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In 2002, in Atkins v. Virginia, the Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional as applied to the mentally retarded. Scalia dissented, stating that it would not have been considered cruel or unusual to execute the mildly mentally retarded at the time of the 1791 adoption of the Bill of Rights, and that the Court had failed to show that a national consensus had formed against the practice.[97]
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Feb 14, 2016 00:44
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Scalia strongly disfavored the Court's ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, which held that a confession by an arrested suspect who had not been advised of his rights was inadmissible in court, and voted to overrule Miranda in the 2000 case of Dickerson v. United States, but was in a minority of two with Justice Clarence Thomas. Calling the Miranda decision a "milestone of judicial overreaching", Scalia stated that the Court should not fear to correct its mistakes.[98] I hope the court cites this dissent when overturning Citizens United.
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Feb 14, 2016 00:46
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https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/698649076691173376?lang=en Bernie carefully words his tweet to show that Scalia's family will mourn his passing but Bernie himself won't.
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Feb 14, 2016 00:49
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FistEnergy posted:More horrible Scalia opinions please, vyelkin. I want to read an avalanche of evil. Open the blood gates  Scalia generally voted to strike down laws which make distinctions by race, gender, or sexual orientation. In 1989, he concurred with the Court's judgment in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., in which the Court applied strict scrutiny to a city program requiring a certain percentage of contracts to go to minorities, and struck down the program. Scalia did not join the majority opinion, however. He disagreed with O'Connor's opinion, for the Court, that states and localities could institute race-based programs, if they identified past discrimination, and if the program was designed to remedy the past racism.[84] Five years later, in Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña he concurred in the Court's judgment and in part with the opinion which extended strict scrutiny to federal programs. Scalia noted in that matter his view that government can never have a compelling interest in making up for past discrimination by racial preferences, quote:To pursue the concept of racial entitlement—even for the most admirable and benign of purposes—is to reinforce and preserve for future mischief the way of thinking that produced race slavery, race privilege and race hatred. In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American.[85]
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Feb 14, 2016 01:14
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In one of the final decisions of the Burger Court, the Court ruled in 1986 in Bowers v. Hardwick that homosexual sodomy was not protected by the right of privacy and could be criminally prosecuted by the states.[89] In 1995, however, that ruling was effectively gutted by Romer v. Evans, which struck down a Colorado state constitutional amendment, passed by popular vote, which forbade anti-discrimination laws being extended to sexual orientation.[90] Scalia dissented from the opinion by Justice Kennedy, believing that Bowers had protected the right of the states to pass such measures, and that the Colorado amendment was not discriminatory, but merely prevented homosexuals from gaining favored status under Colorado law.[91] Scalia later said of Romer, "And the Supreme Court said, 'Yes, it is unconstitutional.' On the basis of—I don't know, the Sexual Preference Clause of the Bill of Rights, presumably. And the liberals loved it, and the conservatives gnashed their teeth."[92] In 2003, Bowers was formally reversed by Lawrence v. Texas, from which Scalia dissented. According to Mark V. Tushnet in his survey of the Rehnquist Court, during the oral argument in the case, Scalia seemed so intent on making the state's argument for it that the Chief Justice intervened: "Maybe we should go through counsel."[93] According to his biographer, Joan Biskupic, Scalia "ridiculed" the majority in his dissent for being so ready to cast aside Bowers when many of the same justices had refused to overturn Roe in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.[94]
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Feb 14, 2016 01:16
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Scalia believed that the death penalty is constitutional.[95] He dissents in decisions that hold the death penalty unconstitutional as applied to certain groups, such as those who were under the age of 18 at the time of offense. In Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), he dissented from the Court's ruling that the death penalty could not be applied to those aged 15 at the time of the offense, and the following year authored the Court's opinion in Stanford v. Kentucky sustaining the death penalty for those who killed at age 16. However, in 2005, the Court overturned Stanford in Roper v. Simmons and Scalia again dissented, mocking the majority's claims that a national consensus had emerged against the execution of those who killed while under age, and noted that less than half of the states that permitted the death penalty prohibited it for underage killers. He castigated the majority for including in their count states that had abolished the death penalty entirely, stating that doing so was "rather like including old-order Amishmen in a consumer-preference poll on the electric car. Of course they don't like it, but that sheds no light whatever on the point at issue."[96]
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Feb 14, 2016 01:17
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In March 2006, Scalia gave a talk at the University of Fribourg, in Switzerland, where he was asked about detainee rights. He responded, "Give me a break ... I had a son on that battlefield and they were shooting at my son, and I'm not about to give this man who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy."[66]
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Feb 14, 2016 01:22
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Barack Obama should nominate Michelle Obama to the Supreme Court.
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Feb 14, 2016 01:44
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Kilroy posted:So what happens if Ginsburg also retires now, let's say on April 1. Ginsburg has consistently said she's not going to retire any time soon because there's no way in hell Obama would ever be able to appoint someone remotely like her to replace her.
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Feb 14, 2016 15:48
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Defenestration posted:Why don't we do direct elections of the Surgeon General too? Who needs all this high level vetting of extremely skilled professionals in fields that few laypeople understand? Sounds like partisan backdoor dealing to me. Direct democracy always = better than. Why draw the line at the Supreme Court? Hold direct elections for every position that's currently appointed by the president with confirmation. Elect an entire new cabinet every four years with The People voting for every single member individually.
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Feb 15, 2016 16:19
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Thug Lessons posted:Either by the members of the board, by a separate independent recruitment commission, or some combination of the two. If I was actually trying to design such a system instead of spitballing on the internet I'd look at the countries around the world that use these type of systems and see which work best. How would you appoint the members of the independent recruitment commission then? Is it independent commissions all the way down? Supreme Court nominees are picked by a judicial board which is selected by an independent recruitment commission which is presumably appointed by a separate independent recruitment board to recruit the recruitment board, and so on?
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Feb 16, 2016 23:48
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Pillow Hat posted:Can you elaborate on this? I'm not doubting you, just curious about where you read/saw this. Thom Tillis (Senator from North Carolina) publicly said that they should consider any nominee and do their job properly. He then went on to say "but of course, if Obama appoints someone who shares his radical political views then it'll be our job to block that person since that's out of step with the American people" so he's trying to create a justification where they block any nominee but still look like they're doing their job responsibly. Of course, some might argue that since Obama was elected twice then The American People might actually share some of his "radical" political views and also that appointing people who think about the law and constitution the same way they do is one of the duties of a president, but hey, semantics.
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Feb 17, 2016 16:05
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evilweasel posted:Predictit is still giving odds of about 35%-40% Obama gets someone confirmed, which I don't quite get. I keep wondering what I'm missing, or if I should just start collecting the free money. I suppose it's theoretically possible that as they go longer and longer without confirming anyone, if polls show the electorate getting increasingly fed up with them and predict a big victory for the Democrats in November, and since this is an issue that by definition could not go away before election day unless they cave, they could eventually react to growing discontent by confirming someone. This relies on a few big assumptions like the electorate caring, that care manifesting in anger at Republican obstructionism, that anger being reflected in election polling, and Republicans caring at all about election polling rather than trying to unskew the polls, but I can see a theoretical path to someone being confirmed, I just don't think it's more likely than the alternative.
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Feb 17, 2016 18:22
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Slate Action posted:I assume 'past Republican support' just means someone who was previously confirmed unanimously. Yeah, nominating someone like Sri Srinivasan who was confirmed 97-0 in 2013 would really lay bare the Republican obstructionism because even the argument that Obama was appointing some ultra-liberal wacko who post-Tea Party Republicans could never support would fall flat. That being said, it might be a more tactical move to nominate someone liberal first, let the Senate wear out their "See, Obama is only going to nominate hippie communists" arguments, and then withdraw that person and nominate someone like Sri instead. But the more time you spend playing these games, the closer you get to November and the more likely it becomes that Republican "wait until January" arguments resonate with the electorate. If Obama is nominating someone in February, sure. But if that person gets stonewalled for months and he nominates someone new in July it could come off very different.
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Feb 18, 2016 17:07
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Sandra Day O'Connor says the Republicans should get on with it and do their jobs. http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/politics/sandra-day-oconnor-obama-scalia-replacement/index.html Not that it matters since they've moved way beyond even moderate Reaganism these days, but at least prominent people are speaking out against their strategy.
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Feb 18, 2016 17:41
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bowser posted:I'm guessing that the 'fixed term lengths for justices' idea will become a much more popular idea and possibly a serious election issue in 2020. I don't think this could become an issue. Article III of the US Constitution says "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior" and so far this has been interpreted as meaning they serve for the rest of their lives since the Constitution says nothing at all about time limits. And I doubt the Supreme Court would restrict its own power by ruling that restrictions on their tenure were constitutional, since any legislation that somehow made it through Congress and past the president on that count would end up right back in the Supreme Court anyway. So the only way it becomes an issue is if someone actually wants to amend the Constitution.
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Feb 19, 2016 04:57
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Arkane posted:In the video, Biden says that the Senate committee should not even consider anyone nominated until after the election is over. Do you at least recognize a difference between a senator saying that at the end of June when there was no vacancy versus the Senate Majority Leader saying it in the middle of February literally several hours after a justice died?
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Feb 22, 2016 21:40
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Could someone sue the Senate for not living up to their constitutional responsibility to provide advice and consent, since they have outright stated that not only will they not confirm a nominee, they won't even consider having a hearing for one? Could such a case end up in front of the Supreme Court?
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Feb 23, 2016 23:47
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So say Mitch McConnell were to say in November 2014, right after becoming Majority Leader, "the Senate absolutely will not hear any appointment by Obama no matter what, we will not hold hearings, and we will not hold confirmation votes, and Obama can nominate people all he wants but no matter who they are we don't give a poo poo and we will sit on our hands. Even if all nine Supreme Court justices die tomorrow in a gas leak, we would rather leave the entire Court vacant for two years, or in perpetuity if a Democratic president is elected in November 2016, than even hold a hearing for any nominee" that would just be absolutely cool and there would be no recourse whatsoever. The United States Constitution posted:[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments. There is no actual responsibility inherent in the Constitution's requirement that the Senate provide "Advice and Consent" to presidential appointees, and they can just flat out decide to ignore that if they want to. Good to know. See, it's interesting because "shall nominate" and "shall appoint" implies that the president himself has an obligation to make nominations (in Canada there was actually a court case on that exact wording because the Canadian constitution says the Prime Minister "shall" appoint senators and the Prime Minister said he wasn't going to, so someone sued saying he was violating the constitution), but the exact wording of the article doesn't make that same distinction for the Senate.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:57
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I've got a radical conspiracy theory for you guys: perhaps this 79 year old overweight man who smoked and had sleep apnea could conceivably have died of natural causes? After all, Scalia could have forgotten to take his daily dose of super secret magic potion that makes conservatives immune to natural deaths.
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Feb 26, 2016 16:27
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