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Recent Noteworthy SCOTUS cases and verdicts (Page 3)
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subego
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Jun 26, 2015, 01:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by OAW View Post
That small portion of the legislation says what it says. No one is disagreeing with that. The issue is that it is completely at odds with the overall intent of the legislation. So the Supreme Court rightly decided that it didn't make sense to completely upend the the health insurance market and strip 6+ million people of their health insurance over what is essentially a TYPO. By a 2-1 margin.

OAW
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it sure sounded to me like Dakar was disagreeing.

The way I analyze law generally hews close to the way Scalia does it, so it's not surprising to me we see this the same way.

All I can say is what I said above. If I was a swing vote I'd need to have a long hard talk with myself as to whether the country is better off maintaining the principle of proper jurisprudence or the intent of the (long fought) legislation.

What makes Scalia a... I won't use that word. What makes Scalia... problematic is he finds the notion I would have such a discussion with myself as a fault, and for that, he can eat shit.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 26, 2015, 03:38 PM
 
“there can be no justification for needlessly rendering provisions in conflict if they can be interpreted harmoniously.”
That's Scalia's reasoning in interpreting conflicts in text in the law. Do you agree with him? Isn't that what the court did here?

As for me, the arguments I saw in the past made it pretty clear that when you see that one sentence in it's surroundings, it makes sense.
     
subego
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Jun 26, 2015, 04:59 PM
 
Where is the conflict in the text?

Was the Circuit Court full of shit when they said it's not there?
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 26, 2015, 05:10 PM
 
That it doesn't say Federal exchanges get subsidies, but neither does it explicitly say they don't either.

I know I'm about to get schooled in legalese here. Can I get the circuit court text you're referring to?
     
subego
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Jun 26, 2015, 06:11 PM
 
"a literal reading of the statute undoubtedly accords more closely with [the plaintiffs’] position"
     
subego
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Jun 26, 2015, 07:05 PM
 
As for the law not explicitly saying the government can't do it, so that means they can, did the decision even come close to using that as a justification?

I honestly find the idea a little horrifying.
     
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Jun 27, 2015, 02:56 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
As for the law not explicitly saying the government can't do it, so that means they can, did the decision even come close to using that as a justification?

I honestly find the idea a little horrifying.
Me too.
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subego
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Jun 28, 2015, 02:13 AM
 
I'm nowhere near as frustrated and filled with raeg as Scalia, so it'll be much easier for me to explain the value of the interpretive method he's using without being a coc...

I said I wasn't going to use that word now, didn't I?


As I said earlier, overturning the ACA would be an unmitigated disaster.

The problem is there is no legal basis to use an unmitigated disaster as a reasoning behind a decision. That's not a tool judges have available to them. The only tools they have are other laws and precedent.

If there aren't other laws or precedents which apply, as is the case here, the only tool the court has to stave off the unmitigated disaster is spurious interpretation.

This is one of the worst crimes you can commit as a judge.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 29, 2015, 10:35 AM
 
Glossip, 5-4 against the inmates. I don't understand the details yet, but I read a few times that they didn't provide an alternative which strikes me as a crazy requirement.

Arizona, 5-4 against the legislature. The citizens can give redistricting power to an independent commission. Thank ****.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 29, 2015, 10:38 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The problem is there is no legal basis to use an unmitigated disaster as a reasoning behind a decision. That's not a tool judges have available to them. The only tools they have are other laws and precedent.
That's an argument of principle vs. practicality, and I'm not sure it makes any sense for the court to work in a vacuum. The law is to serve us, not the other way around.
     
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Jun 29, 2015, 10:40 AM
 
EPA, 5-4 against EPA. Not overly familiar with the case, but I think I could be easily persuaded in either direction. Ok with it ATM.
     
subego
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Jun 29, 2015, 10:58 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
That's an argument of principle vs. practicality, and I'm not sure it makes any sense for the court to work in a vacuum. The law is to serve us, not the other way around.
Abandoning principle has consequences.

As I said, if one is not going to use previous law or precedent as the tools to justify a decision, they are using spurious interpretation as their tool.

Spurious interpretation which has become precedent.

That is a very bad thing.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 29, 2015, 11:02 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Abandoning principle has consequences.
I agree.

Originally Posted by subego View Post
As I said, if one is not going to use previous law or precedent as the tools to justify a decision, they are using spurious interpretation as their tool.
I don't have the time to relitigate the ACA, but I just don't see this as being a rogue ruling. Siding with the court's notorious crank and (IMO) on of the ideologues, doesn't help either.
     
subego
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Jun 29, 2015, 11:26 AM
 
I don't believe I asked you to retry the case. I asked you to consider the decision of the Circuit Court, which notes that if one interprets the text literally, one gets the reading Scalia gets.

You claim Scalia is being inconsistent for interpreting the law literally. He's known for this. In the very quote you say demonstrates his inconsistency, he explicitly states the enormous value he places on literal interpretation: "do as little violence to the text as possible".
     
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Jun 29, 2015, 11:27 AM
 
Oh yeah, this happened, but no one noticed because 8-1.
Supreme Court declares crime law 'unconstitutionally vague'
A coalition of liberal and conservative justices complained then that the law's "residual clause" is too vague. Scalia, who has sought to declare the law unconstitutional in the past, said the "serious potential risk" standard could lead to criminalizing "annoying conduct."
Chalk this up to a counter-point to my 'Scalia gives law enforcement the benefit of the doubt' though some distinctions could be made.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 29, 2015, 11:29 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I don't believe I asked you to retry the case
That wasn't meant as a derogatory comment, but as an inevitability of us going into the weeds.

Originally Posted by subego View Post
You claim Scalia is being inconsistent for interpreting the law literally.
I claim he's inconsistent because his reasoning will change depending on the topic. Again:
Textual interpretation, Scalia insisted, should be “holistic” and “contextual,” not “wooden” or “literal.”
He's specifically saying not to use literal interpretation in that quote.
     
subego
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Jun 29, 2015, 11:48 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
That wasn't meant as a derogatory comment, but as an inevitability of us going into the weeds.

I claim he's inconsistent because his reasoning will change depending on the topic. Again:

He's specifically saying not to use literal interpretation in that quote.
That's for when the text is ambiguous. This text isn't.
     
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Jun 29, 2015, 11:52 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
That's for when the text is ambiguous. This text isn't.
I disagree.
     
subego
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Jun 29, 2015, 11:52 AM
 
Which is totally cool.
     
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Jun 29, 2015, 11:54 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Which is totally cool.
I'm glad because as I said, I don't have the time to get into the weeds and better present my perspective.
     
subego
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Jun 29, 2015, 12:00 PM
 
Umm... okay?
     
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Jun 29, 2015, 12:01 PM
 
Petitioners contend that Oklahoma’s current protocol is a barbarous method of punishment—the chemical equivalent of being burned alive. But under the Court’s new rule, it would not matter whether the State intended to use midazolam, or instead to have petitioners drawn and quartered, slowly tortured to death, or actually burned at the stake: because petitioners failed to prove the availability of sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, the State could execute them using whatever means it designated.
Need to read more, but that's the impression I'm getting – unless you can provide a better method to die, we get to kill you, regardless of how horrible it may be.

Edit; I"m in the wrong thread, aren't I?
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 29, 2015, 12:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Umm... okay?
I'm trying to thank you. Not doing a good job, apparently.
     
subego
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Jun 29, 2015, 12:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
I'm trying to thank you. Not doing a good job, apparently.
A flatly stated "I don't have time for you" will never go over well.
     
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Jun 29, 2015, 12:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
A flatly stated "I don't have time for you" will never go over well.
I didn't say 'for you'.
     
subego
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Jun 29, 2015, 12:18 PM
 
Clear communication on the internets is hard.

No harm, no foul.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 29, 2015, 12:22 PM
 
It's really too bad swing votes are hard to predict (when nominating). Because if you look at the vast majority of 5-4 splits, its all Kennedy. Which means its less 9 justices deciding so much as just one.
     
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Jun 29, 2015, 12:48 PM
 
He is the single most powerful person in the world right now, if you think about it. Kinda scary.
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Jun 29, 2015, 12:52 PM
 
I do wonder if when they debate the case, it's essentially a game of tug-a-war to win Kennedy onto their side. In which case their participation does have a lot of value, as they form the arguments.
     
subego
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Jun 29, 2015, 01:06 PM
 
"In exchange for voting my way, I won't call you an idiot in my dissent" - A. Scalia
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Jun 29, 2015, 01:07 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
"In exchange for voting my way, I won't call you an idiot in my dissent" - A. Scalia
He won't promise not to use a synonym instead, though.
     
subego
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Jun 29, 2015, 01:10 PM
 
That's a rather wooden interpretation.
     
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Jun 30, 2015, 09:12 AM
 
     
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Jun 30, 2015, 09:23 AM
 
Nowhere near as controversial as some of the things here, but SCOTUS also declined to hear Google's appeal in the Oracle case, which means that APIs are copyrightable but may be subject to Fair Use.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Jun 30, 2015, 09:34 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Nowhere near as controversial as some of the things here, but SCOTUS also declined to hear Google's appeal in the Oracle case, which means that APIs are copyrightable but may be subject to Fair Use.
I don't know enough to comment on it, but I'm under the impression APIs are not some kind of huge intellectual endeavor.
     
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Jun 30, 2015, 10:30 AM
 
It's not zero, not for a good one at least. In the case here, Google copied the entire structure of the Java API, something that certainly took time and money to develop.

This is not easy, but in general I think that copyrighting APIs makes sense as far as copyrighting code does, but that there should be a fair use exception for compatibility reasons. MS' recent iOS to WP porting project would therefore be legal - porting wouldn't work if MS did not replicate the structure of UIKit - but Google's endeavour - which meant reimplementing Java for the express purpose of avoiding the license requirement - would be more doubtful.

(I also think that the Free Software supporters who are all in favor of Google on this issue are missing the point. If it had been clear to Sun when the open sourced Java that their license agreement could easily be circumvented, they wouldn't have open sourced it at all.)
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Jul 2, 2015, 10:21 AM
 
Originally Posted by Cap'n Tightpants View Post
He is the single most powerful person in the world right now, if you think about it. Kinda scary.
What's more frightening is a lot of what I read indicates he's not that great a lawyer. His writing is mocked as amateurish. Some one pointed out a lot of the circuit rulings had more legal logic and consistency than his dignity leaning decision.
     
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Jul 6, 2015, 02:47 PM
 
It's been a very salty term.

In all, the court's four most conservative justices wrote 78 dissents and concurrences, versus only 27 for the liberals.
"The bombastic tone of the dissents this term was over the top, even for Justice Scalia, who has a blood-soaked pen at his desk," Goldstein says.

"He wrote the nastiest thing I have read in any Supreme Court opinion," says Charles Fried, who served as the government's chief advocate in the Supreme Court during the Reagan administration.

Dellinger, who had the same job in the Clinton Administration, agrees.

"I've never seen that kind of really, deeply personal attack that basically says 'The author of the opinion is not just wrong as a matter of law, he's a jerk,' " says Dellinger.
     
subego
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Jul 6, 2015, 02:54 PM
 
I've got to give props to Scalia's dissents as entertainment. I got several genuine LOLs from his recent ones.

Admittedly, they were of the "OMFG... did he actually say what I think he said" variety.
     
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Jul 6, 2015, 03:12 PM
 
All I hear is an old man angry he's not getting his way.

I mean, yes, there is some legal logic in his dissents, but he's really leaning heavily in telling us more about how he feels.
     
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Jul 6, 2015, 03:29 PM
 
"You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you ****sucker? You can't take this, how can you take the abuse you get on a sit? You don't like it, leave." Dammit I love that film.

On a more serious note, have you watched British politics? Scalia's comments are pretty mild in comparison.
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Jan 11, 2016, 02:00 PM
 
Bumping this thread for the inevitable crippling of public unions in a few months
     
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Mar 7, 2016, 01:21 PM
 
Listened to some excerpts of the Texas abortion case. Their law is so thinly disguised I think a 5-3 against isn't out of the question.
     
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Mar 7, 2016, 01:22 PM
 
Oh yeah, court told Alabama to shove it on the gay child custody case.
     
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Mar 29, 2016, 08:15 PM
 
So, the male members of the SCOTUS seem to have no idea how health plans work.
The Supreme Court's Conservatives Don't Seem To Know What Obamacare Actually Does
During a back-and-forth in the courtroom about women whose employers don’t cover contraception, and the subsequent lengths they must go to get it, Roberts suggested that it’s not actually a big deal if women in such situations have to get their birth control covered some other way. Justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito appeared to share the same belief.

“They’re on the exchanges, right?” Roberts said, implying that women without access to contraception from their religious employers can just sign up to receive it through the federal insurance exchanges instead.
Roberts wasn’t alone. Kennedy also latched onto the idea that it’s “so easy” and “so free” to sign up for a contraceptive-only plan, and likened a religious employer’s providing contraception to “subsidizing conduct that they deemed immoral.”
How are they not subsidizing it by paying the employee? BTW, do contraceptive only plans even exist? (A quick google seemed like a no)


As a bonus, they seem to think their own ruling from a year ago is now onerous.
Supreme Court Sharply Conflicted On Whether Religious Freedom Trumps Contraception Access
Justice Samuel Alito, for his part, said the administration’s methods amounted to “an unprecedented threat to religious liberty in this country.” In the Hobby Lobby decision, which he authored, he seemed to sanction the kind of accommodation the religions groups now oppose.
     
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Mar 29, 2016, 08:27 PM
 
Are they suggesting that women could get a contraceptive only plan on the exchange? Or just forego employer provided insurance altogether and purchasie full-blown coverage which also includes contraceptives on the exchange?

OAW
     
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Mar 29, 2016, 08:42 PM
 
They don't know what they're suggesting. They're just floundering around. This came up because they asked the religious orgs to come up with a workable alternative today.
The court's order requested more information on how contraceptive coverage can be obtained "in a way that does not require any involvement" by these employers, who object to the requirement on religious grounds.
I have to imagine this is the conservatives grasping at straws because I don't see the women giving in to nuking coverage altogether. That said, I don't think a 4-4 in this case is favorable to the feminist wing.
     
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Mar 29, 2016, 08:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
I have to imagine this is the conservatives grasping at straws because I don't see the women giving in to nuking coverage altogether. That said, I don't think a 4-4 in this case is favorable to the feminist wing.
Beyond the issue of contraceptives (which is really important) I think that sets a rather dangerous precedent: what if you're a company whose founders are Christian Scientists, do the health insurance they provide not have to cover for vaccinations and blood transfusions? Can you piecemeal health insurance in this fashion?
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Mar 29, 2016, 11:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Beyond the issue of contraceptives (which is really important) I think that sets a rather dangerous precedent: what if you're a company whose founders are Christian Scientists, do the health insurance they provide not have to cover for vaccinations and blood transfusions? Can you piecemeal health insurance in this fashion?
There's a lot going on with this case. On the primary level, they are objecting to having to object – that the act ties them to close to contraception (which I guess paying their employees doesn't). They also say the extra paperwork involved is burdensome (government needs info on the employers insurance, I'm guessing so it can determine how to compensate the employees) and that objection amounts to an authorization, making them complicit. I'd quote it here but selecting text on transcripts is oddly wonky.

Some of the justices asked what degree of separation was necessary to satisfy the plaintiffs and how to achieve it, but the litigator kind of blanked. Further their interest seems to be to disconnect contraception coverage from insurance, which is exactly what the ACA did, so they're at an impasse.
     
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Mar 30, 2016, 12:57 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Some of the justices asked what degree of separation was necessary to satisfy the plaintiffs and how to achieve it, but the litigator kind of blanked. Further their interest seems to be to disconnect contraception coverage from insurance, which is exactly what the ACA did, so they're at an impasse.
Ah, I see. So essentially the question is whether ACA can mandate coverage for contraception. For instance, if the company had the choice between ACA and another, more expensive insurance without contraception coverage, would it be reasonable to force the company to choose the more expensive insurance?
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