SCOTUS

[HereComeTheCats]

Expecting some opinions today at 10 am and more tomorrow. Here are the cases we're waiting on:

Glossip v. Gross
The constitutionality under the Eighth Amendment of using a sedative as the first drug in a death penalty protocol.

Obergefell v. Hodges
State ban on same-sex marriage.

King v. Burwell
Availability of federal tax subsidies to individuals who purchase health insurance on an exchange operated by the federal government

Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc.
Whether disparate-impact claims are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act

Zivotofsky v. Kerry
President has the exclusive power to grant formal recognition to a foreign sovereign.

 

[TheFoyeEffect]

Zivotofsky was already ruled on in favor of the government.

 

[HereComeTheCats]

ACA Subsidies upheld.

 

[kjbert]

The housing ruling was a coup for trial lawyers and a loss for common sense

 

[tdm66]

We knew that this was coming when the SC ruled years ago there was a constitutional right to butt fu..... .

 

[TheFoyeEffect]

Justice Breyer's dissent in Glossip may be the most dangerous thing written by a member of the Supreme Court since Korematsu.

He basically said that it is okay to disregard things explicitly mentioned in the text of the Constitution. Based on his reading of the Fifth Amendment in eminent domain matters, I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

Note below, the three explicit references to capital punishment. Arguments that Capital Punishment should not be a legal remedy, that it is immoral, and that it has no place in our society all have merit, but to disregard the text of the constitution is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[NickleDimer]

Does this qualify as shit law?

 

[TheFoyeEffect]

It's just dangerous to think that you can take an eraser to the Constitution without an amendment.

 

[danmcguire]

So you think it is constitutionally permissible to cut off someone's arm? Jeopardy of limb, after all. Right there in good old No.5. Breyer's dissent is really nothing more than an updated version of Brennan's concurrence in Furman.

 

[TheFoyeEffect]

And Brennan and Marshall both had dangerous constitutional interpretations as well.

Even if it is constitutionally permissible to cut off someone's limb, find a law where it happens.

Immoral does not equal unconstitutional.

 

[danmcguire]

Okay, but that doesn't make this noteworthy. What about the chopping off of the limb? Permissible?

 

[TheFoyeEffect]

No. There are laws in zero states where that is possible and none would pass. Ever. Also, as far as I know, there have never been laws that permitted the punitive amputation of limbs. Capital punishment on the other hand is so settled that it wasn't even addressed by the Supreme Court for almost 100 years. The VAST majority of capital punishment jurisprudence has come since Furman.

 

[danmcguire]

Now you're selectively disregarding text of the constitution, the very thing you chided Breyer for. But you're now getting closer to a defensible argument, albeit one that will undercut your premise about the fifth amendment and the death penalty if you follow it through.

 

[TheFoyeEffect]

I'm absolutely not.

Is amputation constitutional? Possibly. I'm not sure that's what the framers meant by "life or limb" though. I'm pretty sure that by "limb" they meant corporal punishment, which, yes, I believe is constitutional.

Is it ever going to happen? No

Is capital punishment constitutional? Absolutely. It is specifically mentioned in the Constitution, accepted in common law, and it has never been held to be unconstitutional in the abstract. Declaring it so would require the type of legal gymnastics which could justify any type of addendum or erasure from the Constitution that someone pleases.

Do executions happen? Yes, often.

It's a legislative issue and should be treated as such.