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U.S. Constitution
See other U.S. Constitution Articles

Title: The 5 Worst Supreme Court Rulings of the Past 50 Years
Source: Reason
URL Source: https://reason.com/archives/2018/11 ... the-5-worst-supreme-court-ruli
Published: Nov 19, 2018
Author: Damon Root
Post Date: 2018-11-19 07:53:06 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 4488
Comments: 38

Cases in which a majority of the Court fell down on the job.

James Madison once said that the job of the U.S. Supreme Court was to act as "an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive." Unfortunately, the justices have not always seen their role in the same light. Here are five cases from the past five decades in which a majority of the Court fell down on the job.

1. Smith v. Maryland (1979)

The Fourth Amendment guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." But according to the Supreme Court's 1979 decision in Smith v. Maryland, "a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties."

Lawyers call this the third-party doctrine. Prosecutors and police call it the gift that keeps on giving. Let's say the cops want to know what websites you've been reading. The third party doctrine lets them get that information from your internet service provider without obtaining a search warrant first. So much for that pesky Fourth Amendment and the privacy rights it was designed to protect.

2. Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982)

What do libertarian-leaning federal Judge Don Willett and liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor have in common? They both despise the modern doctrine of qualified immunity.

In Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982), the Supreme Court held that government officials are entitled to immunity from civil suits so long as the specific conduct they're being sued over "does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights."

What that means in practice, Willett observed in a 2018 opinion, is that "public officials [can] duck consequences for bad behavior—no matter how palpably unreasonable—as long as they were the first to behave badly."

Sotomayor concurs. The Court's "one-sided approach to qualified immunity," she wrote in a 2018 case, "transforms the doctrine into an absolute shield for law enforcement, gutting the deterrent effect of the Fourth Amendment."

Case in point: In 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit concluded that a Michigan police officer violated the Fourth Amendment when he shot and killed a fleeing suspect. But the court gave the officer qualified immunity anyway, because the situation did not perfectly match anything found in prior case law and therefore "controlling authority at the time of the events had not clearly established the rights we identify today."

3. Bennis v. Michigan (1996)

According to the Fifth Amendment, the government may not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Yet thanks to the widespread practice known as civil asset forfeiture, law enforcement agencies get to seize cash, cars, houses, boats, and other property from people who have been neither charged nor convicted of any underlying crime, if they merely say they suspect the property was connected to a crime. To make matters worse, the Supreme Court has given a rubber stamp of approval to this unconstitutional state of affairs. According to Bennis v. Michigan (1996), "the innocent owner defense" is no shield against a state's civil asset forfeiture regime. Where's the due process in that?

4. Kelo v. City of New London (2005)

Speaking of the Fifth Amendment, it also forbids the government from wielding its powers to seize property through eminent domain for anything less than a "public use." Yet in Kelo v. City of New London (2005), the Supreme Court allowed a Connecticut municipality to bulldoze a working-class neighborhood so that private developers would have a blank slate on which to build a luxury hotel, a conference center, and various other upscale amenities. Public use? More like public power unleashed on behalf of private gain.

The Court upheld the land grab on the grounds that government officials are entitled to "broad latitude in determining what public needs justify the use of the takings power." In other words, the city of New London was permitted to define—and to enlarge—the scope of its own eminent domain authority, unencumbered by any constitutional limitations.

5. Gonzales v. Raich (2005)

Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution recognizes the congressional authority "to regulate commerce…among the several states." In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Supreme Court gave federal lawmakers a massive shot of steroids, enlarging their power in this area to include the regulation of wholly local activity if it has a "substantial economic effect" on the national market.

Six decades later, in Gonzales v. Raich (2005), the Court handed Congress even more power, upholding a federal ban on marijuana, even as applied to plants that were cultivated and consumed by patients for their own doctor-prescribed use in states where medical cannabis was perfectly legal. As Justice Clarence Thomas observed in dissent, "by holding that Congress may regulate activity that is neither interstate nor commerce under the Interstate Commerce Clause, the Court abandons any attempt to enforce the Constitution's limits on federal power."

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 12.

#1. To: Deckard (#0)

The first four are terrible decisions. The fifth decision was correct. Federal law trumps state law. States have no right to opt out of the federal drug law, to nullify federal law in their territory. Gonzales upholds federal supremacy. It was correctly decided.

Vicomte13  posted on  2018-11-19   8:06:59 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Vicomte13 (#1)

In truth the states created the federal government. The states are superior and can dissolve the federal government.

A K A Stone  posted on  2018-11-19   9:04:56 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: A K A Stone (#2)

In truth the states created the federal government. The states are superior and can dissolve the federal government.

In truth, the British Crown created the first 13 states, who created the national government for the purpose of winning their independence, so the national government and the state government, as independent entities, were both born at the same instant, and it was the government of the United States that declared independence from Great Britain, not the individual states.

Truth also is that it was the national army of the confederal nation that defeated the British, not the states. George Washington and the other generals of the Continental Army did not serve any state, they served the government of the United States and took their orders from Congress.

Truth is that the other 37 states were all created by the United States out of federal territory. Federal law determined how they would be shaped, the lands were sold to settlers by the federal government, federal law determined what they had to do to apply to become states, and only once they had did the federal government concede local governance to the states that it created.

So, 37 states were created by the federal government out of land conquered by the federal government of the United States, while the original 13 states were created by the King of England, and simultaneously came into existence with the United States. None of the original states won its own independence and called forth the United States. Rather, colonies created the confederal government, which then fought and won the war with confederal forces that were paid for by taxes upon the states.

The states did not exist as indpedendent sovereignties at any point in time. They were British, and then the government of the United States, which they created to escape Britain, is what declared them independent, and thus transformed them from British colonies into component parts of a new nation.

The national government and its declaration is what converted Virginia from a colony dependent on Great Britain into a state dependent on the fortunes of the United States to secure its independence. At no point in history was Virginia ever a sovereign and independent state outside of the Union.

The only states that were something like that were Texas, which gained its independence from Mexico, and Hawaii, which was a kingdom in its own right. California declared itself a "republic" during the chaos of the Mexican fall in the Mexican-American War, but it only dared do so because the federal government of the United States was overrunning Mexico.

So, really in truth, the colonies created the confederal government, and the states only came into existence as entities when the confederal government declared national independence. Then the states were in confederal union from the beginning of their independence, and none of the original 13 was ever an independent country on its own accord. They gained their independence because of the United States government - they did not precede it as independent entities.

Vicomte13  posted on  2018-11-19   12:18:43 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: Vicomte13 (#4)

The same way Catholics lie about the Bible. You stretch things about the founding.

The states created the federal government. They can dissolve it on a whim.

A K A Stone  posted on  2018-11-19   12:20:57 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: A K A Stone (#5)

The same way Catholics lie about the Bible. You stretch things about the founding. The states created the federal government. They can dissolve it on a whim.

Actually, I am precise about the founding. The reality of the history means that the Civics 101 shorthand story you believe in isn't really right.

Just like the Catholics, with all of that history and experience underpinning each and every thing.

The states cannot dissolve the federal government on a whim. They can't leave on their own accord either. 1861-1865 is powerful precedent on that latter score.

Vicomte13  posted on  2018-11-19   13:34:35 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: Vicomte13 (#7)

Murder as a precedent.

You're an idiot.

A K A Stone  posted on  2018-11-19   21:15:53 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


Replies to Comment # 12.

#19. To: A K A Stone (#12)

Murder as a precedent.

Maintaining the state requires copious amounts of human blood and many destroyed lives - in the streets and on the battlefields.

That people will be killed for the state to survive is inevitable. The only question is who we may legitimately sacrifice for the survival of the society as a whole. I accept that we must sacrifice the lives of people who commit crimes, that the law in the abstract is more important than individual human lives. I accept this even though I know that some innocent lives are lost and some innocent blood is shed. The alternative is the collapse of the state and general starvation. So, for the survival of society, some innocents inevitably must be sacrificed to law enforcement. Don't like it, don't want it, but I accept it.

Similarly, all battle dead in war are fundamentally innocent lives. They're not criminals. They're young men, mostly, and some women, from the society who put on the uniform to defend it. By sending them into battle, we are knowingly sacrificing some of them. We are trading their lives and limbs for our overall prosperity and security. We don't have to do that. We could isolate ourselves or maintain a trivial military. But we would be poorer and less secure, at least in our minds, if we did so. So, once again, I am willing to sacrifice innocent American lives, men and women, for my overall prosperity and security. That's what sending our armed forces into battle is: accepting that we will be spending some of our people's lives for a political result that is better for us in bulk.

To maintain a nation state, human sacrifice is required on the altar of law and war. We would be poorer and weaker and less secure on the whole if we did not, so I say do it. I wish we could have peace and security without human sacrifice, but we cannot. Therefore, I accept the sacrifice without further resistance. It is necessary, the good of the whole is very important: the end justifies the means.

When it comes to unborn babies, the society has decided that the cost in welfare, crime and anguish of mothers - also the anguish of the unwanted children themselves and the anguish of growing up deformed - are al more important than any individual baby's life, and that up to a certain point the mother alone has the right to decide to kill her baby. The majority of the American people are willing to sacrifice those unborn babies' lives for the stability and security and prosperity of their overall society and their own peace of mind.

I am not. But I recognise that it is impossible to ban abortion without a substantial expansion of the social welfare state to cover the cost of so many more poor people being born every year. So, I am willing to sacrifice the financial liberty of the people, to a certain extent, in order to provide for the survival of those babies who otherwise would be aborted.

You like to call me an idiot, but really, you're the one who stomps his feet like a petulant child and simultaneously asserts NO ABORTION and NO SOCIAL WELFARE. This is a bone stupid position whose effects are perfectly obvious to anybody with an ounce of foresight, which means that it will never happen. The people are too smart, and too good, actually, to do that.

We MIGHT be able to abolish abortion. The trade off will be a lot more social welfare. Without the social welfare expansion to cover all of those new poor people, there is no chance whatever of abolishing abortion - the people will never allow it - they will make the rational decision they already make: some innocents have to die for us to have law and order, some innocents have to die abroad for us to have peace and prosperity, and a lot of unborn babies have to die at home for us to maintain our lifestyles.

You focus on the one element: the babies, and make that an uber alles thing. Why are babies lives more important than, say, the lives of innocent people killed by the cops, or soidiers deployed abroad? They're not. We are willing to accept those losses, and our society is willing to accept the losses of the babies.

But it's MURDER. It's also murder when the cops shoot the wrong man, or a soldier on duty gets killed. We could avoid those murders by not engaging in that sort of law enforcement or that sort of military activity. We do because the ends justify the means.

I myself have said many times that I think the lives of the unborn should be preserved. But I'm a realist who follows that up with the bitter truth that the trade off is more social welfare. You're a child who pretends you can have your cake and eat it too. Well, you can't. Not in the real world.

If you care about the babies, you will accept the social welfare to pay for them. if you won't, you don't really care about the babies at all, it's just a loudmouthed childish posture. You "care" but you won't pay. You can justify your position all you want with petulant foot stamping about how it SHOULD be...in the little world of Stone...but it's not that way, and won't be. You want to save the babies, man up and pay up. You love money more than the babies? And you DO love the money more than the babies. Well, I'd tell you to shut up, but you won't do that either. You'll bellow away, and beat on me, because the world isn't the way you want it.

And you will love and die in a world that will never remotely resemble what you want, because it shouldn't, and people won't follow you there, because you're wrong.

Save the babies: pay for them to grow.

Vicomte13  posted on  2018-11-20 07:03:36 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


End Trace Mode for Comment # 12.

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