Isn't SCOTUS the only decision that really matters?

[Double Naught Spy]

I'm no lawyer, but wouldn't negating from the bench a right that has been enshrined in its own Amendment suffice to demonstrate the end of good behavior, and wouldn't it be grounds for removal of every Justice who voted for it?

Absolutely not.

 

[gc70]

Kennedy is the swing vote on the US Supreme court. There are strong indications that Kennedy is simply opposed to some restrictive gun laws.

It is significant that SCOTUS has denied cert in other cases: Williams v. MD being one.

If I were one of the four clear conservatives on the court, I would have voted to deny cert in Williams. To the extent that Kennedy is on the fence regarding some aspects of the Second Amendment, the cleaner the case that SCOTUS finally accepts, and the more sympathetic the plaintiff, the more likely Kennedy will join the conservatives.

 

[JRH6856]

D.C. deputy mayor's crime solution: Be a victim

DC may be setting itself up for another round.

 

[osan]

.

I don't know much about how the courts work but I am seeing that we are getting a few positive 2nd Amendment decisions from District courts. It could then get appealed to the Appeals courts, if I'm correct, then if all of the Appeals courts agree then it most likely won't go to SCOTUS, but if there is disagreement in the courts then it has a better chance of making it to SCOTUS.

One of the earliest and most serious problems to arise in US governance came with Marbury v. Madison wherein the SCOTUS assumed powers never granted it. Rather than reading them the riot act or, that failing, running their coffins out of town on a rail, the nation let it go and here we are, the well conceived "balance of power" having been grossly corrupted in implementation very early on in our history. The courts have NO legitimate power to interpret law. Right and proper law is based in immutable principle which requires no interpretation, and indeed must be resistant to it just as people must resist the temptation to it, which can be great. SCOTUS has done more to harm the freedoms to which we lay natural claim than just about any other aspect or branch of so-called "government", particularly by liberal-leaning activist justices.

The proof of the courts inherently perfidious nature lies in the simple facts that it wields effective executive and legislative powers from the bench and it reverses itself, apparently, as it sees as fashionable or otherwise expedient. The gains we make today under SCOTUS are as easily gone tomorrow.

If I'm correct if all of the Appeals courts agree that the 2nd Amendment pertains to outside and inside of the home and no one appeals then that's as far as it goes and it is the law of the land.

That is a very tenuous basis because there is nothing to stop a prosecutor from filing charges despite this. If the court fails to toss the case and it proceeds to trial, anything can happen. Juries are often pretty smart, and at times wildly stupid. On conviction, the case goes to appeal and there is NOTHING to stop the appellate courts from reversing themselves, putting that state in conflict with others and opening the door for a SCOTUS case.

The US legal system is an absolute crap shoot, the game being rigged at least slightly in favor of the house. Do not for one split of a second fool yourself into believing that even SCOTUS justices are above politics, corruption, leverage, ignorance, and all other human failings. The history of the SCOTUS is fraught with hopelessly invalid, unjust, and plainly evil rulings that have driven this nation farther and farther from its roots. The American system is terminally broken, in part because We, The Lazy, Willfully Ignorant Dumbasses allowed it to get that way. And in part it is broken because its design is grossly flawed. The Framers may have had all good intentions and for the time in which they contrived our Constitution they may have done the best that was humanly possible. But in the 213 years since, we have that many more years of history upon which to draw and to see how the original design went amiss, having been insufficient in its ability to contain the evils of men obsessed with the acquisition and cultivation of power at nearly any cost.

A new generation of SCOTUS justices could reverse every gain we have made in every aspect of American jurisprudence. They could usher in an age of American soviet life and there would be NOTHING we could do to stop them, short of loading up the goose guns and going hunting. One has to take their gaze down to the levels of the most basic truths at work and see what is there. Just because SCOTUS has NOT done such a thing, it does not preclude them from so doing. Put another Sotomayor and another Kagan on the court and the USA would be lost in no time at all in the fundamentals.

However, if they appeal it to the Supreme Court then that could come up with final decision.

There is NO SUCH THING as a "final" decision with SCOTUS. Any decision can be reversed at any time. We have seen the demented and childishly flawed logic they have employed in one bad decision after another. We have seen them reverse earlier courts at whim. There is absolutely NOTHING to stop them from continuing this practice because they are unbound by the restraint of principle or the hangman's rope. That makes them potentially very dangerous people. The reasoning in some of their decisions has been so idiotic as to defy credulity and drive one to seek a massive concrete structure against which to pound one's head repeatedly because it hurts less than the thoughts invoked. :banghead:

Even though a bunch of positive 2nd Amendment decisions from the Appeals courts is good, isn't it better to get a positive decision from SCOTUS as that would be harder to overturn?

Not in any way that gives one basis for feeling at ease moving forward.

 

[alsaqr]

Any decision can be reversed at any time. We have seen the demented and childishly flawed logic they have employed in one bad decision after another. We have seen them reverse earlier courts at whim.

In reality it does not happen that way. SCOTUS seldom reverses itself: The few reversals usually happened after several decades. US courts abide by the legal principle of stare decisis ; let the decision stand. Thats why Roe v. Wade remains law of the land.

One of the SCOTUS reversals was Brown v. Board of Education(1954). That decision overturned Plessy v Ferguson(1896).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

 

[gc70]

One of the earliest and most serious problems to arise in US governance came with Marbury v. Madison wherein the SCOTUS assumed powers never granted it.

Oh the shame of it; SCOTUS usurped power in Marbury v Madison and nobody objected. Maybe nobody objected because they thought it was proper. There were quite a number of Founding Fathers around in 1803 to set things straight if anything had needed straightening. Even the 'Madison' involved in Marbury v Madison might have known a bit about whether SCOTUS' action were proper - since he was James Madison, who had drafted both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

 

[gc70]

In reality it does not happen that way. SCOTUS seldom reverses itself: The few reversals usually happened after several decades. US courts abide by the legal principle of stare decisis ; let the decision stand.

As of June 28, 2002, the Congressional Research Service listed 220 reversals of SCOTUS decisions.

 

[ConstitutionCowboy]

SCOTUS is not the final word. The Constitution is. If SCOTUS gets it "wrong", you can still do it right and keep on fighting until SCOTUS gets it right. Congress can also "correct" any "mistakes" SCOTUS makes.

Woody

 

[JRH6856]

in the 213 years since, we have that many more years of history upon which to draw and to see how the original design went amiss, having been insufficient in its ability to contain the evils of men obsessed with the acquisition and cultivation of power at nearly any cost.

No constitution, charter, treaty or law has the ability to do that. They are only words on paper. Only people with the will and the moral character to abide by and enforce those words can contain the evils of men.

Or as Ten Bears said to Josey Wales: "No signed paper can hold the iron—it must come from men."

Over that 213 years, the courts have used the law and the Constitution to justify what seemed like a good idea at the time rather than rigidly follow what might have been a good idea decades earlier. One thing that has allowed the United States to exist under the Constitution as long as it has is the ambiguity of the document that allows and even encourages the courts to interpret it in the manner that meets the needs of the times.

Times and needs change and so does judicial interpretation. The system is dynamic, not static. That is why it has survived.

 

[alsaqr]

SCOTUS is not the final word. The Constitution is. If SCOTUS gets it "wrong", you can still do it right and keep on fighting until SCOTUS gets it right. Congress can also "correct" any "mistakes" SCOTUS makes.

Our long incompetent congress is incapable of correcting their own serious mistakes: Look at the national debt.

 

[JRH6856]

Our long incompetent congress is incapable of correcting their own serious mistakes: Look at the national debt.

You can blame Congress, or you can blame "we, the people" who keep electing them. And then we tell them we won't vote for them again unless they give us stuff we don't want to pay for.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy. " —Source uncertain ​

 

[brickeyee]

Over that 213 years, the courts have used the law and the Constitution to justify what seemed like a good idea at the time rather than rigidly follow what might have been a good idea decades earlier.

Like extending first amendment protection to television, radio, phones, the internet...

Or reigning in the police to not use IR imaging to scan random houses looking for pot farms, or x-raying you and trying to not call it a search...

While there have been issues (like Dred Scott, and Plessey v. Ferguson, and even the Slaughterhouse cases, for the most part the system has worked.

And those are just a few easy ones.

The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.

Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949), Robert H. Jackson dissenting.

 

[ilbob]

It will take a long time to get enough lower court and appeals court cases in place that most district courts will feel safe in making rulings in 2A type cases. There just is not much of a body of case law to reference.

The more cases we get into the system, the more there is for judges to look at.

The logic used in cases that are reversed won't be used in future cases much.