone who works for the prosecutor and is working on their behalf, right? This isn't like the prosecutor is boning a police investigator or something. This is exactly like two prosecutors working on the same case boning. Would that be a conflict of interest? No, of course not. That is what unbiased lawyers and prosecutors have been saying, because it'd stupid to say that would somehow affect the case in a way that matters.

That's why the only example of it being a conflict of interest that the guy could come up was "well she could have sabotaged the trial so it takes longer so her husband gets paid more" which would be pretty hard to argue unless you already had a grudge against her and wanted her off the case.

Scags McDouglas posted:

I think you might be misconstruing my first point, which was fundamentally "worst case scenario, not that bad". I was proposing the literal, hypothetical worst, not something that happens often in practice.

So let me amend my argument. In a private company, the worst case scenario is absolutely nothing. In this particular instance, given the stakes, if there's even a 1% chance of it affecting the case 1%, it was a selfish move.

I believe the quote was that the evidence Willis provided made it clear that there was a 0.00001% chance of there was any wrong-doing, and only that high because you can never know for sure.

Kchama fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Feb 4, 2024

Scags McDouglas
Sep 9, 2012

DTurtle posted:

If the entire country is relying upon the outcome of this case, then you‘re already hosed. If the entire country is lost because of a single relationship developing while working together, then you‘re already hosed.

Unless something else comes up, then this entire thing is a nothingburger and you should stop taking over right-wing bullshit and catastrophizing.

I'm not really sure it's fair to argue from the binary lens of "hosed" vs "not hosed" when there's very obviously a gradient and this is an important case that should be treated as such.

Also, I have no idea what "taking over right-wing bullshit" means in this case, and I'm a bit confused about the catastrophizing when I say "if this delays the case, I wish she hadn't done this".

DarkHorse
Dec 13, 2006

Vroom vroom, BEEP BEEP!
Nap Ghost

DTurtle posted:

If the entire country is relying upon the outcome of this case, then you‘re already hosed. If the entire country is lost because of a single relationship developing while working together, then you‘re already hosed.

We're already hosed and have been for years. We came within a single person's decision of a prolonged succession crisis and a potentially successful coup. We were minutes, sometimes seconds away from members of Congress getting assassinated on the floor. There's a litany of calamities inflicted upon up by just four years of Trump that have basically consumed what little resilience we had left.

We're basically holding on by our fingernails, and at that point every fingernail is important

Edit: to be clear I don't think this and this alone is all that's holding things together, but I can't be alone in thinking the margins for survival seem to be getting thinner and thinner

Scags McDouglas
Sep 9, 2012

Kchama posted:

I believe the quote was that the evidence Willis provided made it clear that there was a 0.00001% chance of there was any wrong-doing, and only that high because you can never know for sure.

I'm completely with you on the point that there was no wrong-doing from a legal perspective, I'm talking about a practical perspective if it impacts the case, period.

If this issue gradually disappears with no material impact, then absolutely my concerns didn't come to fruition and I'm wrong. Hell, feel free to hold me to that in a future argument.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

Scags McDouglas posted:

I'm completely with you on the point that there was no wrong-doing from a legal perspective, I'm talking about a practical perspective if it impacts the case, period.

If this issue gradually disappears with no material impact, then absolutely my concerns didn't come to fruition and I'm wrong. Hell, feel free to hold me to that in a future argument.

If the issue isn't legal then it doesn't matter as far as the trial is concerned, therefore the case is unaffected.

Otherwise it just seems like you're arguing for doing nothing since even crossing your Ts and dotting your is perfectly can potentially effect the case some minute amount. Since hell, according to the evidence Fani provided, that is exactly what was done with regards to the relationship.

fool of sound
Oct 10, 2012
Sorry what is the theory that this is harmful to the defendant? Like, assuming that she did nepotistically bring in an under qualified prosecutor then that’s bad for her office and for justice in general but it outright benefits the defense.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Murgos posted:

A lot of people ITT have latched onto “appearance of conflict” which is actually only a standard that corporate HR tries to hold you to because they are there to protect the company.

I mean, it would be good, in the abstract general sense, if that were the standard that's actually used. But it isn't.

The Question IRL posted:

In fairness "the appearance of conflict" is a legitimate reason for judges to recuse themselves in trials. (The classic example being that one of the parties is related to the judge. You don't have to prove that the judge is conflicted, just that to a 3rd party there I'd the appearance of a conflict of interest.)

The reality is in any case, when you started hearing or seeing this type of relationship between one of the parties and one of the investigators come out (regardless of if it had an effect on the investigation or not.) the safe legal decision should have been "one or both of these parties needs to be replaced with someone else.)

Just to keep everything above board.

Absolutely! But the difference between "should recuse" and "must recuse" is HUGE. In one, the judge or prosecutor is recusing voluntarily; in another, some third party is forcing them to step down. Entirely different things!

Especially for a case like this where there are good arguments *against* recusal also, primarily the avoidance of delay, since it's extremely important this trial take place before the election.

Gyges posted:


How are they still using the worst Trump impersonator in history as their Trump? Baldwin sucked, but he was infinitely better than some random old guy in a wig who apparently was once vaguely told about how Trump talks and acts.

The new guy probably hasn't shot anyone lately.

DarkHorse posted:

We're already hosed and have been for years. We came within a single person's decision of a prolonged succession crisis and a potentially successful coup. We were minutes, sometimes seconds away from members of Congress getting assassinated on the floor. There's a litany of calamities inflicted upon up by just four years of Trump that have basically consumed what little resilience we had left.

We're basically holding on by our fingernails, and at that point every fingernail is important

Edit: to be clear I don't think this and this alone is all that's holding things together, but I can't be alone in thinking the margins for survival seem to be getting thinner and thinner

Yeah, there's a pretty strong argument that our democracy is *already* over, just because if your choice is between the pro democracy guy and the anti democracy guy, you don't actually have a democratic *choice* any more.

selec
Sep 6, 2003

the guy playing trump is only 34 years old. SNL makeup team should win a makeup design emmy for the turkey neck they put on him. there's really no accounting for taste though--I thought Baldwin's Trump was incredibly weak and relied a lot more on Baldwin's personality than any genuinely great impersonation. James Johnson Austin does a much better one--it's really telling when you see him do it out of costume.

DTurtle
Apr 10, 2011


Scags McDouglas posted:

I'm not really sure it's fair to argue from the binary lens of "hosed" vs "not hosed" when there's very obviously a gradient and this is an important case that should be treated as such.

Also, I have no idea what "taking over right-wing bullshit" means in this case, and I'm a bit confused about the catastrophizing when I say "if this delays the case, I wish she hadn't done this".
I mixed you up a bit with some other posters constantly screeching about about how this entire case is now DOOMEd and will be thrown out. So sorry if that isn’t the case.

You only pointed out that it might possibly be delayed and you thought that that would be bad. To which my reply is that there have been a ton of completely nonsensical appeals and rulings in various cases that have done similar things. This is just another one.

The right-wing bullshit is taking over the (based on wrong rumors) interpretation that there is a relevant conflict of interest at work here.

As for the catastrophizing: You’ve not done it but just look at posts like this:

DarkHorse posted:

We're already hosed and have been for years. We came within a single person's decision of a prolonged succession crisis and a potentially successful coup. We were minutes, sometimes seconds away from members of Congress getting assassinated on the floor. There's a litany of calamities inflicted upon up by just four years of Trump that have basically consumed what little resilience we had left.

We're basically holding on by our fingernails, and at that point every fingernail is important

Edit: to be clear I don't think this and this alone is all that's holding things together, but I can't be alone in thinking the margins for survival seem to be getting thinner and thinner
You and I have a different interpretation of things being hosed. hosed is Germany 1933. The US isn’t there yet and a lot of things can still be done to stop it from getting there.

There was no chance of the coup succeeding, and it never was up to a single person. Members of Congress being assassinated would have been a huge tragedy, but also wouldn’t have meant an unavoidable downfall of American democracy.

That said, the US does need to get to terms with antidemocratic forces in the Republican and Trump worlds and rapidly ramp up the fight against those. Which is something that every single person in the US can contribute to.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Yeah, there's a pretty strong argument that our democracy is *already* over, just because if your choice is between the pro democracy guy and the anti democracy guy, you don't actually have a democratic *choice* any more.
That’s total bullshit. American democracy is about a lot more than just the election for President.

DTurtle fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Feb 4, 2024

Scags McDouglas
Sep 9, 2012

Kchama posted:

Otherwise it just seems like you're arguing for doing nothing

Sir there actually is a gap between "nothing" and "sex with a coworker / subordinate".

DTurtle posted:

I mixed you up a bit with some other posters constantly screeching about about how this entire case is now DOOMEd and will be thrown out. So sorry if that isn’t the case.

You're totally fine, I make mistakes like that constantly. I'm too old to keep aliases and avatars accurately in my head anymore.

DTurtle posted:

As for the catastrophizing: You’ve not done it but just look at posts like this:

Not to dig in further but I would like to point out that I directly disagreed with that person.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

Scags McDouglas posted:

Sir there actually is a gap between "nothing" and "sex with a coworker / subordinate".

You're totally fine, I make mistakes like that constantly. I'm too old to keep aliases and avatars accurately in my head anymore.

Not to dig in further but I would like to point out that I directly disagreed with that person.

As long as you do what you're supposed to with regards to reporting and following procedures, then there is actually no gap in the eyes of the law and the rules. And according to experts, she did that.

Again, the only scenario that even the guy crusading against her could come up with that it would matter was laughably far-fetched when you look at reality.

Kchama fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Feb 4, 2024

Main Paineframe
Oct 27, 2010

GhostofJohnMuir posted:

it's bullshit of her to shtup the subordinate she hired for an unprecedented case on the national stage. I don't care if it follows industry ethical guidelines, it implies a level of naivete that's hard to believe

Sure, but "is it stupid as hell?" and "is it legal grounds for disqualification from the case under Georgia law?" are different questions which don't necessarily have the same answer.

fool of sound posted:

Sorry what is the theory that this is harmful to the defendant? Like, assuming that she did nepotistically bring in an under qualified prosecutor then that’s bad for her office and for justice in general but it outright benefits the defense.

The Trump team's theory appears to be that she wouldn't have prosecuted this case otherwise, that Trump was targeted specifically because he made for a good excuse to hire a special prosecutor.

As far as I can tell, no one else is really proposing a theoretical harm to the defendant, they're just catastrophizing based on the political impact of the case. And I can't say they're completely wrong to do so. The highly political nature of the case means that much of the legal system is overly cautious when approaching it, for fear of being accused of political motives. It's not unthinkable for the judge to ignore the legalities and deem the mere appearance of conflict to be too much when dealing with Trump. But it's by no means guaranteed that this would happen, and doing it would fly in the face of the legal guidelines and requirements governing disqualification.

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

Main Paineframe posted:

The Trump team's theory appears to be that she wouldn't have prosecuted this case otherwise, that Trump was targeted specifically because he made for a good excuse to hire a special prosecutor.

Which is bullshit. There's like thousands of people in the Atlanta area alone which would be great targets for such a graft who weren't a literal ex-president with the Supreme Court having their back. Trump is a goddamn terrible target for graft like that.

The Question IRL
Jun 8, 2013

Only two contestants left! Here is Doom's chance for revenge...

Hieronymous Alloy posted:


Absolutely! But the difference between "should recuse" and "must recuse" is HUGE. In one, the judge or prosecutor is recusing voluntarily; in another, some third party is forcing them to step down. Entirely different things!

Yes but this is something that isn't unique to the Trump case alone. Whomever Willis boss was, as soon as they knew about the relationship should have basically said "you both can't be on the same cases together as the optics looks bad and we need to appear professional. "

And if their boss didn't know about the relationship because it was kept a secret, than that makes the whole thing worse. Because the question becomes "well why did you hide this relationship from your co-workers, if you didn't think you were doing anything wrong?"

This is absolutely an example of very bad personal judgment that allowed a situation to develop that should never have gotten this far.

Just off the top of my head, you are opening the door to "did you properly scrutinise your investigators work and make sure it was above board?
Given that you have a personal relationship with him, is it not possible that you did not scrutinies their work in the way you would another colleges work?
And furthermore, given that you have already been secretive and duplicitous about your relationship, how can we trust that you aren't being duplicitous now?"

I'm not saying that Wilis is any of these things. But this was a situation that should have been dealt with before hand, and the Judge may find their hands tied in how they will have to deal with it.

Kchama
Jul 25, 2007

The Question IRL posted:

Yes but this is something that isn't unique to the Trump case alone. Whomever Willis boss was, as soon as they knew about the relationship should have basically said "you both can't be on the same cases together as the optics looks bad and we need to appear professional. "

And if their boss didn't know about the relationship because it was kept a secret, than that makes the whole thing worse. Because the question becomes "well why did you hide this relationship from your co-workers, if you didn't think you were doing anything wrong?"

This is absolutely an example of very bad personal judgment that allowed a situation to develop that should never have gotten this far.

Just off the top of my head, you are opening the door to "did you properly scrutinise your investigators work and make sure it was above board?
Given that you have a personal relationship with him, is it not possible that you did not scrutinies their work in the way you would another colleges work?
And furthermore, given that you have already been secretive and duplicitous about your relationship, how can we trust that you aren't being duplicitous now?"

I'm not saying that Wilis is any of these things. But this was a situation that should have been dealt with before hand, and the Judge may find their hands tied in how they will have to deal with it.

Does it? Like, not even the anti-Fani guy or the Trump team is alleging any of that. Because it doesn't really make any sense as a "conflict of interest". If they were such easy questions that could tie a judge's hands, then surely the people who want to see Fani gone would be posing them.

mdemone
Mar 14, 2001

Also she's the DA, she IS the boss.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

The Question IRL posted:

. Whomever Willis boss was,

Willis is elected I believe. She is her boss.

DeadlyMuffin
Jul 3, 2007

Travic posted:

So far the classified documents and election interference cases are dead.

I don't think either of these is true

The Artificial Kid
Feb 22, 2002
Plibble

Main Paineframe posted:


The Trump team's theory appears to be that she wouldn't have prosecuted this case otherwise, that Trump was targeted specifically because he made for a good excuse to hire a special prosecutor.



Was Wade loving the whole grand jury?

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004

коммунизм хранится в яичках

Nitrousoxide posted:

Yeah, my parents did this for me too when I was young. And later got me to apply for a low credit ceiling card and had me use it for everything and immediately pay it off to generate a good credit history.

I mean, as long as you pay off all your purchases every month, it's nothing but upsides to the user anyway. You pay the same (unless some retailers charge more for the use of credit, like some gas stations do) but you can get the cashback, travel miles, whatever on top for "free".

Also, and this is very important, if you use it for online purchases and someone manages to scam it, you can report it and it'll be the CC company's money they're going after to get back rather than yours. Better in every way than debit cards.

Milosh posted:

It’s great that our legal system just lets people with money delay things infinitely.

Note the Texas AG has managed to dodge going to trial for indictment on two counts of securities fraud (first degree felonies) and one count of failure to register with state regulators (3rd degree felony) for nine years and counting. His indictment was on 31 July 2015.

Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Feb 5, 2024

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004

коммунизм хранится в яичках
Edit: Double post.

Paracaidas
Sep 24, 2016
Consistently Tedious!
Baude and Paulsen (the conservatives behind the most prominent law articles backing the theory used by Republican and independent voters challenging Trump's spot on the ballot in support of what I'm told is a Democratic attempt to effectively disenfranchise Republicans) have another piece out - part of a continuing blog series for Volkoh in Reason - entitled "But he hasn't been convicted of anything".

Quickly, the state of play:

quote:

Professor [and Bush SCOTUS shortlistee] Michael McConnell appears to have been the first to make this argument, in a post on this blog shortly after we first posted our draft article on SSRN in August, 2023. As McConnell put it:

quote:

Congress has enacted a statute, 18 U.S.C. §2383, which covers participation in rebellion or insurrection, and which provides that those found guilty "shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States." This mode of enforcement has been enacted by the entity entrusted with responsibility to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment; it proceeds through the ordinary course of prosecution by the executive, trial by a court, decision by a jury, and appeal to appellate courts, with due process at every step. It is significant that the Department of Justice has prosecuted hundreds of persons for their involvement in the January 6 incursion at the Capitol, but has not charged anyone, including Trump, with insurrection under this or any other statute.
Others have echoed this suggestion. The Wall Street Journal in September 2023 editorialized against applying Section Three to disqualify Trump, saying that "it is surely relevant that Mr. Trump hasn't been charged with insurrection under 18 U.S.C. Section 2383." Trump's brief on the merits in the Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson asserts (pp. 38-40) that Section Three can only be enforced following a criminal conviction under 18 U.S.C. §2383. At least two amicus briefs supporting Trump make the same claim.

With all due respect, the argument is legally meritless, top to bottom. It is wrong as a matter of the text, history, and structure of Section Three. But it also is wrong on the details of §2283 itself.

First, the most obvious: it's stdh.constitution.txt

quote:

Begin with Section Three. The text of Section Three nowhere contains or references any requirement of criminal-law conviction as a prerequisite to, or condition of, Section Three's operation. To read such a requirement into Section Three is to make up something that is not there. Rather, as we put it in our original article, Section Three's "disqualification, where triggered, just is." It parallels the Constitution's other qualifications for office, such as age, residency, and citizenship, none of which of course requires a criminal trial.

Then, the contemporary:

quote:

The history of Section Three nowhere reflects a need for criminal trials. Indeed, Section Three was enacted as an alternative to widespread prosecutions for treason or other crimes – prosecutions that were thought both practically difficult and needlessly punitive. After Section Three was enacted it immediately disqualified many former Confederate officials from holding office; none of these people was ever criminally prosecuted (let alone convicted) of the federal crime of insurrection, even though the offense was on the books at the time. Early reported state judicial cases holding former Confederate rebels disqualified from office did not require or suggest the need for prior criminal-law conviction. And even Chief Justice Chase, in Griffin's Case, who did quite wrongly suggest that only Congress could enforce Section Three, never suggested that the enforcement must take the form of criminal prosecutions and criminal trials. If this argument had been thought non-frivolous at the time, surely Chase would have been among the first to make it.
For context, Chase was the judge who ruled from the perspective that overturning a conviction just because the judge was a former Confederate covered by Section 3 would be unworkable in practice because too many of them had re-emerged with power in to Southern governments. That the appellant was black shouldn't surprise anyone, as nearly all attempts to defang or otherwise limit Section 3 are rooted in anti-reconstruction principles. If Chase, throwing anything he could against the wall (and, per historians, coaching attorneys on which arguments to bring him in similar cases), didn't even float this as a way to dodge the plain text of the constitution... :shrug:

Next, the structural argument

quote:

And the structure and logic of the Constitution confirms that there is no need for criminal law prosecution either. The existence of legislative power in Congress "to enforce" the Fourteenth Amendment (including through criminal law) does not mean that Section Three, or other parts of the amendment, like dormant until Congress acts. Congress does not bring the Fourteenth Amendment to life; it has power to add its enforcement arm to the amendment's self-executing legal force, not subtract from it. Even if the criminal-law insurrection statute were believed to have been enacted as a mode of enforcement of Section Three, it is basic that such a statute cannot limit or narrow the meaning of a provision of the Constitution.

Here, at least, we have an objection rooted in the labor and (left)populist movements of 1910-1940 - that Congress may itself limit or otherwise interpret the constitution if it has enough votes. Those efforts failed, and "we should ignore the constitution because republican voters want us to" carries even less weight than the arguments a century ago. That Congress could create legislation and otherwise enforce the 14th amendment does not mean it must. Even for a SCOTUS that's gleefully sharpening its knives against the administrative state in an unprecedented manner, that's going to be a bridge too far... absent a disclaimer this constitutional reading applies solely to this amendment when the subject is a former president or something else wildly limiting.

Now our authors get... sassy.

quote:

These points should be enough to end the matter, but this wrongheaded objection is so persistent, so insidiously misleading, that it is worth saying more.

In fact many of these invocations of 18 U.S.C. §2283 misunderstand §2283 itself. The federal criminal statute in question was not enacted as a device for enforcing Section Three. As we set forth in our original article (see pp. 82-84), the criminal prohibition of insurrection, now codified at 18 U.S.C. §2383, was enacted in 1862 – in the middle of the Civil War, as Section Two of the "Second Confiscation Act" – :siren:several years before the drafting of the Fourteenth Amendment:siren:. The Act made it a crime to "incite, set on foot, assist, or engage in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof" or to "give aid or comfort thereto" or to "engage in or give aide and comfort to" any "existing rebellion or insurrection." As such, the statute was certainly a precursor of some of the terms and concepts later employed in Section Three, and to that extent a useful marker in understanding the meaning of the similar terms used in Section Three. (The same is true, we argue in the article, for other provisions of the Second Confiscation Act.) As we state in the article, the Second Confiscation Act "is practically a glossary of terms used in Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment proposed by Congress just four years later." (Ms. at 82.)

But it is quite simply wrong – indeed, a rather embarrassing error of historical fact – to identify this criminal-law statute as (in McConnell's words) Congress's chosen "mode of enforcement" of Section Three, pursuant to Congress's legislative power under Section Five to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. That would have been impossible. The provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment did not exist at the time the statute was adopted. The notion that the criminal statute punishing insurrection was designed as a "mode" of effectuating Section Three is simply ahistorical – a little like saying that Lincoln's election was attributable to his assassination.

Which leads to a similar point as above, one that would require a entirely new school of judicial review that makes the constitution subservient to legislation... which is particularly ludicrous when the portion in question is an amendment, which requires a higher threshold to pass than a law.

quote:

Section Three is something Congress chose to add to the Constitution on top of the already-existing federal crime of insurrection, not the other way around. To hold a new constitutional provision hostage to a pre-existing federal statute would strangle the all-important power of constitutional amendment

To the extent that anything around Section Three is clear or an obvious decision (or any of the other terms thrown around previously ITT by a few posters), it's that there exists zero textual support for arguments that a conviction (in court or by the Senate) is required for disqualification. That argument is, at best, a complete misunderstanding of the text of Section Three. There are other arguments against disqualification that carry more weight as do both the general "Roberts court won't disqualify Trump" mantra and the more specific "therefore, they'll probably use [insert logic here]" but those are less arguments and more SCOTUSkremlinology.

ETA - in case you think I'm overstating the mentality of the opposition to disqualification, a reminder (from MSNBC contributor Lisa Rubin) that Trump's lead at SCOTUS is the former Texas Solicitor General behind the 'unenjoinable' gambit of SB8:

https://twitter.com/lawofruby/status/1754539598275879113
https://twitter.com/lawofruby/status/1754545572915163214
https://twitter.com/lawofruby/status/1754546592428761410

It's easy to get caught up in the Trump-specific questions, but these challenges are the state and federal relationship version of "those who the law protects but does not bind and those who the law binds but does not protect", and those carrying water for those interpretations merit a :raise:

Paracaidas fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Feb 5, 2024

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Murgos
Oct 21, 2010
Remember when Habba filed a motion that the Carroll case should be dismissed because she claimed Lewis Kaplan mentored Roberta Kaplan when at a law firm at the same time 30 years ago?

Well, apparently Habba in her brief cited 'a partner' who recalled that fact and then also the NY Post published an article also citing an 'unnamed partner'.

Well, Roberta thinks that maybe this unnamed partner is a figment of Habba's imagination.
https://www.newsweek.com/alina-habba-used-fake-person-roberta-kaplan-accusations-1865351

I'm guessing Roberta probably talked to the Weiss partners and no one admitted to supplying the information. Which would be REALLY WEIRD for a very senior lawyer who knew his testimony was about to be used in a court proceeding and so was likely to come out.

This could go badly for Habba.

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