[Congressman Billybob]

I would have commented on the Judge Bolton decision two days earlier, if I'd been able to locate a link to the full text. Ah, well.

John / Billybob

[Graybeard58]

This case goes next to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Not only is that the most reversed Circuit of all, it is reversed more often than all the other Appeals Courts taken together.

How long can the 9th sit on it, knowing their decision will ultimately be reversed? Is the original decision in effect while Arizona waits?

[Lurker]

From Article 3, Section 2 of the US Constitution:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction.

This idiot woman shouldn't even have heard this case. It should have gone straight to SCOTUS.

[goodnesswins]

save

[patton]

What do you think of the move to disbar Kagan?

[danamco]

Ping: Screwing the law???

[longtermmemmory]

Just because someone is a judge does not mean they know the law.

this is french outcome decision making. She wanted a result regardless of what the law and constitution state.

[Gail Wynand]

Good analysis. It might be useful if you could, separately, also comment on Ms. Kagan’s “qualifications” and send them to deluded republican senators who think she is merely “philosophically different” but qualified for the supreme court. One or more of them seem to be non-lawyers who assume that if you were president of Harvard Law School and solicitor general therefore you must be qualified for the supreme court, a preposterous contention, and a dangererous one.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Bolton is obviously not very smart when it comes to the law. Apparently, she also “decided” that the Federal requirement stating that immigrants must carry their papers with them at all times is “unconstitutional” in her fantasyland.

[moehoward]

"The idea that federal incompetence requires all state and local governments to match its incompetence, has no support in prior cases."

IRRC there was similar reasoning in another case regarding the children of Illegals. Plyler? Something to the effect that since the law had been ignored for so long it was unreasonable to start enforcing it now.

[zipper]

If any of them had submitted a paper as ill-thought-out as Judge Susan Bolton’s decision on the Arizona immigration law, I’d have given them an F, and made them rewrite it from scratch.

SSSHHHHHHHHHHH! or she'll be the next supreme court nominee

[HiJinx]

Ping!

[an amused spectator]

Isn't this just a symptom of a federal "judge" having to force the facts of a case into the Procrustean bed of a decision that has already been made?

Bolton arrived in the courtroom with her decision (whether on her own initiative, or on orders issued by :others"), and then she had to make up some blather about why her decision was "correct".

We see this same symptom ten years later in the LA Times and Washington Post and Clinton Administration v. Free Republic case. Morrow already had her orders, so she made up some BS about "four points", and ten years later, people are STILL posting full text articles all over the Interwebs, because the Clinton White House-crafted "decision" was tailored to smack down Free Republic.

Hell, I remember reading a full-text LA Times article on the FR "decision" posted on a Lefty website, laughing at FR while they flouted the very "bill of attainder" that apparently only applied to Free Republic...

Perhaps we need a judicial review device to deal with blatant a priori decisions like this.

[smokingfrog]

One has to wonder if Judge Bolton read the text of the law.

[Political Junkie Too]

TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part IV > § 1226 (Apprehension and detention of aliens) says:

(d) Identification of criminal aliens

(1) The Attorney General shall devise and implement a system—

(A) to make available, daily (on a 24-hour basis), to Federal, State, and local authorities the investigative resources of the Service to determine whether individuals arrested by such authorities for aggravated felonies are aliens;

(B) to designate and train officers and employees of the Service to serve as a liaison to Federal, State, and local law enforcement and correctional agencies and courts with respect to the arrest, conviction, and release of any alien charged with an aggravated felony; and

(C) which uses computer resources to maintain a current record of aliens who have been convicted of an aggravated felony, and indicates those who have been removed.

(2) The record under paragraph (1)(C) shall be made available—

(A) to inspectors at ports of entry and to border patrol agents at sector headquarters for purposes of immediate identification of any alien who was previously ordered removed and is seeking to reenter the United States, and

(B) to officials of the Department of State for use in its automated visa lookout system.

(3) Upon the request of the governor or chief executive officer of any State, the Service shall provide assistance to State courts in the identification of aliens unlawfully present in the United States pending criminal prosecution.

TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part VIII > § 1324(c) (Bringing in and harboring certain aliens) says:

c) Authority to arrest

No officer or person shall have authority to make any arrests for a violation of any provision of this section except officers and employees of the Service designated by the Attorney General, either individually or as a member of a class, and all other officers whose duty it is to enforce criminal laws.

TITLE 8 > CHAPTER 12 > SUBCHAPTER II > Part V > § 1252c (§ 1252c. Authorizing State and local law enforcement officials to arrest and detain certain illegal aliens) says:

(a) In general

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, to the extent permitted by relevant State and local law, State and local law enforcement officials are authorized to arrest and detain an individual who—

(1) is an alien illegally present in the United States; and

(2) has previously been convicted of a felony in the United States and deported or left the United States after such conviction,

but only after the State or local law enforcement officials obtain appropriate confirmation from the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the status of such individual and only for such period of time as may be required for the Service to take the individual into Federal custody for purposes of deporting or removing the alien from the United States.

(b) Cooperation

The Attorney General shall cooperate with the States to assure that information in the control of the Attorney General, including information in the National Crime Information Center, that would assist State and local law enforcement officials in carrying out duties under subsection (a) of this section is made available to such officials.

-PJ

[bigbob]

Thanks as always for your astute postings.

Don’t you think this was just a case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”, so Judge Bolton just punted to get it out of her court? Sort of an “above my pay grade” sort of thing?

Sure looks to me like she decided she’d rather live with a reversal than make a decision that would make the President and AG look bad.

[freespirited]

Methinks she was more worried about her chances for a promotion than the Constitution.

[mad_as_he$$]

It occurred to me that it is remotely possible that this was her attempt to punt.

[Enterprise]

Thanks for your analysis. The state of Arizona tells the Federal Government that it will assist the Federal effort to enforce immigration laws. The Federal Government doesn’t want assistance because it would be a burden. Bolton worried about the burden to the poor helpless Federal Government. A couple of things here. First, these people accepted the job, and they must accept the burdens of that job. Second, is there any possibility that these fools will ever understand the burdens to the citizens because of presence of so many law breakers?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Interesting. Thanks.