The U.S. Supreme Court

(Chief Justice Raggett? Associate Justice Hanle y?)

What's also interesting is that the four "liberals" really aren't all that liberal, esp. in comparison to predecessors like Justices Brennan, Marshall, or Douglas. They'd all be considered moderates if they were on the Warren or Burger Courts. It also should be noted that two of the "liberals" were appointed by Republican Presidents (Stevens by Ford, Souter by Poppy Bush). Which goes to show how far to the right the Supreme Court has swung since the late Sixties.

As for Supreme Court clerkships -- I went to too crappy a school, and my grades were too crappy, to even dream of such a thing.

WASHINGTON (AP) — US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg hospitalized for surgery for pancreatic cancer.

Jeez that sucks.

Although this makes it sound slightly less awful:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/02/05/us/AP-Scotus-Ginsburg.html?_r=1&hp

:(

;_;

All the justices should have short, catchy nicknames and wear trucker hats with their nicknames stitched on the front. This would improve their deliberations and def add more weight to their dissenting opinions.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SCOTUS_GINSBURG?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


WASHINGTON (AP) -- Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg plans to be back at work for the court's next public session, less than three weeks after surgery for pancreatic cancer.

Ginsburg intends to be in court when the justices hear arguments on Feb. 23, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Friday.

The 75-year-old justice is currently recuperating at a New York hospital after undergoing surgery on Thursday. Arberg had no other information on Ginsburg's condition.

souter stepping down, it sez.

Time to watch Hugh Hewitt start crying into his beer.

oh boy! Weekend Corner fodder!

Why, it begins:

Supreme Court Justice Souter Retiring [Mark Hemingway]

NPR report here.

04/30 10:14 PM

--

Obama's First Supreme Moment [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

NBC is evidently reporting Souter will retire .... I see Mark posted this but I did from the Santa Monica pier and he didn't.

04/30 10:16 PM

So how quick for the 'he KNEW Specter was switching and waited!' conspiracy theories to go around?

amazing to remember now how souter was demonized during his nomination process from the left and now he's going out as some sort of semi-hero

Signs of the times -- all RedState can do is say 'we need Jeff Sessions to be the ranking member on the committee!'

Souter was Reason #235 why the right hated George H.W. Bush. I doubt he'll leave a lasting impact on the court; moderates and swing votes in the Potter Stewart-Owen Roberts decision rare do. But he at least curbed excesses from the right.

*decision = tradition

thanks, guys, i accept your nomination

I really expected Ginsburg to retire first, given her health problems.

has Stevens beat William O. Douglas in being the oldest serving judge (not the same as longest on the court)?

he just turned 89 last week iirc

i saw rbg speak last month actually and she seemed pretty sharp!

i guess douglas retired when he was 77

Eric Anderson (mbitsko) wrote:

Hmmm....a RINO chooses this week to switch sides, thus giving the Dems a veto-proof majority, and all of a sudden Souter announces he's retiring.

Coincidence? Only if you're an IDIOT.
Thursday, April 30, 2009 11:08:30 PM

Well that didn't take long.

this one had me roflmao-ing

It was a good bet that at least two of the Supreme Court justices wouldn’t last this term (Ginsberg, cancer-striken, 76, & Stevens, 89). Here’s the third. And now, good citizens, we see the realization of the scariest, most dangerous promise of Obama’s election/ascendancy: his appointment of Supreme Court justices.

I will pray for my country tonight. (And buy ammo tomorrow.)

You know, if the dude wanted to write his memoirs I'd be all for it.

hopefully ginsberg or stevens goes out w/ a massacre, otherwise this really just treading water at best, no?

Just the advantage of trading 70- and 80-somethings for 50-somethings.

plus we can please get another woman on there for god's sake. more wimmin!

not really a gain on the bench by replacing ginsberg, stevens, and souter though, is there? I mean, why won't scalia or thomas drop dead or retire or something, please?

Now you see the full deviousness of the Republican nomination strategy: pick 'em young, stonewall through the confirmation, and control that SCOTUS seat for 3 decades.

the Jeffrey Toobin book about SCOTUS claims that Souter was so bitter about Bush v Gore that he almost stepped down then.

I don't think it needs to be said on this board, but if the Specter switch had anything to do with Souter's decision, I'll be totally amazed. It's all Obama election + getting to the end of the current court term.

On an unrelated note, Dahlia Lithwick has a funny play-by-play on the Voting Rights Act case currently before the Court.

i saw rbg speak last month actually and she seemed pretty sharp!

well, yeah

?

i meant for someone who is old and has cancer and people expect to retire

lol malkin and her "legal sources" http://michellemalkin.com/2009/05/01/obamas-choices-gird-your-loins/

Okay so for a trifecta we need one more old-line GOP-affiliated government person to make a decision that causes most everyone to go WTF with a last name that starts with S and ends with 'er'

-It is also unclear that a Justice Kagan would be an adequately independent check on executive excesses. She has argued in favor of greatly enhanced presidential control over the bureaucracy, which is concerning in light of President Obama’s unprecedented centralization of power in the White House.

o_O

Anything to keep themselves happy.

ok lololololol at Kagan on the Supreme Court

JUSTICE HI DERE

I mean, I have heard from RELIABLE SOURCES that it's something she desperately wants, but I'm categorically opposed to that for the exact same reason I was categorically opposed to Harriet Miers; you should have served as a judge if you're going to be on the Supreme Court.

. . .or at least argued a case in front of the Supreme Court

As Legal Times reported in January, the selection of experienced appellate litigators for the position of solicitor general is a relatively recent phenomenon that parallels specialization at the Court generally. Past solicitors general who had not argued before the Court until after their selection include Robert Bork, Wade McCree, and Kenneth Starr.

i meant for someone who is old and has cancer and people expect to retire

neither cancer nor age nor the possibility of retirement necessarily make someone weak of mind.

you should have served as a judge if you're going to be on the Supreme Court

there are lots of smart people, lawyers included, who disagree

wow i didn't know thanks xp

don't assume for a second this is going to be status quo OR a move to the lib side

You can't assume anything about Supreme Court justices. Look at Souter himself.

there are lots of smart people, lawyers included, who disagree

Which is fine. I still have my opinion.

I don't think Douglas had experience as a judge.

Is Souter really that liberal? Or just liberal in terms of the composition of this particular court?

The latter. Stevens isn't a liberal either.

In that NYT magazine profile of Stevens a couple of years ago, he got miffed when he was called a liberal.

Souter is not that liberal for a gay justice.

Oh you went there etc.

well, not every man can fill his robe etc.

basically, the "liberal" side has been intellectually vacant since Brennan retired.

most gay guys would rather live in rural NH than DC

There's more bears in DC though.

not esp friendly bears, in my experience. and otters w/ cologne.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/05/01/sotomayor_the_front-runner.html

Your 2008 Obama Cabinet/Appointments Speculation Thread

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22106.html

if barry wants to start a civil war, then sure why not.

he'll get to it right after he holds somebody accountable for torture

that would be awesome, not only a woman but a gay???

not only a gay but a WOMAN

yeah so not gonna happen
but i would like leah ward sears--not only a woman but a black or vice versa

Lisa Coleman for Supreme Court Justice. The movement begins HERE.

not a gay, not yet a woman

justice queen latifah

she can rule in my jurisdiction

It's really more important to have the justice that can make the best argument for gay rights than to have a justice that is gay. If a non-gay justice supports gay rights but makes better constitutional arguments for gay rights, that's the better choice.

I mean Scalia isn't good for the right because he's conservative, he's good for the right because he can make conservative arguments that have at least a superficial appearance of soundness, sureness and clarity with regard to the Constitution.

Plus he's gay

lol

umm I don't know how well "gay" and "conservative" equate - the value of having an underrepresented minority on the court seems clear

id say conservatives are pretty gay

umm I don't know how well "gay" and "conservative" equate - the value of having an underrepresented minority on the court seems clear

Look at how great Clarence Thomas has been!

Thomas was an inspired choice, in purely political terms. As a justice he is, of course, a joke in very poor taste, but a joke who votes exactly as he was intended to vote. Given the ridicule he invites on himself and so obviously grimly endures, it is a wonder that he doesn't go on a killing spree.

What kind of ridicule does he endure?

I'm reading Supreme Conflict at the moment, and I've underestimated Thomas' influence on the court, especially on Scalia, whom he's been accused of aping (when the evidence shows that Thomas swayed Scalia in the early days).

i'm sure every lawyer in the SCOTUS bar has a million jokes about him, he's ridiculed in the press all the time for not asking questions during oral argument and for having an RV and just being a total weirdo, plus he's considered the poorest writer on the court.

he's ridiculed in the press all the time for not asking questions during oral argument and for having an RV and just being a total weirdo

Rehnquist, Roberts, and Ginsburg all say he asks sharp questions in conference. He's a weirdo, sure (and a really angry one too), but I'm not going so far as to call him an embarrassment or hack because I don't agree with his jurisprudence.

“I have to admit,” he said, “that I’m one of those people that still thinks the dishwasher is a miracle. What a device! And I have to admit that because I think that way, I like to load it. I like to look in and see how the dishes were magically cleaned.”

I'm reading Supreme Conflict at the moment

how's that? have just started the nine by jeffrey toobins.

Nowhere near as good as Toobin's. Her prose is lumpy, and she has little patience with analyzing cases; she's more interested in People Magazine profiles (which makes this a pretty entertaining read, actually).

Rehnquist, Roberts, and Ginsburg all say he asks sharp questions in conference. He's a weirdo, sure (and a really angry one too), but I'm not going so far as to call him an embarrassment or hack because I don't agree with his jurisprudence.

I'm not saying he's an embarrasement because of his jurisprudence. I'm sure he's a great guy to work with. I'm saying he's an embarrassment b/c unlike say, Scalia, he's a shitty writer and plus you know the dishwasher shit. And then there's this:

“Today there is much focus on our rights,” Justice Thomas said. “Indeed, I think there is a proliferation of rights.”

“I am often surprised by the virtual nobility that seems to be accorded those with grievances,” he said. “Shouldn’t there at least be equal time for our Bill of Obligations and our Bill of Responsibilities?”

Those bits deserve their own thread.

"Stevens isn't a liberal either."

But as someone said at the beginning of this thread years ago:

"Stevens is the only one of the Justices worth a damn when it comes to criminal law."

http://thepage.time.com/2009/05/07/sessions-open-to-gay-justice/

open to gay tendencies but what about gay activities?

I mean Scalia isn't good for the right because he's conservative, he's good for the right because he can make conservative arguments that have at least a superficial appearance of soundness, sureness and clarity with regard to the Constitution.

Plus -- I'm sad to say -- he's probably the best writer on the Supreme Court.

yeah, i've read a handful of his opinions (usually via lithwick) and it's like damn i totally agree with you, dude, waht is going on

Scalia's great genius is a myth

yeah wtf i can't stand the way he writes. almost as bad as kennedy.

I don't think he's a genius. I think he's knows how to turn a very sharp phrase, explain difficult notions simply and directly, and he began calling out other Justices in his opinions, a practice that hadn't been done before Scalia (at least not nearly as much, or as well).

he's funny

There u go.

he is funny but his tendency to call people out always really bothered me, so smug, especially given how he is never, ever, right.

i'm all for a good zing but it's the supreme court, zings are frowned upon imo

He and Gore Vidal have one thing in common: an alarmist self-pity, manifesting itself in jeremiads about the fall of the Republic.

two of my favorite dudes there

Jeffrey Rosen says some more things.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/05/some_lines_just_cant_be_crossed.php

Rosen's right about one thing--Sotomayor's entry in the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary is pretty harsh

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/05/11/a_scotus_short_list.html

i've been kinda going with the assumption (CW?) that Obama picks whoever is easiest to confirm - he wants to save his capital for agenda items, has shown little interest in engaging on social issues, and it's unclear how many votes he has. i'm not sure that's right, though. the court is obv extra-ordinary business and something he's clearly interested in, plus it may just be downhill from here, capital- (and votes-?) wise. not that there's a huge difference between the options. i perceive the state of play as the following:

Wood: perceived as the most liberal, and perhaps the sharpest; she seems to be the pick that makes it a fight (her age might temper opposition, though not by much, and it would make the pick less likely); he'll have to set the terms of the debate first, and well
Sotomayor: perceived as liberal, but the double-demographic appeal and her original appointment by Poppy may well make her the easiest confirmation (and the talk about her being difficult, etc., may also make her an easier confirmation - but also a less likely pick?)
Kagan: perceived as less liberal than Wood (and Sotomayor?) and therefore perhaps also an easier confirmation; her (Roberts-esque?) personality may cause the GOP concern behind the scenes (and make her a more likely pick?), but they'll need some other textual excuse to oppose her (her lack of bench experience and her position in the Obama admin, presumably)
Napolitano: her lower- (lowest?) wattage may raise her chances - less of a personality than Kagan, and may be perceived as less liberal by virtue of being top cop; politically connected to Obama in more high-profile fashion than Kagan, but AG is not a political position (and Obama may want someone with more political skills there?)

he could, of course, pick a Wood first, and if things don't work out, revert to another choice. though that wouldn't seem to be very Obama-esque procedure.

so basically

Wood = Rehnquist
Sotomayor = Scalia (the easier confirmation of the two)
Kagan = Roberts
Napolitano = Alito

?

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/judge-sotomayors-appellate-opinions-in-civil-cases/

http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/souters-summits/

WOD wasn't exactly the best justice, but he did know his mountains

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/05/20/wood_goes_to_washington.html

I have hiked in the William O. Douglas Wilderness Area in Washington State. It really is a lovely bit of all right.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/us/politics/25power.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Key_Democrat_warns_against_activist_05242009.html

god ben nelson is such a tool

Just came here to say ^^^^^^, but less eloquently.

The word is Sotomayor:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/obama-makes-decision-on-supreme-court-nominee/index.html?hp

is Bill Brennan dead?

I just wanna say that no matter who the nominee is he or she is totally not good enough for me & is a huge disappointment

I heard Obama is going to pick George W Bush, in a sign of looking forward.

ah crap too slow, NYT main page now says Sotomayor.

I heard Obama is going to pick George W Bush, in a sign of looking forward.

admit that you would pay top dollar to read one of Justice Bush's opinions

I know he has no interest in a liberal "ideologue," whatever that means, but after the 2010 midterms he won't approach a veto-proof majority again. Why not risk a Pam Karlan – someone who can hold their own against Scalia and Roberts?

Yeah, I would have preferred a stronger, more impressive pick -- the kind that would capture law students' fancy and make the liberal wing look highly credible.

"In stunning news, President Obama picked himself for the Supreme Court. "Some say that I'm trying to do too much while in office. To them, I just want to say that I can walk and chew gum at the same time." President George W. Bush, while disappointed with the choice of an "activist judge", said that he was impressed with President Obama's "taking my unitary executive view to a whole new level"."

She ordered the end of the baseball strike so that's good enough for me.

I really don't know much about her, but I can't resist the opportunity:

SOUTH BRONX! SOUTH-SOUTH BRONX!

since i dont follow any judges and shit, can i ask whats not 'strong' about sotomayor?

her left hook

Making left turns when the stoplight turns from yellow to red.

i'm not the biggest Toobin fan but that Roberts article last week in the NYer was scary shit

Sonia Sotomayor?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 9 November 2006 10:24 (2 years ago)

the Roberts article was nothing new - all that stuff was pretty evident at the time of his confirmation, and was in any event made so not long after he took the bench

Agreed.

absolutely. it was just good to be reminded of how scary the guy is

the GOP will be dicks, to be sure, but she'll be a relatively easy confirmation

"after the 2010 midterms he won't approach a veto-proof majority again."

He actually probably will, the Rs are defending many more open Senate seats than the Ds.

o wait

gabbneb (gabbneb) wrote this on thread Bush's nominee to replace O'Connor is Harriet Miers on board I Love Everything on Oct 10, 2005

Kerry or Gore probably would have nominated Sonia Sotomayer or Jose Cabranes. Though maybe they're too Northeastern.

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/the-dynamic-of-the-nomination-of-sonia-sotomayor/

The second claim – and this one will be front and center – will be the classic resort to ideology: that Judge Sotomayor is a liberal ideologue and “judicial activist.” (Put to the side the emptiness of the labels – i.e., that one person’s principle (e.g., a decision invalidating state laws authorizing punitive damages) is another’s “activism.”) There is no question that Sonia Sotomayor would be on the left of this Supreme Court, just not the radical left. Our surveys of her opinions put her in essentially the same ideological position as Justice Souter. In the ideological cases where her rulings have been reviewed by the Supreme Court (for example, Malesko and the pending Ricci case), her views have aligned with the left of the current Court.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090526/ap_on_go_su_co/us_obama_supreme_court

Sotomayor is a self-described "Newyorkrican"

uh, ur spellin it rong

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/05/26/sotomayer_talking_points.html

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2009/05/26/gop_senators_who_voted_against_sotomayer_in_1998.html

(includes Sessions, McConnell and McCain)

If that's how she describes herself, then it's not spelled wrong.

Obama is at his sparkling best at this formal announcement, by the way.

*pop* *fizz*

If that's how she describes herself, then it's not spelled wrong.

it's a matter of pronunciation

is it spelling or pronouncation

pick one and tell us o wise sage of the interwebs

let's all acknowledge gabbknob predicted exactly nothing.

howeve, i called this at a Noise FAP 3 weeks ago

the motion for acknowledgement is granted

well it's not pronounciation. maybe she does say newyorkrican, apparently a few people do:

Results 1 - 10 of about 357,000 for nuyorican
Results 1 - 10 of about 3,380 for newyorkrican

but I'm guessing there's a pretty good chance that whoever wrote the article has either never heard the word before or figures it has to be translated for the audience

lol at morbs

gabbneb is an originalist when it comes to pronunciation. Show some empathy!

the nets seem to have decided that her last name is pronounced "soto-my-air," which i'm guessing is what happens when you start to pronounce her name like golda meir and then pull halfway back

next fall: SNL sketch where she sings "A Boy Like That" to Ruth Ginsburg

no one on SNL is 1/2 as funny as Ginsburg's hubby

in Spanish you slightly roll the last "r," and it's definitely a long "o."

"In stunning news, President Obama picked himself for the Supreme Court. "Some say that I'm trying to do too much while in office. To them, I just want to say that I can walk and chew gum at the same time." President George W. Bush, while disappointed with the choice of an "activist judge", said that he was impressed with President Obama's "taking my unitary executive view to a whole new level"."

What do you suppose are the odds that he will, in fact, be appointed to the SCOTUS someday?

150:1 against

Will take those odds.

Hmmm
05.26.09 -- 9:49AM
By Josh Marshall

The Politico says that Republicans are in the difficult position of perhaps needing to hold their fire because of the political dangers of attacking a "Latina single mother."

But the Post says Sotomayor, who was married briefly when she was younger, has no children. And as far as we can tell, they're right: she has no children.

Interesting point from NPR this AM - assuming she is confirmed, she will make 6 Catholics on the Supreme Court. 6!!!

and leave us with 1 Jew

How many lizard people?

let the vetting of the vetters begin

also, the re-vetting of the vetted

it's all vetty vetty intertsing

Interesting point from NPR this AM - assuming she is confirmed, she will make 6 Catholics on the Supreme Court. 6!!!

our centuries-long plan is finally coming to fruition

i'm looking forward to the GOP torpedoing their remaining chances with hispanics in '10

How many lizard people?

http://www.picvault.info/images/77784_ScaliaLizard.jpg

http://www.catholic.com/images/Image17.gif

i mean, what are the chances that someone in the conservative media orbit might say something kind of offensive about hispanics in the next few weeks? just hear me out, it could happen

xps lol wut

I'd rather opposition to her nomination didn't pivot on GOP reluctance to attack a Hispanic woman, says this Hispanic.

honestly I'd think the 6 Catholics idea could get some traction amongst the bible-toting massive, there's still loads of anti-Catholic sentiment in the base

as a Hispanic I hope that we will be lucky enough to hear GOP "real talk" on what they think of Hispanics, but I suspect we won't get much of this from "official" sources.

Ready for GOP "real talk" on Newyorkricans vs. Nuyoricans

well, the GOP loves Cubans, if that's consolation.

I'd rather opposition to her nomination didn't pivot on GOP reluctance to attack a Hispanic woman, says this Hispanic.

― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 26, 2009 10:44 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

ha well lets all hope today's nu and improved GOP feels no reluctance on this point!!

I think most of the GOP will be busy enough with gender-based insults to forget that she's Hispanic, too.

did you hear she has like 9 kids??

Great! She doesn't believe in birth control!

anyway, I expect this quote will come up at the hearings:

"A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

A conclusion about what?

about how to spell newyorkrican

About having nine kids, silly.

Maybe this will encourage more white males to lead the lives of wise Latina women.

hope Obama's next nominee is Rosie Perez

The full quote:

I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that - it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others....

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases…I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

I'm guessing that hanging out with Supreme Court justice types would generally be a pain in the ass, wrt egos. Except for GWB of course.

Professor Martha Minnow

Minow

I'm guessing that hanging out with Supreme Court justice types would generally be a pain in the ass, wrt egos

only one of the current justices would generally be regarded as having a big ego. i'd guess that another does, but his manner is intended to mask it.

Blind items!

these are fairly obvious

I don't see how you make it to the Supreme Court without a big ego, regardless of your arrogance lvl

gabbneb's source is Jeffrey Toobin.

dan OTM

i disagree

With one exception, John Paul Stevens never consents to interviews and doesn't grandstand.

you can't get there without believing in your capability, but an ego can be an impediment

Good profile.

only one of the current justices would generally be regarded as having a big ego. i'd guess that another does, but his manner is intended to mask it.

actually, make that 3, but no one pays attention to the third's personality

are you pulling these out of your ass or what? what are you basing them on?

actually, make that 3, but no one pays attention to the third's personality

They just can't see past that big fuckin' horsecock that makes him a hit at all the parties.

yes, Mr. Que, i am "pulling these out of your ass"

They just can't see past that big fuckin' horsecock that makes him a hit at all the parties.

Toby Maguire is on the SCOTUS?

shhhh, it's a secret

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/26/huckabee-calls-supreme-court-nominee-maria/

^^^^^ lol for days

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/05/obamas_pick_from_the_start.php

thanks--that's what i thought

conservatives, start your boners

lolz is that the best they can do

honestly, I've heard the 'activist judges' and 'legislating from the bench' talking points so many times.. I don't know if they even have a meaning any more. just noise.

Interesting point from NPR this AM - assuming she is confirmed, she will make 6 Catholics on the Supreme Court. 6!!!
our centuries-long plan is finally coming to fruition

no doubt! I heard this and thought.. it figures, who is better at judging everything all the time. :) anyway there have been some hints dropped from some rightwing conservatives that they might try and make a thing out of her religion.. stay tuned on that, I guess.

LOL

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/us/politics/27websotomayor.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

A large part of Ms. Sotomayor’s work was fighting the counterfeiters who copied products of Fendi, the luxury goods company, and its well-known “double F” logo. Sometimes, that meant suing counterfeiters to stop them from importing fake Fendi goods.

At other times, it involved more derring-do: if the firm had a tip from the United States Customs Office about a suspicious shipment, Ms. Sotomayor would often be involved in the risky maneuver of going to the warehouse to have the merchandise seized. One incident that figures largely in firm lore was a seizure in Chinatown, where the counterfeiters ran away, and Ms. Sotomayor got on a motorcycle and gave chase.

haha wtf

http://api.ning.com/files/jwQFftICKdubNmqQupnB*0mAtL5IeRfkDYOZyLlQVKg_/motorcycle_diaries.jpg

don't mess!

there have been some hints dropped from some rightwing conservatives that they might try and make a thing out of her religion

good luck getting that to fly in the d.c. media

Her religion will not make it to the level of Rush Limbaugh, let alone into the Judiciary Committee. No f-ing way.

even i am amazed how stupid and ugly this got right away.

for like half a day it was amusing that conservatives were complaining, preemptively, that they won't be able complain about sotomayor's liberalism because she's latina, and the left would call them racist. but it looks like they really just wanted to say a bunch of racist shit about latinas. they've got tom tancredo out in front! mike huckabee called her "maria"! i mean, it's really fucked up, they can't even help themselves.

http://www.hellblazer.com/media/foot.gif

new GOP logo^^^

National Review Online's Mark Krikorian: "Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English... and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to."

Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb: "Obama seems to have the views of a 21-year-old Hispanic girl -- that is, only by having a black president, an Hispanic justice, a female secretary of State, and Bozo the Clown as vice president will the United States become a true 'vanguard of societal ideas and changes.'"

Newt weighs in, via Twitter: "White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw."

Greenwald has an instructive post on the GOP's forgetful memory. Intellectually Sotomayor, and in marketing, her nomination looks a lot, he claims, like Alito's.

hahah wow

xpost

legendary

Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb: "Obama seems to have the views of a 21-year-old Hispanic girl -- that is, only by having a black president, an Hispanic justice, a female secretary of State, and Bozo the Clown as vice president will the United States become a true 'vanguard of societal ideas and changes.'"

unlike the Harriet Miers nomination, which was entirely based on her vast judicial expertise

daily howler is totally on point today (unsurprisingly):

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh052709.shtml

Why do people of certain ethnicities feel they’re constantly bumping on “limits?” Why do their lives never become fully “post-ethnic?” Perhaps for this reason: No matter how these people may soar, they keep encountering silly piffle of the type littered through [Amy] Goldstein’s [Washington Post] profile.

National Review Online's Mark Krikorian: "Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English... and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to."

My mouth is opening and closing...

Obama seems to have the views of a 21-year-old Hispanic girl -- that is, only by having a black president, an Hispanic justice, a female secretary of State, and Bozo the Clown as vice president will the United States become a true 'vanguard of societal ideas and changes

^^^this is so blatantly racist I dunno what to say, really...

yeah and plus think of the clowns

what ethnicity does Bozo belong to?

africlown-american

as long as limbaugh et al can convince their base that sotomayor is essentially illegitimate they will be happy; that will allow their consciences just that much more latitude to use whatever tactics they want to bring down obama and democrats everywhere

Greenwald in re: Alito - totally awesome.

lolololol africlown american

sorry my last post is a bit green inkish

and mine was total gibberish.

National Review Online's Mark Krikorian: "Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English... and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to."

Uh, Antonin Scalia?

Oh great, another salvo of "buncha big dumb white guys freaking out with revelation that white guys won't be calling the shots forever"

Uh, Antonin Scalia?

Scalia is the second-to-last syllable, though! More natural!

the marketing of a nominee's bootstrapism is so vapid

Hugh Hewitt, calm for once. I mean, obv. not entirely but:

But Judge Sotomayor will almost certainly prove to be sharp and charming, intelligent and witty --because that's what federal appeals court judges are trained to be, and she has been on the bench a very long time. Cryptic references to her temperament by retired clerks eager to be "in the mix" are the worst sort of gossip-dressed-up-as-journalism, and simply lower expectations which she will easily meet and exceed. The judge is obviously a bright and accomplished professional with an enormously appealing personal story which resembles that of Justices Thomas and Alito. This is a great country that allows anyone who works hard to rise, and some to rise spectacularly as has Judge Sotomayor.

All of which is a way of saying that the GOP must be true to its originalist principles without being churlish or even curt. Some on the right will want to use the occasion of President Obama's first nomination to raise money through direct mail appeals, even though there is literally almost no way to stop Judge Sotomayor's confirmation. Activists upset with the recharging of the liberal bloc on SCOTUS should send their money to the Senate campaigns of Rob Simmons in Connecticut, Rob Portman in Ohio, or Bob Beauprex in Colorado, should he declare. Conservative interest groups should spare us the histrionics and work on increasing the number of Republicans in the upper chamber. President Obama will almost certainly have more SCOTUS appointments. Any hope of serious opposition to a nominee requires more Republican senators pure and simple.

wow!

did he get hit on the head recently or something?

Well Hewitt is if nothing else a law scholar in a fraternity of same and while he's batshit he's often surprised me over the years when it comes to lawyer/scholars/judges on the opposing political side. Case in point was when Chereminsky was named dean of the law school here -- Hewitt praised the choice highly and offered much support when there was a temporary kerfluffle about it.

xposts Krikorian is like my uncle Joe, who knows the correct pronunciation of "jalapeno" but still says "ja-LAP-a-no" to stick it to the Mexicans who think they can just take over his country.

Krikorian

This name sounds fishy and ethnic imo

crick-oh-REE-uhn

Hahaha why do I know you are saying that to the tune of a certain Cabaret Voltaire song.

trickles up, trickles down

why does anyone listen to this guy about anything

going to start pronouncing Sotomayor with the rolled "r" and a Castilian lisp

I find it impossible to pronounce "Gael Garcia Bernal" without the Castilian lisp, tbh.

seeming to me that what's going on is mostly -> how badly & loudly will the far-right base freak out, how much money will they raise off it, and how much can the democrats make a big deal of this to paint the whole GOP as just that crazy (and raise money off it)

okay so is it just me and my cold-reading of that quote or is the entire subtext behind it Sotomayer saying "trust me, I'm awesome" in a back-handed way

daria wins, although she forgot the part where windbaggery during the confirmation hearings will be at an alltime unwatchable status. Which is saying a lot.

the context is specifically discrimination cases based on race and sex. she's saying 'in these kinds of cases, i hope that more often than not i'd be a better judge than a white guy.'

but.. but.. but.. there's no joe the biden at the hearings! :)

a whole other level:

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/critics-focus-on-sotomayor-speech-in-la-raza-journal-2009-05-27.html

Sotomayor also claimed: “For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir — rice, beans and pork — that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events.”

This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo — pigs’ tongue and ears — would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench.

Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said he wasn’t certain whether Sotomayor had claimed her palate would color her view of legal facts but he said that President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee clearly touts her subjective approach to the law.

“It’s pretty disturbing,” said Levey. “It’s one thing to say that occasionally a judge will despite his or her best efforts to be impartial ... allow occasional biases to cloud impartiality.

"But it’s almost like she’s proud that her biases and personal experiences will cloud her impartiality.”

(via tpm like every other damn thing)

man, if i were a republican, i'd be pissed at that article for using anonymous republican sources that make republicans look ridiculous and stupid.

not that they all are, but for real i thought that was a joke. (It's not a joke?)

nobody knows!

There's a flood of racism welled up in the GOP base/media, and the real fun will begin when it comes out in a torrent rather than trickles about Puerto Rican food.

i find this pick disappointing but it's in keeping with the obama admin's overcautious approach to everything.

I don't know enough about her to feel one way or another. I like the fact that her picked her despite there already being a none-to-subtle smear campaign against her.

the context is specifically discrimination cases based on race and sex. she's saying 'in these kinds of cases, i hope that more often than not i'd be a better judge than a white guy.'

okay, so I'm NOT misreading (just paraphrasing glibly, ha)

Note Newt's blatant misrepresentation of same - explicitly changing it to "I am better than white men because I am a latina woman"

I don't think this has been posted, but this NYT article posted today is the best level-headed analysis of Sotomayor's jurisprudence I've read yet.

Fox News has a wonderful panoply of Sotomayor pronunciations going on, but the best is a portmanteau of Sodomite and mayor.

21 year old Hispanic girls and right wing squares' frustrated sex drives.

Aside from the inconvenient truth of the English language being begged, borrowed and stolen from dozens of other languages, the silliness of the Night Of The Living Dead White Men trying to say what's 'natural' or not in terms of Latinate pronunciation makes the etymologist in me do roffles. The party of Sarah Palin is not allowed to tell anyone what is and isn't normal English. Bring on a Xhosan-American appointee for the next something so they'll go bananas refusing to pronounce "!".

Also this round of a bunch of old white guys sitting around and bitching has CLASSISM through it like rock; any time you're dealing with people who use a different code-word for 'uppity' with each new day that is what's really under discussion; the racism is located where those who don't want to lose their grip on privilege tend to 'other' and assign 'uppity' more frequently to people who are not white.

Love the way the right in the US reaches for 'single mother' and 'affirmative action' just long enough to be the perfect combo of ignorance and disinformation. They'll stop that and speak no more about it, but the same kind of people who kvetch about ACORN will absorb it as fact and behave accordingly. Affirmative action is one of many ways a genius gets out of the boogie down Bronx; I have a difficult time believing it's screwed a single person of pallor out of any so-called entitlement. Also love the way people who don't do evolution are unrepentant social Darwinists.

Also love the way people who don't do evolution are unrepentant social Darwinists.

Cannot be emphasized enough tbh

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/29/liddy-sotoyamor-menstruating/

http://mediamatters.org/research/200905280037

LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLS

so wait, she is unfit to be a Supreme Court justice because she corrects ppl's grammar/spelling

"spellchecker" to uncomfortably close to "factchecker" for Rove

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/29/liddy-sotoyamor-menstruating/

― Mr. Que, Friday, May 29, 2009 3:57 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

they said this abt hillary too iirc--why don't these dudes understand menopause

i mean it would also be a stupid thing to say if she was younger but ????

"while investigating Alito, who sat on a totally different court, i was bothered by her penmanship"

man if i was a justice on an appeals court (or any court) and i made a grammar error, i'd want someone to tell me

redstate:

http://yzss6g.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pz1Ame1wUEOs6AWzx-YicGCTmLC7Kb85aiHTwy_LUKDbQO573ONrvkmfmVCgOyJ7au2of3kIeMy37Ssqk4AR1tg/WhereIsMyOffice.jpg

maybe that belongs in the batshit rightwing cartoons thread?

From Washpost

Former GOP congressman Tom Tancredo (Colo.) also took Sotomayor to task for membership in the National Council of La Raza, labeling the nation's largest Hispanic advocacy group as "a Latino KKK without the hoods or nooses."

nice. this guy is a first rate bigot and all, but come on.

^^^what is a "first rate bigot" I wonder. but anyways, carry on.

okay fine, but kkk without the hoods and nooses what is it really?

elks club?

a charlie daniels concert

When ten white guys won't say whether or not a Latina woman is a racist:

wow: http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2009/05/so-so_sonia_fro.html

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/new/debbieside.gif

this is good.

it is pretty ridiculous that there is cause to deny the charge of racism, but since it's a talking point &c

SCOTUSblog, analyzing some of Sotomayor's rulings, comes up with surprising results.

the comments on that debbie schlussel column are brilliant!

omg, first time i've seen this one:

"KING HUSSEIN COBRAMA"

i actually like to visit debbie regularly--great inept film reviews and hilarious racism plus that weird glamour shot

i almost feel sorry for her - it's clear that some pretty sharp types have decided to camp out on her site and shoot down every idiotic thing she types

Alfred's link is worth following. Good data analysis there. Neither long nor abstruse.

Aw, thanks Newt, we knew you didn't really mean it. Oh wait.

http://newt.org/Portals/_default/Skins/newtorg.V3/images/head_left.jpg

That's... that's his slogan?

"Real People" Requires Real People

"You know what we need to get out of this mess? We need to get out of this mess!"

My initial reaction was strong and direct -- perhaps too strong and too direct.

This is a classic. It should be taught in schoolbooks. "My biggest flaw? People tell me that sometimes, I'm just too honest."

I am curious as to who in the Republican Party (presumably someone in the Senate?) put the screws to Newt to get him to retract that

no one put the screws to him. Jeff Sessions of all people said publicly that he disagreed.

nah, someone did some tonguelashing

haha fucken unreal!!

seriously we're talking about two guys who NEVER EVER apologize for anything, much less publicly change their minds. Someone did some armtwisting.

i really wonder who it could have been. conspiracy! this is awesome! hell it could have been bush himself i suppose

Sotomayor's questionnaire.

she's a Hispanic Catholic, Puerto Rican, they tend to be devout

what a douche

OMIGOD

haha what the hell

That thing is so fucking good, I'm jealous.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/05/corporations-behind-efforts-to-label-sotomayor-racist/

As true as what that story says probably is, it's a terribly written story that either neglects to include or buries a lot of information. It's a little vague to say that the CFJ is a "big business" organization that represents "business interests"

Hispanic Catholic, Puerto Rican, everybody just-a-freakin'

that the first time you've read the site, xp? you don't go there for 'journalism' - they're partisan/paranoid - you go there for new/newly packaged info.

i'm assuming Sessions & Co are being courtly because they want to save ammo for Wood or worse, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if the courtliness is just the precursor to the battle

John Cornyn's chief of sftaff for Supreme court nominations dismisses many GOP talking points.

Not sure of its relevance, but here's a take on Sotomayor's prose.

i'm rather more concerned with how she would apply precedent than whether or not she can spin the application of stare decisis into a ripping yarn.

If your opinion is subject to review by a higher court, as Sotomayor's have always been until now, then building a strong structure of legal precedent would be a pretty effective way of fending off reversals. As an associate justice of the SCOTUS, where reversal isn't an issue and your opinions constitute an overriding precedent, she might evolve a different style over time.

Ed Whelan schools us on Spanish grammar.

Chinga tu madre, Ed Whelan...

The Supreme Court has ruled that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide, potentially limiting the circumstances in which employers can be held liable for decisions when there is no evidence of intentional discrimination against minorities.
"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them.

oh shit

Wasn't this predicted? I would have been surprised if it had been upheld.

I'm a little surprised by Kennedy's writing the opinion on these important cases. Is the court so divided that both sides want his vote or is this Roberts' way of obviating controversy?

It all hinges on what the definition of "discrimination" is - intent or outcome.

xpost

john roberts, activist

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions,"

this is one of the provisions of the civil rights act, as i've seen it explained. cities/organizations CAN act to remedy potential civil rights problems before the lawsuits come in, if they think they might, and are further protected from lawsuits under the civil rights act if they do so -- that was the whole issue of the ricci case (uh i forget where i read this analysis). but the roberts court decided to throw out more of the underlying civil rights act on ideological grounds.

I had this case on my Con Law final and didn't realize it was real rather than a made up hypo. I think I argued more along Ginsburg's lines but hedged (as one always does on a law school exam).

A good summary on how Chief Justice Roberts has operated behind the scenes.

*of

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPREME_COURT_STEVENS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

hmmmmm......

man the sotomayor nom process was so awesome i can't wait to do that shit again.

This'll be a hoot.

John Paul Stevens is so old!
He saw Babe Ruth call his shot in the 1932 World Series.
He met Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh gave him a caged dove as a gift.

He's so old that he betrayed the Nazarene.

Excellent discussion on the Citizens United case involving Glenn Greenwald.

Actually here

not that this kind of thing should have any bearing on the law, but it does make one wonder whether there was anything guiding this ruling besides some kind of totally gross plutocrat elitism

Like I said when the decision happened, as a First Amendment diehard I'm very ambivalent, and Greenwald was instructive those first few days.

Surprised no one's mentioned this.

Phelps is a complete ass and I wish him every malevolence a benevolent God can offer but legally I'm on his side here.

I am too, but it looks like the justices are leaning against him.

honestly I'm surprised there isn't some other group that just follows them around with "God Hates Fred Phelps" signs

seems like a pretty clear cut "free speech" case to me, don't really see the legal rationale for ruling against Phelps

Why are you guys on his legal side?

because he was in a public place waving a sign. there is no law against this.

I'm a First Amendment loyalist.

Also: the plaintiff's lawyer sorta screwed things up by admitting that if Phelps' people had confined their remarks to the internet, he would have sued for emotional distress anyway.

I mean, Michael's right this guy is a douchebag deserving of the worst punishment imaginable... but the law is the law.

i kinda feel like there has to be some legal remedy to people ruining one funeral after another tho. what else, besides running them off with a pistol or something?

what is shouting fire in a crowded theater if not... trolling

Were I present at the funeral, I'd stick the signs up their asses, and I'm pretty sure local law enforcement would have let me off with a slap on the wrist.

or is the rationale behind "you still can't shout fire in a crowded theater" that people might be hurt trying to flee? not just that it's a dick move that freaks people out

xp yeah that's what i mean -- legislatures have some reasonable impetus to solve a problem here: let's not have funerals be potential sites of violence because we can't legally prevent people from fucking with each other there

it's important to note how far away these guys were from the actual funeral services. It's not like they were at the graveside or in the church.

xp

or is the rationale behind "you still can't shout fire in a crowded theater" that people might be hurt trying to flee?

this is absolutely the rationale. speech that creates a clear and present danger is not protected.

Yeah I can't go for ruling against Phelps here.

Actually, Holmes wrote "falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater."

well yeah, I thought the "falsely" part was understood

if i'm reading it right, tho, i think the question at hand is not whether they have a right to express issue-based opinions, but whether their inflammatory & directed statements about the dead serviceman, as a private citizen, should be protected given the context of the funeral

^^^^ yes

by all accounts the protesters obeyed police guidelines too.

that's what i gather from all the falwell vs hustler discussion, at least xp

I think the problem from the prosecution's end is that Phelps' group's statements were not personal/direct enough to qualify as not being protected...?

"you're going to hell" is pretty pointed in the context of a funeral imo, but idk

this is going to be interesting. i'm pretty firm in my support for these assholes but i'll be interested to see which way the court rules; kagan is on board for this one and the article hints she might be sympathetic to the church's case, as stevens likely would have, even given his own shortcomings w/ the first amendment (though that was a much different stevens, i think)

xp

Were I present at the funeral, I'd stick the signs up their asses, and I'm pretty sure local law enforcement would have let me off with a slap on the wrist.

― raging hetero lifechill (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 6, 2010 5:14 PM (23 minutes ago)

yeah totally - i flip off anti-abortion protesters every morning outside my hospital where i work. they can be there but i can still hate them

xps yeah the point of the schenk ruling was that the speech had to provoke "clear and present danger" - i don't agree with how it was applied in the particular case (and the opinion was later weakened) but the "crowded theater" example everyone gives is reasonable

wow xposts

Also: the plaintiff's lawyer sorta screwed things up by admitting that if Phelps' people had confined their remarks to the internet, he would have sued for emotional distress anyway.

― raging hetero lifechill (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 6, 2010 5:10 PM (33 minutes ago)

did they? i dunno. they've also had to admit he never actually saw them at the funeral. i didn't think that was the point though. anyway i don't feel too strongly about this either way but i wouldn't feel sad if they ruled in the dad's favor. wouldn't think it was cool if they were banned from protesting at the funeral & subject to criminal prosecution for it but civil infliction of emotional distress seems otm

i'm not that excited about the first amendment in general

i hope someone comes and arrests me for saying that

actually this could come down something like 6-3 in the church's favor, with weird alliances

scalia i think will uphold the appellate ruling

it's your high-maintenance outraged political junkie friend of amendments

haha

it is like an outraged political junkie in a lot of ways

We used to surround people like that and call them perverts when I was in school.

h8 the first amendment

I mean, Michael's right this guy is a douchebag deserving of the worst punishment imaginable... but the law is the law.

― crude interloper of a once august profession (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, October 6, 2010 5:12 PM Bookmark

If things were as simple as "the law is the law" we wouldn't need a Supreme Court.

well ok that doesn't really address the point here

IMO, ideally, Phelps should not be able to do what he does at funerals. The problem I see is finding a sufficiently narrow way to address his sort of deliberate provocation at funerals without affecting a wider swath of speech. Although honestly if the result is that you can't protest other things at a funeral either, I don't think that's so terrible.

As Ginsburg suggested, there's also a question of whether tort law is the way to address the issue. Incidentally, I don't understand why the Times reports oral argument questions as though they represent the opinions of the justices, which may or may not in fact be true.

But to be clear, I'm not convinced that you CAN'T find a way to address Phelps' speech without being too broad. I mean there are plenty of cases defining outer limits of protected expression.

well i disagree completely i think - i don't want anyone to arrested or have to pay eleven million dollars because of something they said, no matter how insensitive it is. it would honestly be a pretty great injustice i think if the church had to pay a large sum of money like that for peacefully assembling reasonably far from the funeral

As Ginsburg suggested, there's also a question of whether tort law is the way to address the
issue.

Yep. This is one of those cases where I'd have cried "federalism." Let the municipalities regulate this.

have to side with the absolutists here (huge surprise) - this is bad precedent. but of course the kid in me is like "fuck yeah, fuckin asshole Phelps ppl, you lose! now fuck off!"

"fire in a crowded theater" isn't at issue from what I can tell. It's whether there was "intentional infliction of emotional distress." Which doesn't seem like what the Phelps' were going for at all-- they wanted to make a political point.

Yep. This is one of those cases where I'd have cried "federalism." Let the municipalities regulate this.

― raging hetero lifechill (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 7, 2010 4:49 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

Uh, so you don't think the first amendment applies to the states?

Yeah, ALL forms of political protest that interfere with anyone else's day are really bullshit. They don't ever accomplish anything. Fuck 'em. Like if a bunch of goons waving signs about the environment held up my commute so that I was late getting home to my family, I'd want them all arrested. If you're yelling through a bullhorn about Afghanistan at the government building down the street from my office and it distracts me from getting my work done, go die! Dude, yelling through a bullhorn is NOT gonna influence Secretary Clinton to all of the sudden withdraw the troops. You're just making hardworking people unhappy! People who are trying like hell just to get through the day. I'd like to sue these people for emotional distress.

no i don't think that's gonna work

But I'm freaking the fuck out!

Uh, so you don't think the first amendment applies to the states?

Never said this.

Alfred, to be fair, this isn't really a federalism vs. leave-it-to-the-states issue. It's the First Amendment. The law at issue is already state common law (tort law -- intentional infliction of emotional distress), and it's only in the Supreme Court because it's being argued that it conflicts with the Constitution in this case.

Yeah, ALL forms of political protest that interfere with anyone else's day are really bullshit.

See, the thing is I think a pretty good argument could be made for making an exception only for funerals, being that the funeral is a one-time-only event that serves an important purpose in the grieving process, and that restricting people specifically from protesting at funerals would have little overall impact on ability to get a message out.

I mean I'm not 100% sure you could tailor this narrowly enough to avoid blocking other speech, but if it can be done it should be done imo.

The protesters here already complied with the local municipality's laws regarding time, place, and distance for a protest. The issue is whether tort law (the alleged intentional infliction of emotional distress) can supersede 1st amendment constitutional law in this situation.

Alito asks what would happen under these neutral laws "if someone came up to Mr. Phelps at the funeral and spat in his face." But before he can finish, Ginsburg breaks in to observe that spitting at a distance of several hundred feet would be quite an achievement. The chief justice looks grim.

http://www.slate.com/id/2270167/pagenum/2

Alito you knucklehead, think, before you spit (!) out your hypotheticals

I Love Lithwick.

Margie Phelps tries to suggest that the old Quaker grandma never made her dead grandson a public figure, whereas once Snyder took to the airwaves to ask "when will this senseless war end," he made himself a public figure. And so it came to pass that "a little church where the servants of God are found" heard his question and has an answer: "Our answer is, you have got to stop sinning," she says, making clear that Albert Snyder is responsible for the hate heaped upon his head by their church.

Alito can't quite believe what he's hearing: "Does every bereaved family member who provides information to a local newspaper for an obituary thereby make the deceased person a public figure?" He asks whether harassing African-Americans on the street with racial insults is also a matter of "public concern." Phelps responds: "I think approaching an individual up close and in their grill to berate them gets you out of the zone of protection." She uses the term "up in their grill" several times today. As a legal matter or even a practical one, it makes absolutely no sense as far as I can tell, but it is rather charming when delivered in a dead flat monotone.

Justice Anthony Kennedy jumps in to murmur worriedly about the fact "that all of us in a pluralistic society have components to our identity" and adds that if the Phelps position is that "you can follow any citizen around at any point ... you should help us in finding some line there." Adds Breyer, "We are still so worried about the statements on television and on the Internet and the knowledge there."

The headline writers are going to say that the justices "struggled" with this case. That may be so, but what they struggled with has very little to do with the law, which rather clearly protects even the most offensive speech about public matters such as war and morality. They are struggling here with the facts, which they hate. Which we all hate. But looking at the parties through hate-colored glasses has never been the best way to think about the First Amendment

Phelps responds: "I think approaching an individual up close and in their grill to berate them gets you out of the zone of protection." She uses the term "up in their grill" several times today.

omg lolz

Ginsburg breaks in to observe that spitting at a distance of several hundred feet would be quite an achievement. The chief justice looks grim.

Love this.

when the OED has to add another definition for "grill" in the future they may refer to these supreme court proceedings...

we've had some recent experience with the supreme court bar. one of our cases is perhaps a step away from creating a circuit split on a sensitive federal issue, which prompted several competing supreme court specialists (and their respective law clinics) to offer their services. my hope, of course, is that we prevail, and there's no need for supreme court review, but watching the process unfold has been an education.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NAyzeR3QtQ&ob=av2e

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/10/13/kagan/index.html

2 matters that don't look good re how Kagan will vote on the Court

Another interesting item: When will a conservative justice sell his stock shares in a company? When he wants to be able to cast a vote in favor of corporate rights (especially in a case where Kagan had recused herself)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/12/AR2010101206261.html

Can't wait for his response to the fed judge's ruling on DADT.

I alluded to this on the US politics thread, but yesterday SCOTUS heard the case for banning "deviant" video games. Dahlia Lithwick writes her usual hilarious summary.

Level 3: Scalia is in full sniper gear at the top of a deserted Capitol building. He tells Morazzini: "You are asking us to create a whole new prohibition which the American people never ratified when they ratified the First Amendment. … What's next after violence? Depictions of drinking? Smoking? Movies that show smoking can't be shown to children?" And suddenly Alito is there with the punch line: "Well, I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games? Did he enjoy them?" Nobody looks more surprised than Justice Alito that he has just brought the house down. Sudden-death orginalism smackdown: 3,000 points.

When Alito later says that video games represent a new medium that "couldn't have been envisioned when the First Amendment was adopted," Scalia looks as though he has been stabbed in the back with a rusty bayonet. Mastery of the first originalist defense of living constitutionalism: 5,000 points. Alito advances to the next level.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Scalia sense that they are vulnerable and team up. Asks Ginsburg: "Does the state of California have an office that will view these videos and say, yes, this belongs in this—what did you call it, deviant violence—and this one is just violent but not deviant?" Morazzini: "No." Then Scalia jumps in: "You should consider creating such a one. You might call it the California office of censorship. It would judge each of these videos one by one. That would be very nice." Snarky power surge. Scalia advances to the next level.

Paul Smith represents the trade groups for video game producers and distributors. He opens by saying California wants to "deny constitutional protection to some ill-defined subset of expressive works, and, I submit, not just video games, but movies, books, and any other expressive work that describes or portrays violence in a way that some court somewhere, some day, would decide is deviant and offensive."

Chief Justice John Roberts uses the last of his parent-of-young-kids powers to stop him in his tracks: "In these video games, the child is not sitting there passively watching something; the child is doing the killing. The child is doing the maiming."

Level 4: Justice Stephen Breyer goes rogue. Ripping the sleeves off his robes, he ties them around his forehead in a makeshift bandana: He's had it up to here with all this talk of the Constitution: "Talking about common sense, why isn't it common sense to say that if a parent wants his 13-year-old child to have a game where the child is going to sit there and imagine he is a torturer and impose gratuitous, painful, excruciating, torturing violence upon small children and women and do this for an hour or so, and there is no social or redeeming value?" Strong adjective power surge.

the child is doing the killing. The child is doing the maiming

am open to the idea of a dance remix of roberts saying this

not the US supreme court, but some interesting 4th amendment issues brewing:

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2011/01/court-cops-can-search-cell-phone-without-warrant.html

http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/01/police-created-exigent-circumstances-in-kentucky-v-king/

well the latter is

Today's NYT story. is actually funnier than Dahlia Lithwick's. In the wake of Citizen's United, SCOTUS has to ask itself all over again whether corporations are people.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, had ruled for the company, relying in part on a definition of “person” in the law that included corporations.

But several justices said it was too much of a leap to go from saying that corporations might be “persons” for some purposes to saying that their “personal privacy” could be invaded.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said he could think of many instances “where the adjective was very different from the root noun.”

“You have craft and crafty,” he said. “Totally different. Crafty doesn’t have much to do with craft. Squirrel, squirrelly. Right?”

“Pastor and pastoral,” he went on. “Same root, totally different.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked whether the fact that state, local and foreign government also fell under the statutory definition of persons meant that they, too, had personal privacy rights.

Geoffrey M. Klineberg, a lawyer for AT&T, said yes.

In 1981, Justice Antonin Scalia, then a law professor, told a Senate committee that the exemption did not apply to corporations. It was plain on Wednesday that the intervening years had not caused him to change his mind.

“Can you give me any examples in common usage where people would refer to the personal privacy of a corporation?” Justice Scalia asked Mr. Klineberg. “Do you have any examples from The New York Times, from, you know, Boswell, from anywhere, that anybody refers to the interests of a corporation as the ‘personal privacy’ of General Motors?”

Mr. Klineberg said he was not aware of such a use of the phrase “certainly in any statutory context.”

SCOTUS's fumbling around with the way language works is such an awful development in legal interpretation.

I need Roberts to deliver a guest lecture for my grammar class.

Clarence Thomas forgot to report wife's income on judge's disclosure forms for 6 years!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-thomas-disclosure-20110122,0,2413407.story

Federal judges are bound by law to disclose the source of spousal income, according to Stephen Gillers, a professor at NYU School of Law. Thomas' omission — which could be interpreted as a violation of that law — could lead to some form of penalty, Gillers said.

"It wasn't a miscalculation; he simply omitted his wife's source of income for six years, which is a rather dramatic omission," Gillers said. "It could not have been an oversight."

But Steven Lubet, an expert on judicial ethics at Northwestern University School of Law, said such an infraction was unlikely to result in a penalty. Although unfamiliar with the complaint about Thomas' forms, Lubet said failure to disclose spousal income "is not a crime of any sort, but there is a potential civil penalty" for failing to follow the rules. He added: "I am not aware of a single case of a judge being penalized simply for this."

love u clarence don't change

I read that Kagan reported for jury duty last week. I know lawyers have a hard time getting on a panel but jesus goddamn. I wouldnt even show up if I was her.

Always good to hear elected officials can do whatever they want without penalty.

just like hedge-fund managers

Who elected either of those two?

http://dudelol.com/DO-NOT-HOTLINK-IMAGES/US-Supreme-Court-2010-Picture.jpg

lolz

I really hate the doily the women are required to wear.

If they were conservative one can argue they're going to feast on the Fourteenth Amendment.

yeah what is that all about? it's like a droolcloth

http://www.slate.com/id/2262958/

this slate article from last year talks about the doily thing (a "jabot"). apparently it's not actually required, just sort of traditional?

it looks like kagan doesn't wear one:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/84/Elena_Kagan_official_SCOTUS_portrait.jpg/220px-Elena_Kagan_official_SCOTUS_portrait.jpg

It's on her head and she dyed it brown.

I heard on NPR this morning that Scalia spoke to Tea Partiers and some Dems yesterday. No details on what he said--they merely just said it was ethical. A law professor expressed hope that the Tea Partiers would also invite a liberal-leaning justice to talk to them some time.

I'm glad you qualified the phrase, cuz liberals can only claim Ginsberg as one of their own.

Scalia showed up to lecture them on the constitution since these tards are forcing new bills to be certifiably constitutional before being voted on.

He should tell them to do their own fucking jobs, not his.

With the Bush v Gore decision and the Citizens United one he did what he could to help them, and this was likely a subtle celebration of that

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/01/six-members-of-the-supreme-cou.html?hpid=topnews

To be honest, I don't know why SCOTUS and the armed forces feel pressure to attend. In fact, let's revert to the pre-Wilson days of sending a written SOTU, or update it so it's sent via YouTube.

Supreme Court follies of an earlier time

I wonder if Alito inherited that jazzercise class.

SCOTUS must attend, esp as Obama will be announcing SOTU will be renamed "Annual Celebration of Corporate Personhood"

Alito sounds like the most humorless scold. Apparently he couldn't finish Cheever's Falconer because it was too dirty.

So I wonder if Alito paid for his trip to Hawaii himself, or if some conservative group did for some junket they're on (find the alleged Obama birth certificate).

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/02/04/the-misadventures-of-ginni-thomas.aspx

Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, has recast herself yet again, this time as the head of a firm, Liberty Consulting, which boasts on its website using her “experience and connections” to help clients “with “governmental affairs efforts” and political donation strategies.

Thomas already has met with nearly half of the 99 GOP freshmen in the House and Senate, according to an e-mail she sent last week to congressional chiefs of staff, in which she branded herself “a self-appointed, ambassador to the freshmen class and an ambassador to the tea party movement.”

...

Roughly half a dozen aides for new members told POLITICO that their offices received handwritten meeting requests from Thomas the day after they were sworn in, as well as follow-up e-mails requesting a meeting with her — but only one of them had met with her. The rest had no plans to do so.

Thomas doesn't really talk to the press; in this story, she gets a phone call, complains about the connection, then never responds to more interview requests. So her side of the story must come from the Liberty Consulting web site.

Scalia's suddenly changed view on the commerce clause and what it may mean for health care

http://www.slate.com/id/2283415

Clarence Thomas lets the Federalist Society and the Koch Brothers pay for him to attend events and what it may mean

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/us/politics/15thomas.html?_r=1

Plus he has not spoken during court sessions in 5 years

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/us/13thomas.html

And his wife continues to lobby congress people regarding her oppostion to health care

how hard would it be to impeach the bastard? oh, wait, the 'liberal' party has no balls...

Someone in the legal community should try to file ethics complaints.

I think the group People for the American Way are collecting signatures for a petition to try to get him to recuse himself from any health care related case. They need to get more attention for their cause even if he is likely to ignore the request.

SCJ's are pretty well insulated from any sort of accountability. Traditionally, the court relies on the ethical sense of its justices and collegiality prevents any sort of mutual criticism, even covertly. The impeachment power of the Congress won't be used unless a justice is caught in a scandal of titanic proportions. So, Thomas can just walk around with his fly open and nobody will say a word.

Reminds me of Abe Fortas a little. (From the online legal journal, Wikipedia:)

American University payments
Also controversial was Fortas's acceptance of $15,000 for nine speaking engagements at the American University Law School.[5] The money had not come from the university, but from private business interests that altogether represented business interests connected to 40 companies; Senator Strom Thurmond raised the idea that cases involving these companies might come to the Court and Fortas might not be objective.[2] While not illegal, the size of the fee raised much concern about the Court's insulation from private interests, especially as it was funded by Fortas's former clients and partner

There's nothing new about such conflicts but that doesn't make them any less objectionable

Frankfurter, Douglas, and Jackson were FDR's poker/drinking buddies.

Plus he has not spoken during court sessions in 5 years

Liberals are obsessed with this. Every year Slate publishes an article remarking on the fact.

actually, Fortas ghost wrote a few LBJ speeches (they were best friends). That's a real conflict.

The fact that liberal justices had conflicts in the past and suffered no consequences, does not justify Thomas' current behavior in my view.

So, Thomas can just walk around with his fly open and nobody will say a word.

pretty sure he already did/does this

I think Thomas is finally approaching dangerous ground, but, like Aimless said, there's little we can do about it. Assuming this approached the level of Senate hearings, it wouldn't surprise me if liberal colleagues on the bench testified in his defense.

I point out Fortas because though it wasn't the American University thing, his actions did finally catch up to him.

Here's a different approach that some Congressional members and the liberal group "People for the American Way" are taking. Below is their request to people to sign a petition:

Dear People For Supporter,

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, already in hot water over failing to report his wife’s income on judicial disclosure forms, is now being called on by 74 members of Congress, led by Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York, to recuse himself from hearing cases on the health care reform law.

It’s really pretty simple. Justice Thomas’ wife Ginni has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars working for and leading groups that have repealing health care reform as one of their chief goals. And considering challenges to the health care law are expected to make it to the Supreme Court, how could that not be a major conflict of interest?

Rep. Weiner and his colleagues are absolutely correct that Justice Thomas should recuse himself

Dear Justice Thomas:

As an Associate Justice, you are entrusted with the responsibility to exercise the highest degree of discretion and impartiality when deciding a case. As Members of Congress, we were surprised by recent revelations of your financial ties to leading organizations dedicated to lobbying against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We write today to respectfully ask that you maintain the integrity of this court and recuse yourself from any deliberations on the constitutionality of this act.

The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law. From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife's financial stake in the overturn of health care reform is blurred. Your spouse is advertising herself as a lobbyist who has "experience and connections and appeals to clients who want a particular decision -- they want to overturn health care reform. Moreover, your failure to disclose Ginny Thomas's receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent opponent of health care reform, between 2003 and 2007 has raised great concern.

This is not the first case where your impartiality was in question. As Common Cause points out, you participated in secretive political strategy sessions, perhaps while the case was pending, with corporate leaders whose political aims were advanced by the [5-4] decision on the Citizens United case. Your spouse also received an undisclosed salary paid for by undisclosed donors as CEO of Liberty Central, a 501(c)(4) organization that stood to benefit from the decision and played an active role in the 2010 elections.

Given these facts, there is a strong conflict between the Thomas household's financial gain through your spouse's activities and your role as a Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. We urge you to recuse yourself from this case. If the U.S. Supreme Court's decision is to be viewed as legitimate by the American people, this is the only correct path.

We appreciate your thoughtful consideration of this request.

Sincerely,
ANTHONY D. WEINER
Member of Congress

pointless

the only way to get judges off the bench is for them to die

surprised they haven't been targeted for assassination more often tbh

like you'd think some crazed pro-lifer woulda shot one of the liberal justices during the Bush I/Bush II reigns

http://wonkette.com/215734/supreme-court-justices-stubbornly-refuse-poisoned-cookies

ha shakey i've always wondered the same thing

Interesting case.

It didn't at all split along the usual ideological grounds either.

Feisty Scalia dissent, and a separate Ginsburg dissent (that I would like to read).

as usual his rhetoric is ridiculous, but I kinda see his point.

yeah that was an odd one

i'm going to have to read the opinion and dissents later today but i'm thinking i'm siding with scalia on this one

i'm going to have to read the opinion and dissents later today but i'm thinking i'm siding with scalia on this one

― kl0p's son (k3vin k.), Tuesday, March 1, 2011 1:16 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah. I don't follow US cases that much these days - not a lot of time, but I'm curious to read the whole case and see where the majority is coming from. I usually get the sense that opposition to strong procedural guarantees tends to come from outside of the legal community and usually from the right/'the government is soft on crime' bunch - at least in Canada.

lol:

In a lively decision that relied as much on dictionaries, grammar and usage as it did on legal analysis, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled unanimously that corporations have no personal privacy rights for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act.

AT&T, the plaintiff in the case, had sought to block the release of documents it had provided to the government. It argued that the documents should be withheld under an exemption to the law that applied to records that “could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

The company’s strongest argument was that the statutory definition of the noun “person” specifically included corporations and other entities. It followed, the company said, that the adjective “personal” must also apply to corporations.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the court, was having none of that.

“Adjectives typically reflect the meaning of corresponding nouns,” he wrote, “but not always.” He gave examples.

“The noun ‘crab’ refers variously to a crustacean and a type of apple, while the related adjective ‘crabbed’ can refer to handwriting that is ‘difficult to read,’ ” he wrote, quoting a dictionary. “ ‘Corny,’” he went on, “has little to do with ‘corn.’ ”

Chief Justice Roberts had used similar examples at the argument of the case in January.

“You have ‘craft’ and ‘crafty’,” he said. “Totally different. ‘Crafty’ doesn’t have much to do with ‘craft.’ ‘Squirrel,’ ‘squirrelly.’ Right?”

“ ‘Pastor’ and ‘pastoral’,” he continued. “Same root, totally different.”

Common usage cut against AT&T’s argument as well, the chief justice wrote in Tuesday’s decision. “We do not usually speak of personal characteristics, personal effects, personal correspondence, personal influence or personal tragedy as referring to corporations and other artificial entities,” he wrote.

Supremes also saying Westboro can protest military funerals.

x-post

Roberts wouldn't admit this issue came to them because of their ridiculous Citizen United ruling that rewrote years of law on corporate rights, in giving corporations more speech rights.

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the First Amendment protects fundamentalist church members who mount attention-getting, anti-gay protests outside military funerals.

The court voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. The decision upheld an appeals court ruling that threw out a $5 million judgment to the father of a dead Marine who sued church members after they picketed his son's funeral. NY Times

I wonder what Alito's dissent said?

snyder v phelps opinion

only skimmed it but alito basically said WBC "almost limitless means" to express themselves, via books, pamphlets, television appearances, etc, but don't have the right to intentionally inflict emotional distress on someone at a vulnerable time (ie, his son's funeral).

i agree with the court, obv

Palin's response:

Common sense & decency absent as wacko “church” allowed hate msgs spewed@ soldiers’ funerals but we can’t invoke God’s name in public square

she's on top of it as always

I'm really really torn on this decision. The sensible part of my brain is 100% down with the whole freedom of speech thing, but on the other hand I really can't think of anything more fucking distasteful than protesting a completely unrelated issue at a funeral for someone that died protecting their country.

yeah they're douches of course but like freedom...rights...they can be bitches sometimes

died protecting fags

*salutes*

I really can't think of anything more fucking distasteful than protesting a completely unrelated issue at a funeral for someone that died protecting their country.

To me this is the whole point of the 1st amendment - allowing someone to publicly say the most fucking distasteful thing you can think of.

while I think the 1st amendment does guarantee exactly that, I don't think it's the "whole point" of it - I think the main point of it is "the government can't pass laws that prevent you from speaking your mind," and that "this may include extraordinarily offensive expression" is an extension of that

right

Yeah true the main point is the ability of government to interfere with speech/press/assembly/religion. I was thinking in terms of everyday "freedom of speech" type discussions where people are for it in the abstract but flinch about specific horrific examples - if you support it, do it all the way no matter how much it offends you personally.

lol so apparently one of my uncle's law partners was representing snyder in that case - lot of tongue holding today

Supreme Court heard Walmart's appeal of the 9th Circuit decision re allowing a class action by women employees against the company.

Adam Liptak of the NY Times discussion of the oral arguments suggests that the court will rule in favor of Walmart 5 to 4

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/business/30walmart.html?hp

excerpt:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed, saying that companies had a responsibility to make sure that women were treated fairly in local workplaces.

There has been no ruling in any court yet on the plaintiffs’ assertions that they were discriminated against. Several justices wondered just how back pay decisions would be made if the case were allowed to go forward and the plaintiffs prevailed.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Joseph M. Sellers, said the trial court could rely on statistics culled from databases, which he said were more reliable than the evidence that might be presented in individualized hearings.

Justice Antonin Scalia had a fundamental objection to the proposed hearings. “We must have a pretty bad judicial system,” he said, if judges must rely on statistics rather than individualized proof. “We should use that at jury trials, too,” he said of statistics, sarcastically.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked about some of the statistics at issue. “Is it true,” he asked Mr. Sellers, “that the Wal-Mart pay disparity across the company is less than in the nation?”

Mr. Sellers said that was not the appropriate comparison. “The comparison that’s relevant,” he said, “is men and women and Wal-Mart.”

Elsewhere I read that women plaintifss want to take the class action approach because trying to win an individual discrimination suit against a company as large as Walmart is both financially and legally difficult.

Oral argument summary in the W. Post does not look favorable for plaintiffs being able to go forward with the case. Big Corporations may be too big to face class action suits if the conservative majority has their way

I don't know how I feel about this honestly, and Dahlia Lithwick didn't do her usual cogent job in Slate (a couple of grafs were actually a mess); it's being decided on narrow grounds.

Oh, from the separate Scalia thread:

Reporting from Washington—
The justice was served.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was ticketed by U.S. Park Police after being found responsible for a four-car traffic accident on his way to the high court Tuesday morning.

The incident occurred just before 9 a.m. on the southbound George Washington Parkway across the Potomac River from Washington in Virginia. Scalia reportedly rear-ended another driver who had stopped in traffic, and two other vehicles followed behind. No one was injured.

Scalia was handed a $70 fine for the infraction of following too closely. The justice, in his 25th year on the nation's highest court, can appeal the fine to a U.S. magistrate if he chooses, according to a Park Police spokesman, while acknowledging that was unlikely.

"He probably hasn't a clue how to contest a traffic ticket," David Schlosser, the spokesman, joked.

He added that it's not unusual for area law enforcement to handle infractions like this involving high profile government officials.

"It was a busy traffic area," Schlosser said. "It just happens."

The incident further snarled the area's already notorious rush-hour gridlock. But Scalia ultimately reached the court on time for arguments in a gender discrimination case against shopping giant Wal-Mart.

Since Scalia is so besotted with the Equal Protection Clause, he should file suit in court claiming his rights were violated.

I always find it a little questionable the way Liptak presents the judge's questions at oral arguments as their opinions. Sometimes they are, other times they represent justices entertaining notions, playing devil's advocate or trying to get the person they in fact agree with to clarify a point.

A fair criticism. Insofar as she's trying to enliven discussion about the least discussed branch of government, it works. And she has more patience when one of the so-called liberals like Breyer entertains (tendentiously, endlessly) notions and plays devil's advocate than when Scalia and Alito do.

Liptak=NY Times
Lithwick=Slate

Scalia's questions and comments in the Walmart case do not look like devil's advocate ones to me.

I need to read more about that just released 5 to 4 decision holding the New Orleans DA (Harry Connick Sr) not liable for financial damages to an exonerated individual who was wrongly on death row due to evidence withheld by the DA. Thomas wrote the opinion.

Yeah, I'm referring to Lithwick.

Several ugly 5 to 4 decisions are mentioned on the US politics thread. One today regarding the 1st amendment and spearation of church and state and one from a short while back allowing DA Harry Connick Sr not to be financially liable for the intentional deeds of his prosecutors who withheld evidence that 18 years later exonerated a man who was wrongly on death row.

separation

Cheerleader who wouldn't root for assailant loses

dear everybody decent, I can guarantee you that when you read that shit you are going to be pretty fucking pissed off

school--where no one has free speech

That's terrible

more like the supreme court of shitheads!

not accused rapists btw. these dudes pled out. convicted assailants. cheer for them or pay 45k in court costs.

Meanwhile, SCOTUS rapes consumers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/business/28bizcourt.html

that high school is pretty fucking indecent, and it sucks that she has to pay the court fees, wtf. kind of ambivalent about the ruling, though

sorta blame the town more than the supreme court

I mean there should be protests / an uproar that results in everyone involved losing their job - but otoh lol high school football. it doesn't seem like it should be a supreme court issue.

so is a frivolous suit just any suit you don't win, or are there "guidelines"?

lol high school football.

somebody's never been to Texas

I have ftr. was not loling @ hs football, which I actually enjoy, was a sad lol @ the situation.

I don't see this as a freedom of speech thing at the end of the day, it's an incompetent-people-in-charge thing - and that's something that can only be fixed on the local level.

http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/adam_serwer_archive?month=05&year=2011&base_name=originalism_vs_potheads

Oy veh. From that article:

The fact that most of the "liberal" justices went along is a disheartening surprise, but one that should dominate the discussion over the next vacancy on the Supreme Court if Obama is still in office. Both of his appointees voted with the majority. The high court's lone dissenter was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, formerly a staffer at the American Civil Liberties Union. Keep this in mind next time someone refers to the "liberal" wing of the court, as opposed to "moderates" or "Democratic appointees." As if it wasn't painfully obvious before, this court is badly in need of a justice with some experience as a defense attorney.

it was a good day

http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/adam_serwer_archive?month=05&year=2011&base_name=scotus_rejects_extraordinary_r

Whenever this thread gets bumped, but heart beats faster with dread.

^^^ haha same here

i have to read the opinion of the first case i posted, i'm really shocked at how it went down and at the vote split - it HAS to be more narrow than serwer is letting on

x-post - How did I not realize you were being sarcastic with the "good day" statement! Must be my cold medicine this morning.

Surprised that the 9th Circuit had originally ruled in favor of the govt. on the state secrets argument here, and that the Supremes chose not to reconsider-

What this means is that if the government sends you to be tortured in a foreign country you have no recourse against the private company that facilitated your torture as long as the government declares it a state secret. As I wrote last year, this means that "you can't sue the government, you can't sue the private company that was involved, and frankly you can probably count on the people who helped facilitated it getting good jobs elsewhere in the same field." In the absence of any kind of decision from the courts indicating that the Bush administration's actions were illegal, the only thing standing in the way of torture being used again is a flimsy, reversible executive order that could be withdrawn the day the next Republican president is inaugurated.

Here's the LA Times on the search without warrant and probable cause case:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-search-20110517,0,6746878.story

It's been a bad month all around for the Fourth Amendment. Last week the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that, if police enter a home wrongly or without a warrant, residents do not have a Constitutional right to resist them. Their decision stated that resistance increases the likelihood of violent confrontation and that the proper place for redress is the courts. Because that generally works out so well in cases against the police. Although maybe it's for the better since, even with a warrant, when they enter your home with no knock and like a paramilitary squad, and you raise a golf club over your head thinking you're being robbed, they'll just summarily execute you.

i was thinking about this 4th amendment stuff, and trying to remember something i saw about conservatism and police power, and i finally found it again:

http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/a-bit-more-on-liberalism-and-detention-or-what-if-private-manning-confesses/

konzcal starts by talking about bradley manning and liberal 'proceduralism' but moves on to what the other half sees, digging up the original "broken windows" proposal (1982!)

A stable neighborhood of families who care for their homes, mind each other’s children, and confidently frown on unwanted intruders can change, in a few years or even a few months, to an inhospitable and frightening jungle. A piece of property is abandoned, weeds grow up, a window is smashed…

The process we call urban decay has occurred for centuries in every city. But what is happening today is different in at least two important respects….

Second, the police in this earlier period assisted in that reassertion of authority by acting, sometimes violently, on behalf of the community. Young toughs were roughed up, people were arrested “on suspicion” or for vagrancy, and prostitutes and petty thieves were routed. “Rights” were something enjoyed by decent folk, and perhaps also by the serious professional criminal, who avoided violence and could afford a lawyer.

This pattern of policing was not an aberration or the result of occasional excess. From the earliest days of the nation, the police function was seen primarily as that of a night watchman: to maintain order against the chief threats to order—fire, wild animals, and disreputable behavior. Solving crimes was viewed not as a police responsibility but as a private one. In the March, 1969, Atlantic, one of us (Wilson) wrote a brief account of how the police role had slowly changed from maintaining order to fighting crimes. The change began with the creation of private detectives (often ex-criminals), who worked on a contingency-fee basis for individuals who had suffered losses. In time, the detectives were absorbed in municipal agencies and paid a regular salary simultaneously, the responsibility for prosecuting thieves was shifted from the aggrieved private citizen to the professional prosecutor. This process was not complete in most places until the twentieth century.

so there you have it.

here's the link itself

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/4465/1/

Broken Windows
The police and neighborhood safety
By George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson

Lithwick on the Liu mess:

But stop and think about the absurdity: Liu's alleged crime was meanness in pointing out (meanly) that Alito was mean. The reduction of every last judicial nominee to the cruelest thing he or she ever did or said (Alito as a racist; Sotomayor as racist man-hater; Kagan as loather of the armed services) seems to be the only legal litmus test we seem to have left. And now Liu has the distinction of being the first nominee to be called a bully for having called another nominee a bully.
Head. Exploding.

yeah i just...

great article

Yeah, although cartoons are violent and mean.

Obama's gotta just move on and nominate more judges. Maybe he can find some stealth liberals who haven't said mean things

http://www.samefacts.com/2011/05/california-politics/two-new-options-for-goodwin-liu/

Recess appointment or Gov. Brown appoint him to the Ca. Supreme Court

huh

I approve of this ruling

Kennedy joined Ginsburg and the other 4 for this 5 to 4 decision. Scalia's usual impassioned dissent:

Justice Antonin Scalia said in dissent that the court order is "perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation's history."

Scalia, reading his dissent aloud Monday, said it would require the release of "the staggering number of 46,000 convicted felons."

Scalia's number, cited in legal filings, comes from a period in which the prison population was even higher.

Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia's opinion, while Justice Samuel Alito wrote a separate dissent for himself and Chief Justice John Roberts.

other 3

Justice Antonin Scalia said in dissent that the court order is "perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation's history."

I choose to read this by interpreting "radical" in the way skateboarders use it.

Tubular, dude!

http://planetsean.blogspot.com/ScaliaDelay.jpg

Dude's gonna get hurt skating in that outfit

that image needs a more descriptive name

Scalia and DeLay At a Radical Injunction

Scalia's not the only thing that image would delay.

A friend's little bro met Clarence Thomas last summer; she just posted the photos. Apparently Thomas was as sweet as can be, even offering to give his family a personal tour of DC.

No big surprise that Clarence T. comes across as a nice person rather than a monster of depravity. He came to his prominence through a combination of intellectual narrowness, political astuteness, and luck, not by crushing all his enemies beneath his heel. Now he's sitting pretty for the rest of his life.

I suspect that, once you get past his reserve and suspicion by treating him nicely, he would be happy to respond in kind.

and then put some pubes in your coke

just covering all bases

money quote from Scalia's dissent:

“Most of them will not be prisoners with medical conditions or severe mental illness,” Justice Scalia wrote, “and many will undoubtedly be fine physical specimens who have developed intimidating muscles pumping iron in the prison gym.”

sheesh. quality legal reasoning there.

you only qualify for the pubes if he really, really likes you.

fanfic as dissent

Scalia continued, "Uh-oh, I said the loud part quiet, and the quiet part loud."

radley balko get's an email:

http://www.theagitator.com/2011/05/24/scalia-and-the-rippling-muscles-of-california-prisoners-ctd/

Having spent 26 months in California Prison (as you say, “liberatarianism happens to you”), I can tell you first hand that California Prisons have no weights. That is only for Hollywood. As a matter of fact, I believe they were taken out in 1994, almost 20 years ago. Why this makes it into a Supreme Court Justice’s dissenting opinion is baffling to me, and then to not even get the facts straight is scary.

i wonder if that's true. i can totally believe that scalia doesn't give a fuck one way or another tho.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-upholds-ariz-law-punishing-companies-that-hire-illegal-immigrants/2011/05/26/AGhHG2BH_story.html?hpid=z3

5 to 3 conservative ruling

excerpt

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Arizona may revoke the business licenses of companies that knowingly employ illegal immigrants, rejecting arguments that the state’s law intrudes on the federal government’s power to control immigration.

The court ruled 5 to 3 that Congress specifically allowed states such an option, and dismissed the objections of an unusual coalition that challenged the state law: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, civil rights groups, labor unions and the Obama administration.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-upholds-ariz-law-punishing-companies-that-hire-illegal-immigrants/2011/05/26/AGhHG2BH_story.html?hpid=z3

5 to 3 conservative ruling

excerpt

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Arizona may revoke the business licenses of companies that knowingly employ illegal immigrants, rejecting arguments that the state’s law intrudes on the federal government’s power to control immigration.

The court ruled 5 to 3 that Congress specifically allowed states such an option, and dismissed the objections of an unusual coalition that challenged the state law: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, civil rights groups, labor unions and the Obama administration.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-upholds-ariz-law-punishing-companies-that-hire-illegal-immigrants/2011/05/26/AGhHG2BH_story.html?hpid=z3

5 to 3 conservative ruling

excerpt

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that Arizona may revoke the business licenses of companies that knowingly employ illegal immigrants, rejecting arguments that the state’s law intrudes on the federal government’s power to control immigration.

The court ruled 5 to 3 that Congress specifically allowed states such an option, and dismissed the objections of an unusual coalition that challenged the state law: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, civil rights groups, labor unions and the Obama administration.

Looks like the libs disagreed on "technical" grounds.

Generally I don't have a problem with the ruling.

yeah businesses licenses are not handed out by the feds

John Paul Stevens, opinionated as ever:

In a speech this month in New York, Justice Stevens said he would have voted with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., a conservative justice, in Snyder v. Phelps, an 8-to-1 decision protecting protests at military funerals on First Amendment grounds. Justice Alito was alone in dissent.

“It might interest you to know that if I were still an active justice I would have joined his powerful dissent,” Justice Stevens said. “To borrow Sam’s phrase, the First Amendment does not transform solemn occasions like funerals into free-fire zones.”

The other two living former members of the court have been much more oblique in their comments on its recent work. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has indicated discomfort with the Citizens United campaign finance decision, but usually only by referring people to her own opinion in one of the decisions it overruled. Justice David H. Souter has said even less.

Richard Davis, the author of a recent book on interactions between the Supreme Court and the press, “Justices and Journalists,” said public criticism from retired justices of recent decisions was “very rare.”

Justice Stevens’s remark about the Snyder case was also a reminder that he has a powerful independent streak, particularly where First Amendment arguments clash with his sense of patriotism, forged in part during his service in the Navy in World War II.

He dissented, after all, from a 1989 decision that gave First Amendment protection to flag burning. Last year, he joined the court’s five more conservative members in rejecting a First Amendment challenge to a law that made it a crime to use speech to offer even benign support to terrorist organizations.

Justice Stevens’s remark about the Snyder case was also a reminder that he has a powerful independent streak, particularly where First Amendment arguments clash with his sense of patriotism, forged in part during his service in the Navy in World War II.

He dissented, after all, from a 1989 decision that gave First Amendment protection to flag burning. Last year, he joined the court’s five more conservative members in rejecting a First Amendment challenge to a law that made it a crime to use speech to offer even benign support to terrorist organizations.

yeah the flag burning case was the first thing i thought of when i saw what stevens said, he was a good justice by the end of his time on the court but he wasn't without a blind spot or two

alfred what did you think of kentucky v king?

Scalia's majority opinion in the flag burning case (Texas v. Johnson) is one of the few with which I agree without hesitation.

Re Kentucky v King: I haven't read the opinion yet, for fear that it was the kind of opinion too easily misconstrued by those of us wanting to indict the Roberts Court for contributing to the expansion of police power, etc. Here's a good summary:

Importantly, King did not consider whether the facts of the King case amounted to exigent circumstances. The Court did not consider whether the warrantless entry was constitutional. Instead, the limited cert grant addressed only a small piece of the puzzle: The Court only considered the right test for police-created exigent circumstances — the part to be subtracted from the totality of the circumstances — and then remanded the case back to the Kenucky courts. Here’s how the U.S. Supreme Court expressed it in the introduction to its opinion...

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/a-voice-from-the-past/

excellent article - has anyone read the book she mentions, the civil rights injunction?

Nope.

In other Supreme Court news, the Balloonjuice blog said Clarence Thomas did a late Friday release of personal finance info that suggested more conflicts of interest cases that he ruled on.

quel surprise

Fleeing police by car is a violent crime, sez court.

Scalia dissented; Kagan and Ginsberg filed a separate dissent. I'm with Scalia!

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing only for himself, issued a vigorous dissent. He said the provision of the federal law under review (“involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another”) was a hopelessly vague Congressional “drafting failure” and that “today’s tutti-frutti opinion” produces “a fourth ad hoc judgment that will sow further confusion.”

“Insanity, it has been said, is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results,” Justice Scalia wrote. “Four times is enough.”

Justice Scalia also criticized the majority’s reliance on statistics that had not been tested in the adversary process, calling it “judicial fact-finding masquerading as statutory interpretation.”

Kagan and Ginsburg dissented on more narrow grounds related to Indiana law. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion.

This is at least the 2nd time that Sotomayor, a former prosecutor, has given the benefit of the doubt to the prosecution, rather than the individual. While her liberal leanings influence her on certain types of cases, on others her job background wins out. But it seems that in certain types of cases, Scalia loves the opportunity to bash Congressional draftsmanship, and that then outweighs his usually strong interest in defering to prosecutors.

Yeah, Sotomayor's alliance with the majority here is no surprise.

Ginsburg may be the only on the Court with liberal leanings on all types of issues

I heard part of a Nina Totenburg piece on NPR this morning with audio and quotes from 2007 interviews with the Justices that have just been released. There's probably a link to it. She cites all the literature a number of the Justices read and then re Clarence Thomas says he likens a good brief "to an episode of 24." Figures.

there was a similar NYT article a couple weekends ago, maybe you're talking about the same thing. and yeah not shocking at all about thomas

I pretty much dread each and every revival of this thread

More briefs should be as, heh, punchy as an episode of "24."

If Thomas lives as long as Thurgood Marshall, we'll enjoy his lively discussion all the way until 2032.

why are underwear called "breifs" I though to myself today

Clarence Thomas' views on torture are based on what Jack Bauer did. Isn't that great.

Here's the link:

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/13/137036622/skip-the-legalese-and-keep-it-short-justices-say

All of the justices talk about "legalese" in disparaging terms, and many refer to great fiction writers as masters of language.

"The only good way to learn about writing is to read good writing," says Chief Justice John Roberts.

That sentiment is echoed by Breyer, who points to Proust, Stendhal and Montesquieu as his inspirations. Justice Anthony Kennedy loves Hemingway, Shakespeare, Solzhenitsyn, Dickens and Trollope.

Justice Thomas says a good legal brief reminds him of the TV show 24. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says one of the great influences on her writing was her European literature professor at Cornell, Vladimir Nabokov — yes, the same Nabokov who later rocked the literary world with his widely acclaimed novel Lolita.

"He was a man in love with the sound of words," Ginsburg said. "He changed the way I read, the way I write."

Many of the justices admit to linguistic pet peeves. Kennedy hates adverbs and disdains nouns that are converted to verbs — "incentivize," for example. Scalia readily admits to being a snoot.

"Snoots are those who are nitpickers for the mot juste, for using a word precisely the way it should be used, not dulling it by misuse," said Scalia, adding, "I'm a snoot."

That contrasts with Thomas, who, when asked by interviewer Bryan Garner whether he would describe himself as a word lover, replied: "Not particularly. ... I like buses and football and cars."

Kennedy OTM about "incentivize" and other Latinates.

"Not particularly. ... I like buses and football and cars."

Clarence Thomas is a 10 years old.

The fuck? Did a five-year-old hijack what was supposed to be Thomas' interview? "Also, opinions of the court should smell like strawberries, and you should be able to comb their hair and dress them in different outfits."

Here's the full context for the "buses and football and cars" quote:
http://lawprose.org/interviews/supreme_court.php?vid=thomas_part_5&vidtitle=Associate_Justice_Clarence%20Thomas_Part_5

Will have to watch that later, but thanks for posting. I'm starting to warm to the idea of Thomas being a bus enthusiast and/or collector. I imagine him as a sort of judicial Jay Leno with a fleet of vintage buses in a massive garage on his property, and he drives a different one to work every day (by himself, with no one else on the bus).

What really stunned me is that he not only never asks questions during debate, he seems to find debate in itself as being somehow beneath him

Well, he's smarter than the other justices clearly.

In the Garner interview, he claims that it's because there are already too many voices. In general, he comes across as someone who's not particularly enthusiastic about his job. At the very least, it's weird to hear a Supreme Court justice moan about how he hated school and dislikes writing.

i don't like the man politically so i'm inclined to believe any shitty thing about him, but he really seems like someone whose mental landscape is made up of a whole shitton of directionless loathing.

and, he is a fanatical huskers fan w/o having any connection to nebraska at all.

http://www.ketv.com/r/23673215/detail.html

what he hell is that even about. it's just weird.

Jane Mayer's book-length account of the Thomas hearings shows how "directionless loathing" characterizes Thomas' whole career; from his stint at the EEOC to the Dept of Education this man survives because of his formidable will and patronage of men like John Danforth. He's on the Court because the Bush administration thought a black Republican would make a splendid statement and visual; he stays not from a higher principle but because he likes to work and stick it to his enemies.

*patronage BY

Here we go.

hahahahaha

lithwick on the recent miranda ruling and judicial empathy

http://www.slate.com/id/2297099/

NY Times on the latest Clarence Thomas ethics controversy
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/us/politics/19thomas.html?_r=1&hp

excerpt:
But Mr. Crow’s financing of the museum, his largest such act of generosity, previously unreported, raises the sharpest questions yet — both about Justice Thomas’s extrajudicial activities and about the extent to which the justices should remain exempt from the code of conduct for federal judges.

Although the Supreme Court is not bound by the code, justices have said they adhere to it. Legal ethicists differed on whether Justice Thomas’s dealings with Mr. Crow pose a problem under the code. But they agreed that one facet of the relationship was both unusual and important in weighing any ethical implications: Justice Thomas’s role in Mr. Crow’s donation for the museum.

The code says judges “should not personally participate” in raising money for charitable endeavors, out of concern that donors might feel pressured to give or entitled to favorable treatment from the judge. In addition, judges are not even supposed to know who donates to projects honoring them.

While the nonprofit Pin Point museum is not intended to honor Justice Thomas, people involved in the project said his role in the community’s history would inevitably be part of it, and he participated in a documentary film that is to accompany the exhibits.

Deborah L. Rhode, a Stanford University law professor who has called for stricter ethics rules for Supreme Court justices, said Justice Thomas “should not be directly involved in fund-raising activities, no matter how worthy they are or whether he’s being centrally honored by the museum.”

On the other hand, the restriction on fund-raising is primarily meant to deter judges from using their position to pressure donors, as opposed to relying on “a rich friend” like Mr. Crow, said Ronald D. Rotunda, who teaches legal ethics at Chapman University in California.

“I don’t think I could say it’s unethical,” he said. “It’s just a very peculiar situation.”

x-post-

Nice Lithwick piece. I like her concluding sentence

The saddest part of Alito's dissent isn't that he can't imagine being a 13-year-old boy. It's that he thinks it's folly even to try.

I am surprised Kennedy voted with the 4 more liberal members on this.

I'm...ambivalent about that NYT story. The APPEARANCE of impropriety? So many times does the reporter back away from judgments.

Members of the bar and especially judges (except Supreme Court ones) ARE held to an "appearance of impropriety" standard. But here there does not appear to be an agreement among scholars whether Thomas' conduct is unethical or merely "peculiar". I have not researched who the person is who thought Thomas' behavior is merely "peculiar." That's fine with me if the reporter was reporting the facts and pointing out the different sides. But if the one scholar is a right-winger (and the other is way out on the left)the reporter should have someone indicated so.

Well, remember Abe Fortas?

The article was not mean to be a history of every judge, liberal or conservative, who has ethical issues or who people believe has ethical issues. Are you suggesting we should therefore ignore Clarence Thomas' issues because hey, liberal justices and liberal nominees had ethical issues also? Or are you instead suggesting that Thomas has gotten off easy compared to Fortas? Stricter rules for Supreme Court justices do seem to be needed, and that would affect all justices no matter their leanings.

Or are you instead suggesting that Thomas has gotten off easy compared to Fortas? Stricter rules for Supreme Court justices do seem to be needed, and that would affect all justices no matter their leanings.

Yes and yes.

supreme court sides with wal-mart in sex discrimination case

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/10-277.pdf

I expected that but it's still disappointing. It's so much harder for individuals to file discrimination complaints against huge companies, than it is to go the class action route.

The more liberal Justices apparently signed off on part and dissented on a few more minor aspects. The AP wirestory did not even mention the dissenting parts:

The court ruled unanimously Monday that the lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. cannot proceed as a class action, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The lawsuit could have involved up to 1.6 million women, with Wal-Mart facing potentially billions of dollars in damages.

Now, the handful of women who brought the lawsuit may pursue their claims on their own, with much less money at stake and less pressure on Wal-Mart to settle.