Posted on 10/24/2005 10:19:48 PM PDT by Coleus
To all of the fear mongerers re: Roberts. Thomas had a stay. The Supremes did a head count (Roberts' responsibility as CJ). Since there wasn't at least 4 justices willing to hear the case, the stay was lifted and the Supremes decided not to hear the case. This does NOT mean that Roberts is pro-abort. It means that there wasn't 4 votes to hear it.
Getting Miers withdrawn and replaced by an originalist with a proven track record will give us at least three originalists on the court that can be counted on. Having Miers appointed leaves with only two we can be sure to depend on and along with a maybe.
It's thanks to people like you that Republicans can continue to get away with appoint stealth candidates that almost always end up being liberal. Grow a brain.
This red flag is even more of a reason that the that Miers nomination must be withdrawn and a nominee with a proven conservative record replace it.
If Miers ends up on the court, there is a real possibility that Supreme Court move to the left thanks to Bush.
They won't have a choice. There is a presidence now, that a conservative is not allowed on the court. Stealth nominee is all that republicans can get now.
Fine. Then if Roberts and others had voted to hear the case, I would expect a 5-4 decision ruling that states do not have the power to deny abortions to inmates.
This would make it mandatory for all federal judges to rule that way until such time as Roe v. Wade is overturned. Roberts may have saved lives by preventing a precedent that might bind lower courts nationwide such that they would be unable to support some other state's pro-life policies.
As it stands now, there are many jurisdictions where a law barring abortions for inmates might be upheld.
You may be on to something here.
The state of Missouri has passed a law which denies a recognized "right" to a prisoner by refusing to pay for its exercise.
It's been pointed out that prisoners cannot vote. That is because loss of the right to vote is spelled out in the criminal laws of the state as part of the punishment for a crime. It is not just a law which prohibits the spending of state funds to permit voting by inmates.
The legislators in Missouri just need to change their laws, making a denial of abortions part of the punishment, and it might survive a US Supreme Court test. Due to the prohibition against ex-post-facto laws, it would not apply to an inmate for convictions which preceded passage of the law, so this baby is still going to be a casualty of the abortion war.
We will never know. This baby could have changed the world for the better. Poor little kid. But we know where he/she is right now - a MUCH BETTER PLACE.
It's very disappointing, but we don't know where Roberts stood on it.
If he knew that the court would have voted 5-4 in favor of abortion, then he was right to refuse to intervene, because the baby would die in any case but this way there is no actual decision that will need to be reversed in the future, and no actual precedent if the same situation arises again.
You said: See... there's the problem... Supreme Court cases are about the Constitution, and darn little else.
***
Whoa!! The Supreme Court decides more than constitutional questions, including a number of questions of federal law and procedure, which have no necessary connection with the constitution. That is why someone with business experience, perhaps Miers, perhaps not, belongs on the Court.
Look at peyton randolph's post. We learned in November, 2000, how the SCOTUS functions in these cases. We do not know how Justice Roberts voted, but we *do* know that 4 justices were needed to intervene further.
The problem is the lower courts' decision to overthrow State law -- an excellent indictment of the entire culture of support for abortion. This one aspect of law seems to trump all other rights in the minds of too many judges (and their voice, the media).
The right of assembly, free speech, and now the right of States to limit abortion (affirmed in Roe, btw), as well as the right not to be killed are infringed by the outcome of the decision that some humans are less than human.
"It means that there wasn't 4 votes to hear it. >>
Is that what Rehnquist did too? every time a case came to his court he would base whether or not to hear the case on how the anticipated vote would be?"
thank you.
Abortion is still an elective surgery.
Would this prisoner be denied her right to "privacy" if she had requested an elective sex change surgery or a nose job?
I think not.
Why should the state of Missouri that has a law that does not provide funding for an elective surgery i.e. abortion, be forced to comply and be complicit in something its legislators (representing the majority will of the people) be denied?
Is abortion really private? It seems to me that there are lots of people who are involved in this "private act" both passive and active participants.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
John Robert's first Supreme Court case indeed has allowed the deliberate killing of another innocent child.
Two wrongs will never make it right.
I could not disagree more. The Supreme Court cases are about their personal interpretation of the Constitution, which means that just about everything else is involved in the process.
Along with their knowledge of Constitutional law, their rulings are influenced by personal traits such as their religioius beliefs, their own morals and values, their egos, their political backgrounds and personal agendas, their courage and conviction (or lack of it), their life's experiences and even by the peer pressure of their fellow elitists. When it comes right down to it, many of them twist the Constitution like a pretzel until it fits snugly around their personal and political agendas.
There is no Supreme Court Justice, (or any other judge), who can set all these things aside while they climb inside Thomas Jefferson's brain and rule the way he would. And even if they could, there would be those who prefer to sit inside Hillary Clinton's brain and rule the way she would.
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