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but we the people have the ultimate power if we can ever rise up and take it back...
...the Republic is on life support. There isn’t much time left.
The whole notion is stupid, why don’t the congress just change the sentencing laws and make it “manditory life” for some of these perves. Then it wouldn’t have ended at the SCOTUS.
This is a rare occasion in that Roberts seems to completely have dropped the ball. Very disappointing.
So unless I am misreading this, essentially, anyone the Congress declares a threat to the safety and well-being of the public can be incarcerated indefinitely.
I wonder if they had 'potential domestic terrorists' in mind?
While I am not, would not, and cannot argue for the release of dangerous sex offenders, that should be covered by their sentence, not at the whim of the Congress. For that matter, that should be the case for any offense, and considered by the jury when they hand down a verdict.
Between the war on some drugs and ‘it’s for the children’....
To continue to hold militia after a judge had ordered them released is because of.....?
To continue to incarcerate offenders (in this case, sex offenders...) because of (XYZ. Insert risk) ...the danger to public safety.....?
Now, to simply reclassify what constitutes risk/danger, as in tying together the DHS memo and present military members, gun holders and Christians, and make them dangers to public safety......?
This combined with the current talk of limiting free speech (um, “redistributing speech opportunities”) if that speech is harmful to the country, is very bad medicine.
ask King George about the ‘Necessary & Proper’ clause..
Interesting, especially considering that Thomas Jefferson considered and openly stated that something as seemingly benign as federal funding for canal construction was unconstitutional as it fell outside of the necessary and proper clause. It just shows how far we’ve fallen.
What next? The President being able to order the assassination of an American citizen? /sarc
The frog is boiled.
This thread says SCOTUS struck down a 4th Circuit decision that the federal government exceeded its authority since it exercised an unenumerated power. SCOTUS then says that the Feds have the power under the Necessary and Proper Clause....yet this article never mentions what enumerated power SCOTUS said that this is necessary and proper for executing. Does anyone know? Where do the feds get the jurisdiction to regulate sexual predators? The Commerce Clause?
They always use those emotionaly charged issues to pass for being smarter and for tyranny.
SCOTUS should not pass laws unless it sends rulings to Congress for review of the law in the cases whose interpretations it decides.
But that is a detail, now that the government culture accross all branches is decidedly arrogant and corrupt...
1) The court’s decision on Comstock essentially creates a legal framework by which the federal government can hold anyone indefinitely, without trial or appeal, if the government merely has the opinion that person is “dangerous.”
2) I disagree. The court only held that the enumerated powers claim doesn’t strike down this law. It specifically said the court would have to decide due process issues on remand. Indefinite detention without trial or appeal is prevented in our Constitution by the due process requirement and the habeas corpus clause. The court didn’t address either of these issues, and only held that the question of enumerated powers didn’t apply.
Those sexual offenders that ARE rehabilitated would be screwed by this - but hey, life's a bitch sometimes ...
Or, conversely, INCREASE the budgets for monitoring them once they are out ...
Allowing the government to indefinitely hold those beyond the term that the GOVERNMENT itself prescribed is Un-American. And just WHO is to say which ex-cons will re-offend ???
And when does this stop ??? Do you keep a bank robber locked up indefinitely because you THINK he's gonna rob another bank ???
That reminds me - gotta go rent "Minority Report" ...
I could care less what Breyer says in his decision, so I only read Alito’s concurrence and Thomas’s dissent.
I love Clarence Thomas. I just love the way he thinks.
Alito said, If the States won’t do their duty, then the US goverment has to step in and fill the gap when the cause is right and necessary.
Thomas said, No matter how noble or necessary the cause, no matter how sound the reasoning, no matter how just the action, if the US government lacks constitutional authority to act, then it cannot act. Period. End of discussion. It doesn’t matter how sensible, useful, just, necessary or wonderful the US government action is, it is disallowed unless the powers it is using are granted specifically in the Constitution.
I think Thomas got it right and I am VERY disappointed to see Roberts and Alito rule in favor of unconstitutional US government action.
As far as the death of Federalism, I have been calling the US government the “central government”. They are not a federal government. Federalism died a long, long time ago.
For any interested in reading the opinion:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1224.pdf
I haven’t read it, which makes me as well qualified to comment as Holder and Napolitano are on AZ law...but I’ll refrain, other than to note that when Scalia and Thomas dissent, it is a bad sign for the good guys.
...a challenge to the federal government's authority to civilly commit a "sexually dangerous" federal prisoner beyond the time of his sentence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the federal government lacked such authority within its enumerated powers. The Supreme Court disagreed, voting 7-2 to uphold the federal government's commitment power under the Necessary & Proper Clause. Justice Breyer wrote for the majority. Justices Kennedy & Alito concurred in the judgment, and Justice Thomas dissented, joined by Justice Scalia.