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RE Oracle vs. Google, I think the current ruling is correct. Oracle might be a garbage company, but Google straight up ripped off Java to make something that wasn’t compatible. That’s a different situation than something like Wine or WSL, which use APIs to translate applications to different systems, and I would consider that fair. Android doesn’t run Java apps, it only covers part of the API, and it enables using Java libraries on their incompatible platform. Overall, I think the only big thing with this case is that APIs are copyrightable, and that’s already done and over.
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Mar 28, 2018 00:17
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evilweasel posted:state legislators are idiots who routinely propose blatantly unconstitutional laws for the sake of currying favor with donors/idiot base, to get free media to raise their profile, or just because they are the same sort of idiot as their base. you shouldn't assume anything about what is legal based on what they propose. Also, the body of every state legislature is at least 10% sex fiends who are one story away from having to resign, and charitably another 10% are white collar criminals.
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Mar 28, 2018 00:35
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ulmont posted:The Federal Circuit has issued a new opinion in the Oracle / Google Java API trial. While not SCOTUS, I think we've discussed it here in the past. oh god this is still going on  I remember the awful derails from the first time
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Mar 28, 2018 01:08
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:oh god this is still going on Don’t worry, now we get a third trial (and probably a third appeal where the CAFC overturns the damages verdict as too low.)
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Mar 28, 2018 01:45
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Double Punctuation posted:RE Oracle vs. Google, I think the current ruling is correct. Oracle might be a garbage company, but Google straight up ripped off Java to make something that wasn’t compatible. That’s a different situation than something like Wine or WSL, which use APIs to translate applications to different systems, and I would consider that fair. Android doesn’t run Java apps, it only covers part of the API, and it enables using Java libraries on their incompatible platform. Overall, I think the only big thing with this case is that APIs are copyrightable, and that’s already done and over. quote:On this record, factors one [purpose and character of the use] and four [market harm] weigh heavily against a finding of fair use, while factor two [nature of the copyrighted work] weighs in favor of such a finding and factor three [amount and substantiality of the portion used] is, at best, neutral. Weighing these factors together, we conclude that Google’s use of the declaring code and SSO of the 37 API packages was not fair as a matter of law. Is that truly a finding of law and not of fact?
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Mar 28, 2018 02:08
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hobbesmaster posted:Is that truly a finding of law and not of fact? A more traditional finding of fact is "he shot him, and he was real mad at him at the time due to the text messages about the drug debt" So I guess you can say "based on these legal factors, this is X" is a finding of law. Same way that finding liability in a tortious case even though it relies on facts, is a serious of legal considerations and would be a finding of law.
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Mar 28, 2018 05:30
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hobbesmaster posted:Is that truly a finding of law and not of fact? If you dig into the opinion there is a fair amount of fine distinction between "historical facts" for the jury and fair use factors (apparently viable as a matter of law). Commentary I've seen describes this as the fed circuit taking fair use away from the jury (as they note in the opinion it's a bit of an open question).
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Mar 28, 2018 05:39
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algebra testes posted:A more traditional finding of fact is "he shot him, and he was real mad at him at the time due to the text messages about the drug debt" I apologise if this is like lovely Australian law read of an american case, my bad. I forget you have juries for these things and it makes a difference what they call it.
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Mar 28, 2018 05:45
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So how many billions in damages will this be? Every android device ever sold has infringed and I’m sure that SoL has been tolled during litigation.
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Mar 28, 2018 14:02
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Mr. Nice! posted:So how many billions in damages will this be? Every android device ever sold has infringed and I’m sure that SoL has been tolled during litigation. Oracle is looking for $9.3 billion. Google had been estimating $0.1 billion. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/28/oracle_google_damages_social_media/
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Mar 28, 2018 15:05
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 Opinion! This is hypertechnical civil procedure bullshit with a unanimous opinion. I recommend waiting for a more interesting case. HALL, AS PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ESTATE OF HALL AND AS SUCCESSOR TRUSTEE OF THE ETHLYN LOUISE HALL FAMILY TRUST v. HALL ET AL. Brief Background: Respondent Samuel Hall served as caretaker and legal advisor to his mother Ethlyn Hall, a property owner in the United States Virgin Islands. After falling out with Samuel, Ethlyn transferred her property into a trust and designated her daughter, petitioner Elsa Hall, as her successor trustee. Ethlyn sued Samuel and his law firm over the handling of her affairs (the “trust case”). When Ethlyn died, Elsa took Ethlyn’s place as trustee and as plaintiff. Samuel later filed a separate complaint against Elsa in her individual capacity (the “individual case”). On Samuel’s motion, the District Court consolidated the trust and individual cases under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42(a). The District Court held a single trial of the consolidated cases. In the individual case, the jury returned a verdict for Samuel, but the District Court granted Elsa a new trial. In the trust case, the jury returned a verdict against Elsa, and she filed a notice of appeal from the judgment in that case. Samuel moved to dismiss the appeal on jurisdictional grounds, arguing that the judgment in the trust case was not final and appealable because his claims against Elsa remained unresolved in the individual case. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit agreed and dismissed the appeal. Holding: Three Terms ago, we held that one of multiple cases consolidated for multidistrict litigation under 28 U. S. C. §1407 is immediately appealable upon an order disposing of that case, regardless of whether any of the others remain pending. Gelboim v. Bank of America Corp., 574 U. S. ___ (2015). We left open, however, the question whether the same is true with respect to cases consolidated under Rule 42(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Id., at ___, n. 4 (slip op., at 7, n. 4). This case presents that question. ... The trust and individual cases initially proceeded along separate tracks. Eventually, on Samuel’s motion, the District Court consolidated the cases under Rule 42(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, ordering that “[a]ll submissions in the consolidated case shall be filed in” the docket assigned to the trust case. App. to Pet. for Cert. A–15. ... In the individual case, the jury returned a verdict for Samuel on his intentional infliction of emotional distress claim against Elsa, awarding him $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1.5 million in punitive damages. The clerk entered judgment in that case, but the District Court granted Elsa a new trial, which had the effect of reopening the judgment. The individual case remains pending before the District Court. In the trust case, the jury returned a verdict against Elsa, in her representative capacity, on her claims against Samuel and his law firm. The clerk entered judgment in that case directing that Elsa “recover nothing” and that “the action be dismissed on the merits.” Id., at A–12. Elsa filed a notice of appeal from the District Court’s judgment in the trust case. Samuel and his law firm moved to dismiss the appeal on jurisdictional grounds, arguing that the judgment was not final and appealable because his claims against Elsa remained unresolved in the individual case. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit agreed. When two cases have been consolidated for all purposes, the court reasoned, a final decision on one set of claims is generally not appealable while the second set remains pending. The court explained that it considers “whether a less-than-complete judgment is appealable” on a “case-by-case basis.” 679 Fed. Appx. 142, 145 (2017). Here, the fact that the claims in the trust and individual cases had been “scheduled together and tried before a single jury” “counsel[ed] in favor of keeping the claims together on appeal.” Ibid. The court dismissed Elsa’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction. We granted certiorari, 582 U. S. ___ (2017), and now reverse. Had the District Court never consolidated the trust and individual cases, there would be no question that Elsa could immediately appeal from the judgment in the trust case. Title 28 U. S. C. §1291 vests the courts of appeals with jurisdiction over “appeals from all final decisions of the district courts,” except those directly appealable to this Court. A final decision “ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.” ... Here the jury’s verdict against Elsa resolved all of the claims in the trust case, and the clerk accordingly entered judgment in that case providing that “the action be dismissed on the merits.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A–12. With the entry of judgment, the District Court “completed its adjudication of [Elsa’s] complaint and terminated [her] action.” Gelboim, 574 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7). An appeal would normally lie from that judgment. ... This is not a plain meaning case. It is instead about a term—consolidate—with a legal lineage stretching back at least to the first federal consolidation statute, enacted by Congress in 1813. Act of July 22, 1813, §3, 3 Stat. 21 (later codified as Rev. Stat. §921 and 28 U. S. C. §734 (1934 ed.)). Over 125 years, this Court, along with the courts of appeals and leading treatises, interpreted that term to mean the joining together— but not the complete merger—of constituent cases. Those authorities particularly emphasized that constituent cases remained independent when it came to judgments and appeals. Rule 42(a), promulgated in 1938, was expressly based on the 1813 statute. The history against which Rule 42(a) was adopted resolves any ambiguity regarding the meaning of “consolidate” in subsection (a)(2). It makes clear that one of multiple cases consolidated under the Rule retains its independent character, at least to the extent it is appealable when finally resolved, regardless of any ongoing proceedings in the other cases. ... From the outset, we understood consolidation not as completely merging the constituent cases into one, but instead as enabling more efficient case management while preserving the distinct identities of the cases and the rights of the separate parties in them. ... One frequently cited case illustrates the point. In Adler v. Seaman, 266 F. 828, 831 (CA8 1920), the District Court “sought to employ consolidation as a medium of getting the two independent suits united,” but the Court of Appeals made clear that the consolidation statute did not authorize such action. The court explained that constituent cases sometimes “assume certain natural attitudes toward each other, such as ‘in the nature of ’ a cross-bill or intervention.” Id., at 838. Be that as it may, the court continued, “this is purely a rule of convenience, and does not result in actually making such parties defendants or interveners in the other suit.” Ibid. The court described “the result of consolidation” as instead “merely to try cases together, necessitating separate verdicts and judgments or separate decrees,” and to “leave” the constituent cases “separate, independent action[s].” Id., at 838, 840. ... Against this background, two years after Johnson, the Rules Advisory Committee began discussion of what was to become Rule 42(a). The Rule, which became effective in 1938, was expressly modeled on its statutory predecessor, the Act of July 22, 1813. See Advisory Committee’s Notes on 1937 Adoption of Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 42(a), 28 U. S. C. App., p. 887. The Rule contained no definition of “consolidate,” so the term presumably carried forward the same meaning we had ascribed to it under the consolidation statute for 125 years, and had just recently reaffirmed in Johnson. See Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Colum. L. Rev. 527, 537 (1947) (“if a word is obviously transplanted from another legal source, whether the common law or other legislation, it brings the old soil with it”); cf. Class v. United States, 583 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 10) (Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(a)(2) did not silently alter existing doctrine established by this Court’s past decisions). ... Whatever “consolidate” meant under the statute, Samuel posits, it took on a different meaning under Rule 42(a) with the addition of subsection (a)(1)...We disagree. It is only by substantially overreading subsection (a)(1) that Samuel can argue that its addition compels a radical reinterpretation of the familiar term “consolidate” in subsection (a)(2). The text of subsection (a)(1) permits the joining of cases only for “hearing or trial.” That narrow grant of authority cannot fairly be read as the exclusive source of a district court’s power to “join[] multiple actions for procedural purposes.” ... Rule 42(a) did not purport to alter the settled understanding of the consequences of consolidation. That understanding makes clear that when one of several consolidated cases is finally decided, a disappointed litigant is free to seek review of that decision in the court of appeals. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Lineup: Roberts, unanimous. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1150_3ebh.pdf [internal citations inconsistently omitted throughout]
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Mar 28, 2018 15:19
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ulmont posted:This is not a plain meaning case. lol shots fired
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Mar 28, 2018 16:19
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Would there be any difference between the results of the following two wordings for a voting rights constitutional amendment? "The right of adult citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State." “Article — “ Section 1. Every citizen of the United States, who is of legal voting age, shall have the fundamental right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides. “ Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation.”
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Apr 1, 2018 01:45
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galenanorth posted:Would there be any difference between the results of the following two wordings for a voting rights constitutional amendment? The first version might allow the government's of the District of Colombia and territorial government to do things that the second doesn't. Also Tribal Lands/Governments, similar issues.
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Apr 1, 2018 02:02
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galenanorth posted:Would there be any difference between the results of the following two wordings for a voting rights constitutional amendment? The second allows Congress to pass laws to enforce it, which is important as courts prefer not to assume state legislatures are full of garbage people but Congress is fine with it.
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Apr 1, 2018 05:01
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It’s not clear what either of these would do besides outlawing disenfranchisement of prisoners and felons. All rights are subject to time-and-place regulation, which means requiring registration might still be legal, and certainly the more sophisticated forms of voter suppression like underfunding elections in certain districts would still be on the table. Outlawing disenfranchisement would be great, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure there’s even majority support for it.
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Apr 1, 2018 17:07
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For context, the two proposals are in response to Shelby County v. Holder's overturning of the Voting Rights Act
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Apr 1, 2018 19:36
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rjmccall posted:Outlawing disenfranchisement would be great, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure there’s even majority support for it. Bitter irony.
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Apr 1, 2018 19:41
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galenanorth posted:For context, the two proposals are in response to Shelby County v. Holder's overturning of the Voting Rights Act “The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Is apparently meaningless these days so I doubt that’d do anything to help
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Apr 1, 2018 19:43
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hobbesmaster posted:“The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Include a ban on GOP congresspersons on the amendment 
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Apr 1, 2018 19:49
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Couldn't Congress pass a new VRA in response to what Roberts wrote that Roberts would have a harder time striking down?
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Apr 1, 2018 19:55
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Raenir Salazar posted:Couldn't Congress pass a new VRA in response to what Roberts wrote that Roberts would have a harder time striking down? That Congress went "welp, not gonna do anything else" was a feature
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Apr 1, 2018 19:56
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Roberts overturned it for being old despite being renewed with overwhelming support in 2005. He'll find another bullshit reason to strike it down.
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Apr 1, 2018 19:57
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FilthyImp posted:Wasn't that basically the plan? yeah, see https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/885 which has 93 Democratic Party and 18 Republican cosponsors. It exempts voter ID from discriminatory history records, though, maybe as an attempt to be bipartisan
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Apr 1, 2018 20:02
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Double Punctuation posted:RE Oracle vs. Google, I think the current ruling is correct. Oracle might be a garbage company, but Google straight up ripped off Java to make something that wasn’t compatible. That’s a different situation than something like Wine or WSL, which use APIs to translate applications to different systems, and I would consider that fair. Android doesn’t run Java apps, it only covers part of the API, and it enables using Java libraries on their incompatible platform. Overall, I think the only big thing with this case is that APIs are copyrightable, and that’s already done and over.
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Apr 2, 2018 11:55
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Opinions! ENCINO MOTORCARS, LLC v. NAVARRO ET AL.unl Brief Background: The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §201 et seq., requires employers to pay overtime compensation to covered employees. The FLSA exempts from the overtime-pay requirement “any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles” at a covered dealership. §213(b)(10)(A). We granted certiorari to decide whether this exemption applies to service advisors—employees at car dealerships who consult with customers about their servicing needs and sell them servicing solutions. Holding: We conclude that service advisors are exempt. ... Congress initially exempted all employees at car dealerships from the overtime-pay requirement. See Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1961, §9, 75 Stat. 73. Congress then narrowed that exemption to cover “any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles, trailers, trucks, farm implements, or aircraft.” Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1966, §209, 80 Stat. 836. In 1974, Congress enacted the version of the exemption at issue here. It provides that the FLSA’s overtime-pay requirement does not apply to “any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles, trucks, or farm implements, if he is employed by a nonmanufacturing establishment primarily engaged in the business of selling such vehicles or implements to ultimate purchasers.” §213(b)(10)(A). This language has long been understood to cover service advisors. Although the Department of Labor initially interpreted it to exclude them, [] the federal courts rejected that view, []. After these decisions, the Department issued an opinion letter in 1978, explaining that service advisors are exempt in most cases. From 1978 to 2011, Congress made no changes to the exemption, despite amending §213 nearly a dozen times. The Department also continued to acquiesce in the view that service advisors are exempt. In 2011, however, the Department reversed course. It issued a rule that interpreted “salesman” to exclude service advisors. That regulation prompted this litigation. ... The FLSA exempts from its overtime-pay requirement “any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles, trucks, or farm implements, if he is employed by a nonmanufacturing establishment primarily engaged in the business of selling such vehicles or implements to ultimate purchasers.” §213(b)(10)(A). The parties agree that petitioner is a “nonmanufacturing establishment primarily engaged in the business of selling [automobiles] to ultimate purchasers.” The parties also agree that a service advisor is not a “partsman” or “mechanic,” and that a service advisor is not “primarily engaged . . . in selling automobiles.” The question, then, is whether service advisors are “salesm[e]n . . . primarily engaged in . . . servicing automobiles.” We conclude that they are. Under the best reading of the text, service advisors are “salesm[e]n,” and they are “primarily engaged in . . . servicing automobiles.” The distributive canon, the practice of construing FLSA exemptions narrowly, and the legislative history do not persuade us otherwise. ... A service advisor is obviously a “salesman.” The term “salesman” is not defined in the statute, so “we give the term its ordinary meaning.” The ordinary meaning of “salesman” is someone who sells goods or services. Service advisors do precisely that. As this Court previously explained, service advisors “sell [customers] services for their vehicles.” ... Service advisors are also “primarily engaged in . . . servicing automobiles.” §213(b)(10)(A). The word “servicing” in this context can mean either “the action of maintaining or repairing a motor vehicle” or “[t]he action of providing a service.” 15 Oxford English Dictionary, at 39; see also Random House Dictionary of the English Language, at 1304 (“to make fit for use; repair; restore to condition for service”). Service advisors satisfy both definitions. Service advisors are integral to the servicing process. They “mee[t] customers; liste[n] to their concerns about their cars; sugges[t] repair and maintenance services; sel[l] new accessories or replacement parts; recor[d] service orders; follo[w] up with customers as the services are performed (for instance, if new problems are discovered); and explai[n] the repair and maintenance work when customers return for their vehicles.” ... The Ninth Circuit concluded that service advisors are not covered because the exemption simply does not apply to “salesm[e]n . . . primarily engaged in . . . servicing automobiles.” The Ninth Circuit invoked the distributive canon to reach this conclusion. Using that canon, it matched “salesman” with “selling” and “partsma[n] [and] mechanic” with “servicing.” We reject this reasoning...[T]he use of “or” to join “selling” and “servicing” suggests that the exemption covers a salesman primarily engaged in either activity. ... [H]ere, context favors the ordinary disjunctive meaning of “or” for at least three reasons. First, the distributive canon has the most force when the statute allows for one-to-one matching. But here, the distributive canon would mix and match some of three nouns—“salesman, partsman, or mechanic”—with one of two gerunds— “selling or servicing.” §213(b)(10)(A). We doubt that a legislative drafter would leave it to the reader to figure out the precise combinations. Second, the distributive canon has the most force when an ordinary, disjunctive reading is linguistically impossible. But as explained above, the phrase “salesman . . . primarily engaged in . . . servicing automobiles” not only makes sense; it is an apt description of a service advisor. Third, a narrow distributive phrasing is an unnatural fit here because the entire exemption bespeaks breadth. It begins with the word “any.” ... The Ninth Circuit also invoked the principle that exemptions to the FLSA should be construed narrowly. We reject this principle as a useful guidepost for interpreting the FLSA. Because the FLSA gives no “textual indication” that its exemptions should be construed narrowly, “there is no reason to give [them] anything other than a fair (rather than a ‘narrow’) interpretation.” ... Finally, the Ninth Circuit relied on two extraneous sources to support its interpretation: the Department’s 1966–1967 Occupational Outlook Handbook and the FLSA’s legislative history. We find neither persuasive. ... In sum, we conclude that service advisors are exempt from the overtime-pay requirement of the FLSA because they are “salesm[e]n . . . primarily engaged in . . . servicing automobiles.” §213(b)(10)(A). Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Lineup: Thomas, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Alito and Gorsuch. Dissent by Ginsburg, joined by Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Notes From Other Opinions: Ginsburg: In 1961, Congress exempted all automobile-dealership employees from the Act’s overtime-pay requirements. Five years later, in 1966, Congress confined the dealership exemption to three categories of employees: automobile salesmen, mechanics, and partsmen. At the time, it was well understood that mechanics perform “preventive maintenance” and “repairs,” Dept. of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook 477 (1966–1967 ed.) (Handbook), while partsmen requisition parts, “suppl[y] [them] to mechanics,” id., at 312, and, at times, have “mechanical responsibilities in repairing parts”. Congress did not exempt numerous other categories of dealership employees, among them, automobile painters, upholsterers, bookkeeping workers, cashiers, janitors, purchasing agents, shipping and receiving clerks, and, most relevant here, service advisors. These positions and their duties were well known at the time, as documented in U. S. Government catalogs of American jobs. “Where Congress explicitly enumerates certain exceptions . . . , additional exceptions are not to be implied, in the absence of evidence of a contrary legislative intent.” The Court thus has no warrant to add to the three explicitly exempt categories (salesmen, partsmen, and mechanics) a fourth (service advisors) for which the Legislature did not provide. The reach of today’s ruling is uncertain, troublingly so: By expansively reading the exemption to encompass all salesmen, partsmen, and mechanics who are “integral to the servicing process,” ante, at 6, the Court risks restoring much of what Congress intended the 1966 amendment to terminate, i.e., the blanket exemption of all dealership employees from overtime-pay requirements. ... Had the §213(b)(10)(A) exemption covered “any salesman or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles,” there could be no argument that service advisors fit within it. Only “salesmen” primarily engaged in “selling” automobiles and “mechanics” primarily engaged in “servicing” them would fall outside the Act’s coverage. Service advisors, defined as “salesmen primarily engaged in the selling of services,” plainly do not belong in either category. Moreover, even if the exemption were read to reach “salesmen” “primarily engaged in servicing automobiles,” not just selling them, service advisors would not be exempt. The ordinary meaning of “servicing” is “the action of maintaining or repairing a motor vehicle.” As described above, see supra, at 2, service advisors neither maintain nor repair automobiles. ... Unlike salesmen, partsmen, and mechanics, service advisors “wor[k] ordinary, fixed schedules on-site.” Respondents, for instance, work regular 11-hour shifts, at all times of the year, for a weekly minimum of 55 hours. Service advisors thus do not implicate the concerns underlying the §213(b)(10)(A) exemption. Indeed, they are precisely the type of workers Congress intended the FLSA to shield “from the evil of overwork”. ... This Court once recognized that the “particularity” of FLSA exemptions “preclude[s] their enlargement by implication.”...The Court today, in adding an exemption of its own creation, veers away from that comprehension of the FLSA’s mission. I would instead resist, as the Ninth Circuit did, diminishment of the Act’s overtime strictures. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1362_gfbh.pdf ANDREW KISELA v. AMY HUGHES Brief Background: Petitioner Andrew Kisela, a police officer in Tucson, Arizona, shot respondent Amy Hughes. Kisela and two other officers had arrived on the scene after hearing a police radio report that a woman was engaging in erratic behavior with a knife. They had been there but a few minutes, perhaps just a minute. When Kisela fired, Hughes was holding a large kitchen knife, had taken steps toward another woman standing nearby, and had refused to drop the knife after at least two commands to do so. The question is whether at the time of the shooting Kisela’s actions violated clearly established law. Holding: The record, viewed in the light most favorable to Hughes, shows the following. In May 2010, somebody in Hughes’ neighborhood called 911 to report that a woman was hacking a tree with a kitchen knife. Kisela and another police officer, Alex Garcia, heard about the report over the radio in their patrol car and responded. A few minutes later the person who had called 911 flagged down the officers; gave them a description of the woman with the knife; and told them the woman had been acting erratically. About the same time, a third police officer, Lindsay Kunz, arrived on her bicycle. Garcia spotted a woman, later identified as Sharon Chadwick, standing next to a car in the driveway of a nearby house. A chain-link fence with a locked gate separated Chadwick from the officers. The officers then saw another woman, Hughes, emerge from the house carrying a large knife at her side. Hughes matched the description of the woman who had been seen hacking a tree. Hughes walked toward Chadwick and stopped no more than six feet from her. All three officers drew their guns. At least twice they told Hughes to drop the knife. Viewing the record in the light most favorable to Hughes, Chadwick said “take it easy” to both Hughes and the officers. Hughes appeared calm, but she did not acknowledge the officers’ presence or drop the knife. The top bar of the chain-link fence blocked Kisela’s line of fire, so he dropped to the ground and shot Hughes four times through the fence. Then the officers jumped the fence, handcuffed Hughes, and called paramedics, who transported her to a hospital. There she was treated for non life-threatening injuries. Less than a minute had transpired from the moment the officers saw Chadwick to the moment Kisela fired shots. All three of the officers later said that at the time of the shooting they subjectively believed Hughes to be a threat to Chadwick. After the shooting, the officers discovered that Chadwick and Hughes were roommates, that Hughes had a history of mental illness, and that Hughes had been upset with Chadwick over a $20 debt. ... Here, the Court need not, and does not, decide whether Kisela violated the Fourth Amendment when he used deadly force against Hughes. For even assuming a Fourth Amendment violation occurred—a proposition that is not at all evident—on these facts Kisela was at least entitled to qualified immunity. “Qualified immunity attaches when an official’s conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” “Because the focus is on whether the officer had fair notice that her conduct was unlawful, reasonableness is judged against the backdrop of the law at the time of the conduct.” Although “this Court’s caselaw does not require a case directly on point for a right to be clearly established, existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” [Court summarizes cases where police officers have shot people and not been found liable. It takes many pages.] ... For these reasons, the petition for certiorari is granted; the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed; and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. Lineup: Per Curiam. Dissent by Sotomayor, joined by Ginsburg. Notes From Other Opinions: Sotomayor: Officer Andrew Kisela shot Amy Hughes while she was speaking with her roommate, Sharon Chadwick, outside of their home. The record, properly construed at this stage, shows that at the time of the shooting: Hughes stood stationary about six feet away from Chadwick, appeared “composed and content,” and held a kitchen knife down at her side with the blade facing away from Chadwick. Hughes was nowhere near the officers, had committed no illegal act, was suspected of no crime, and did not raise the knife in the direction of Chadwick or anyone else. Faced with these facts, the two other responding officers held their fire, and one testified that he “wanted to continue trying verbal command[s] and see if that would work.” But not Kisela. He thought it necessary to use deadly force, and so, without giving a warning that he would open fire, he shot Hughes four times, leaving her seriously injured. If this account of Kisela’s conduct sounds unreasonable, that is because it was. And yet, the Court today insulates that conduct from liability under the doctrine of qualified immunity, holding that Kisela violated no “clearly established” law. I disagree. Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Hughes, as the Court must at summary judgment, a jury could find that Kisela violated Hughes’ clearly established Fourth Amendment rights by needlessly resorting to lethal force. https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/040218zor_p8k0.pdf#page=10 [internal citations inconsistently omitted throughout]
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Apr 2, 2018 18:29
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What's happening with the Union case how do people think it will go?
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Apr 2, 2018 19:34
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Hollismason posted:What's happening with the Union case how do people think it will go? The unions are hosed. quote:None of the eight justices who were on the court in 2016, when it deadlocked on this same question, said anything during today’s oral argument that would indicate that they had changed their minds. If so, that would leave the decision in the hands of Gorsuch, who said nothing at all today. Before Gorsuch served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, he was in private practice, where Frederick was one of his law partners. During his closing remarks, Frederick – who sometimes seemed to address Gorsuch directly – warned of an “untold specter of labor unrest throughout the country” if Janus prevails. We likely will have to wait until the end of June to find out whether that argument will prove effective, or whether Gorsuch will instead follow in the footsteps of Scalia, whom Gorsuch succeeded and who seemed to side with the challenger in Friedrichs, which was argued shortly before Scalia’s death.
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Apr 2, 2018 19:46
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Raenir Salazar posted:Couldn't Congress pass a new VRA in response to what Roberts wrote that Roberts would have a harder time striking down? Getting rid of the VRA is one of Roberts' major goals in life. Nothing short of an Amendment that explicitly calls him out would be enough and even then he'd try to find a way around it.
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Apr 2, 2018 20:31
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What is the point of issuing a per curiam opinion that has dissents to it? I didn’t even know that was a thing.
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Apr 2, 2018 21:20
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So It Goes posted:What is the point of issuing a per curiam opinion that has dissents to it? I didn’t even know that was a thing. Bush v. Gore has:
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Apr 2, 2018 21:48
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ulmont posted:Sotomayor:
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Apr 2, 2018 22:16
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Dead Reckoning posted:I can't tell if Sotomayor doesn't understand qualified immunity, or does and just hates it enough that she is going to pretend that it does not work the way every other justice understands it. I believe the argument, judging from what of the dissent I've read, is that the admitted lack of self-identifying by the police directed towards a woman who wasn't looking at them combined with the other two cops at the scene not taking the measures the offending cop did produces a situation where doubt can be cast on how reasonable the offending cop's actions are. I don't fully agree with it but I don't think it's a confounding stance at all.
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Apr 2, 2018 22:25
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Dead Reckoning posted:I can't tell if Sotomayor doesn't understand qualified immunity, or does and just hates it enough that she is going to pretend that it does not work the way every other justice understands it. Qualified immunity is the worst sort of Catch-22 bullshit post-Callahan. Kicking a case because there isn't a violation of clearly established law without also deciding if there was a violation of law period doesn't do anything to help the law be established one way or the other.
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Apr 2, 2018 22:53
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Adlai Stevenson posted:I believe the argument, judging from what of the dissent I've read, is that the admitted lack of self-identifying by the police directed towards a woman who wasn't looking at them combined with the other two cops at the scene not taking the measures the offending cop did produces a situation where doubt can be cast on how reasonable the offending cop's actions are. Nah, her 1-8 dissent in Mullenix v. Luna struck the same chords. I get that people don't like QI for police officers in deadly force cases because the doctrine shields questionable or incompetent conduct from civil liability, but Sotomayor seems to think that, if an officer in the same situation chose not to fire, we should consider the conduct of the officer who chose to fire to be possibly excessive and a knowing violation of the petitioner's rights.
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Apr 2, 2018 23:33
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Dead Reckoning posted:Nah, her 1-8 dissent in Mullenix v. Luna struck the same chords. I get that people don't like QI for police officers in deadly force cases because the doctrine shields questionable or incompetent conduct from civil liability, but Sotomayor seems to think that, if an officer in the same situation chose not to fire, we should consider the conduct of the officer who chose to fire to be possibly excessive and a knowing violation of the petitioner's rights. Yeah that’s pretty reasonable. The whole standard is based upon what her peers would do in the same situation. In this case two of them did not behave in the same fashion.
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Apr 2, 2018 23:52
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hobbesmaster posted:“The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Did any of the justices actually object to hearing shelby on these grounds?
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Apr 3, 2018 00:19
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Mr. Nice! posted:Yeah that’s pretty reasonable. The whole standard is based upon what her peers would do in the same situation. In this case two of them did not behave in the same fashion.
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Apr 3, 2018 02:15
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The fact that DR felt the need to skitter out from beneath his rotting log to defend this decision is a testament to how stupid and bad it is. There are a lot of situations where qualified immunity makes sense, but I don't see the value in giving police a free pass to roll up and gun down the mentally ill based on their first impression of the situation.
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Apr 3, 2018 05:31
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Dead Reckoning posted:It's not reasonable though. Reasonable does not mean ideal. Just because one course of action in a situation is held to be reasonable does not render any other course of action unreasonable. Just because one officer in a situation chooses one approach does not mean that another officer choosing a different approach or different level of force is acting unreasonably or deliberately violating the suspect's civil rights. The officer's actions have to be judged based on the circumstances and what they knew at the time. I’m saying if 2/3 people behave in one way and we’re judging people by a reasonable standard (that is what would another reasonable officer do in a situation) it is pretty strong evidence that the 1/3 was unreasonable. At least enough that they shouldn’t get a de facto benefit of the doubt, anyways.
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Apr 3, 2018 05:41
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