Posted on 01/31/2006 4:38:57 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
WASHINGTON — Twenty-five years ago, President Reagan came to Washington with bold plans to move the Supreme Court to the right.
He and his lawyers wanted a high court that would uphold state laws that impose the death penalty, restrict abortion and allow a greater role for religion in public life. They favored property rights over environmental regulation, states' rights over broad federal authority and executive power over Congress and the federal courts.
Now, with the Senate about to confirm Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., a second generation of Reagan disciples stands ready to fulfill the former president's vision for the court.
Senators voted 72 to 25 Monday to cut off debate and end a filibuster against Alito's confirmation, and are expected to approve him today as President Bush's second Supreme Court appointee.
Alito, like Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., was drawn to the conservative ethos of the Reagan administration in the 1980s. Both men worked in Reagan's Justice Department and as advocates for the administration before the Supreme Court.
This year, both were promoted for the high court by a network of former Reagan lawyers, including his onetime attorney general, Edwin M. Meese III, who hold influence with the Bush White House. And some of Reagan's former advisors see the elevation of Roberts and Alito as the culmination of a long drive to put Reagan's conservative stamp on the high court.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
It is a tribute to the greatness of the Gipper that even after death he continues to have an impact on our nation. Truly he will be recorded in history as one of our greatest presidents.
More like she worked a full count, and the hit a ground ball to move the runners over.
Hit the nail on the head with a jack hammer.
Scalia said it about Thomas (but Thomas won't admit to it) that "Clarence Thomas does not believe in stare decisis, period".
I believe a good judge should consider stare decisis, but it should always be subordinate to what the Constitution, treaties, and statutes actually say.
So do I.
Its been very corrupted though and misused.
Its a tool, much like a screwdriver, or a nail to help make a decision.
The constitution if the bottom line, stare decisis gives you a tool to understand, how others handled similiar cases and came out with the decisions they did, including a look into their reasoning, and research (it would be arrogant for any judge to assume they know all the answers, another judge may have found something to help with a statute).
But one of the primary reasons for stare decisis is for consistancy in the law, so you don't accidently make a broad ruling and overturn another law that is also constitutionally enacted by accident.
Scalia, FWIW, has noted several times, where congress by creating a new law, has, without realizing it, effectivly repealed an older law, sometimes, unrelated.
Do you think President Reagan look down from heaven saying Well well done Dubya LOL!
I know my stupid California senator like Barbara Boxer Diane Fienstein and House minority leader Botox Queen Nancy Pelosi HEY that Frisco libs part of Cali talking LOL!
IIRC, three of the Dems were Tim Johnson of S.D., Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Robert Byrd of W.V. and one of the ones from North Dakota.
I dislike the way federal legislation is drafted to amend the U.S. code by adding or removing specified text, without stating anywhere in the legislation what the text in question is.
It's all too easy for legislation to make broad sweeping changes in laws without it being obvious. For example, suppose the legislation were to, among other things, "strike the fifth subsection of USC 123.45.678". How many congresscritters would actually take the time to look up that subsection and see what it was?
Apparently, not to many, which is why alot of courts get crammed up with legal challenges much to the annoyance of judges (from what I've been told by some, this is one of the few pet peeves liberal and conservative judges have in common).
Even worse is when part of a code is repealed, but no one notices, that another code has been amended based on a code that has been repealed, it creates havoc with the law, and leaves judges sitting there wondering what to do.
I.E., even for a conservative, what to do is several different and constituional laws are in conflict with each other because of legislative sloppiness, something that gives both means and motive to judicial activists to create new laws, which usually even further complicate matters.
Indeed, what is a judge supposed to do if statutes end up being amended in a way that doesn't make sense? My personal view is that in criminal cases, the benefit of the doubt should almost always go to the defendant. For example, if a statute forbids a certain action except under the conditions specified in 456.7, and if the deletion of 456.2 causes section 456.7 to become 456.6 while the old 456.8 becomes 456.7, I would rule that the statute allows people to act under either the old or new conditions. On the other hand, if a statute forbids someone to act as listed in 567.8 and a similar change occurs, I would regard that statute as void unless or until the legislature acts upon it to make known its intention.
To hold that only the "old" law applied in such cases could be unfair to someone who looked at what the U.S. code said and modeled his behavior accordingly; to hold that only the "new" law applied could require that citizens know more about the law than the legislature. Neither approach would seem reasonable when it would act against a citizen's interest.
BTW, this ties into another rule that IMHO courts should follow: it is unjust to punish someone for acting in a fashion that a reasonable and knowledgeable person would believe to be, de jure or de facto, legal. It should be possible for a court to find that while a particular activity was not, in fact, legal a reasonable person could have believed it to be so; such a finding would allow future prosecutions for such actions while barring prosecutions for such actions that were initiated prior to the decision being issued. As far as I know, the Court has never done that but if it were willing to do so it could avoid a lot of problems.
No. Infield fly rule.
Half of NYC's legal cases would go up in smoke on an given day.
We're talking about a city where you get fined for sitting on a milk crate in public.
I would like to think NYC is an exception, but I suspect that in various jurisdictions across the country, there are countless laws on the books that no one knows about until they are enforced at the moment......which ironically makes one wonder if the point was to curtail such behavior or just to place another means of increasing revenue in?
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