The justice system is built to jail black people plain and simple folks. That’s why we’re scared of cops
TMB attorneys, help me understand the federal legal system. This writ was denied, which is on the appellate process. That is separate from a habeus claim. Correct?
No - the district court denied the habeas claim, he appealed, lost before the circuit court, and filed this petition to the Supreme Court seeking review of the denial of the habeas petition. Denial of the cert petition means the underlying decisions denying his habeas petition stand. He has no avenues of review or relief left for this habeas claim.
When someone is sentenced to death, they typically have 3 distinct sets of appeals. The first is the direct appeal of the conviction to state appellate court, then state top court (if applicable), then to SCOTUS. The second appeal and third appeals are post-conviction collateral attacks. In Texas, the second appeal is a state habeas corpus claim brought in state trial court (under a new case) and then the loss of that argument is appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (Not all states base this second set of appeals on habeas claims. Alabama, for example, bases this second stage on the writ of error coram nobis, which I believe equates to facts uncovered after conviction has been entered). The third appeal is the federal habeas claim that is brought in federal district court, appealed to federal circuit court, and then appealed to SCOTUS. The cert petition denied yesterday in the Thomas case was the third set of appeals and the last avenue for judicial relief. This website has a chart and general explanation: https://capitalpunishmentincontext.org/resources/dpappealsprocess
Filburn is an interesting rarity in Supreme Court jurisprudence in that it uses absurd reasoning to reach a result that was good for people. Stark contrast from the vast majority of decisions that use absurd reasoning to reach results that harm people
Was just about to say this. The decision is ridiculous but lead to quashing a lot of bullshit in the 50s and 60s
Not that rare. One of the worst SCOTUS cases, sure, but a lynchpin of commerce clause jurisprudence. The case set a wild precedent. See Read Gonzalez v. Raich & Gibbs v. Babbitt
Are you saying it's not rare for SCOTUS to use bad reasoning to set a precedent that is good for people? Or that Wickard wasn't good for people?
Sidebar - My Conlaw professor was a big time libertarian brain-worm dummy. Every class was positioned as a debate between him and his lackey students vs the liberals. Eventually the liberals stopped participating because obviously a 3rd semester law student is not equipped to take this guy on every day. Anyway we had a paper that was half of our final grade and I went full pander mode and wrote about the flawed reasoning of that case. Unsurprisingly got a really good grade
I wasn't really sure what was meant by rare. My point was Wickard wasn't some isolated decision that was overturned or ignored. It redefined the scope of the commerce clause to bring into federal jurisdiction intrastate, even noncommercial activity, that theoretically could have an effect on interstate commerce. Until the mid 1990s, it was apparent under Wickard that there was essentially no activity outside the jurisdiction of Congress. Congress could have regulated a dinner party among friends if it wanted to. The decision was bad because it basically eliminated the idea that Congress's power was limited to only 18 enumerated areas. To your point, no, I do not think it's rare for SCOTUS to use bad reasoning to set a precedent it deems good for people (and I don't believe SCOTUS should ever interpret law based on utilitarian or value judgments. That's not its job, and it makes for bad law). That was a hallmark of the New Deal Court. And no, I do not think Wickard was good for anyone. It wasn't good for Filburn, not to mention the millions who have been locked up for violating federal laws, such as drug offenses. Examples of application of Wickard reasoning (forgive me if my recollection of facts is a little off. I'm 13 years removed from law school): 1. Gonzalez v. Raich. Raich was growing marijuana on his own property, solely for personal medicinal use, as permitted under California law. He was charged and convicted in federal court of violating the Controlled Substances Act. He argued the feds had no jurisdiction to prohibit him from growing and consuming his own marijuana. Court reasoned that, by growing his own marijuana, he was not buying marijuana from interstate drug dealers, which could theoretically have some de minimis effect on the interstate marijuana trade. Even worse, imagine if everyone grew their own marijuana?! Marijuana prices would plummet, threatening the poor drug dealers' livelihoods. Never mind that the interstate marijuana drug trade is illegal under federal law. It still exists and is commercial in nature, thus bringing it (and anything that could theoretically affect it) into federal jurisdiction. Plus, who knows? Marijuana could one day become legal under federal law. Should Congress sit by and let selfish marijuana users depress future prices of marijuana by growing their own? NO! 2. Gibbs v. Babbit. Fish and Wildlife Service relocates a few red wolves to federal land in NC to try and create a local population. A law was passed making it a federal offense to kill a red wolf from the relocated pack. Over the years, the pack thrives and moves off the federal land and onto farms/ranches, and starts picking off ranch and domestic animals and threatening nearby residents. After losing cattle to the wolves, a rancher shoots one on his property. He argued Congress had no authority to regulate what he could shoot on his own land -- only the states had that power. The court concluded that the Commerce Clause gave Congress the power to regulate this activity through the Fish and Wildlife Service, even though there was nothing even theoretically commercial or interstate about shooting a red wolf on your own property to protect your own cattle. First, the court pointed out that the wolves taking the rancher's cattle affected interstate commerce, because each one taken by the wolves theoretically increased the market price for cattle. Next the court reasoned that if the red wolf population began to thrive, one day Congress could not only permit shooting red wolves but also permit harvesting and selling red wolf pelts in interstate commerce. By shooting a red wolf, the rancher is making it less likely that there will ever be enough red wolves for Congress to legalize the harvesting and sale of their pelts -- potential interstate commercial activities. In short, shooting the wolf had some theoretical effect on interstate commerce and was therefore subject to Congress's commerce power.
What law school? Outside of Epstein and Barnett, I wasn't sure these types of professors still existed.
I'm not going to address each individual point here. What I was trying to say is that it's rare for the Supreme Court to use bad reasoning to come to conclusions that actually are good for people, not that they deem good for people. Imo this decision had largely positive effects on regular Americans though as you've noted it wasn't 100%. The vast vast vast majority of SCOTUS jurisprudence is tilted toward protecting the interests of the wealthy capitalists. Often working backwards from preferred outcomes and filling in the reasoning. I won't get into your absurd notion that it's possible or even desirable to interpret law without utilitarian or value judgements. Not looking to get into an originalism debate because it's tired and originalists live in fantasy land. The issue with Wickard is that it's trying to address a fundamental contradiction of the United States without actually addressing it. If we're going to be one nation under a federal government, that federal government needs to have the power to actually do shit. But that is not compatible with the concept of federalism that many dumb dumbs think is important and good. So instead of addressing that contradiction they Frankensteined some ridiculous logic together to be able to let the federal government do shit based on some language that you have to really bend over backwards to make work. It's dumb but it solved some significant problems with the dumb as fuck way our country is set up. Though I'd wager you disagree with that last point.
Somewhere in that post, it seems you understand that the Constitution provides for a federal system, with limited, enumerated powers granted to the federal government and everything else retained by the states and individuals. It sounds like you just don't like that result. Nothing about the federal structure or separation of powers is inherently contradictory, as you assert. I'm not going to argue whether or not the Constitution is a good document. But if rule of law is important, then I think it should be followed, for better or worse. By its terms, the Constitution isn't a suicide pact. It provides a procedure for amendments. That practice became increasingly rare and now extinct as courts became more willing reinvent the text.
It's not that I don't like the result, it's that it's objectively contradictory to the concept of a federal government. If all a government can do is the limited shit laid out in the enumerated powers, at best it is incapable of responding to changing conditions in any meaningful way, at worst it's not even really a country at all, just a collection of states loosely associated with each other. The founders were fucking obsessed with independence of the states to the detrminet of the country. It was so bad they had to rewrite the fucking document and they still botched it badly enough that it led to a civil war. The shoehorning of everything under the umbrella of the commerce clause allowed the federal government to actually behave as if it is a federal government. But the logic is dumb
In a panoply of historical shitbird political justices Alito and Thomas really stand out. Very hard to do.
Pretty normal stuff https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...s-ginni-thomas-leadership-elections-congress/
I think the prudent thing to do would be to throw Alito into a volcano and to let AOC and Katie Porter decide on the replacement
At this point, I'm just going to assume anyone that associates with Gaetz is also a fucking pedophile