Judge finds no right to travel (Katrina)

[TheFederalistWeasel]

Judge finds no right to travel (Katrina)
UPI ^ | 4/3/07

NEW ORLEANS, April 3 (UPI) -- A federal judge has dismissed a claim that local police violated the right to travel of New Orleans residents trying to get out after Hurricane Katrina.

Tracy and Dorothy Dickerson sued Gretna, the Gretna Police Department and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. They said they were not allowed to use the Crescent City Connection, which crosses the Mississippi River.

U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon said there is no right to travel within a state guaranteed by the Constitution. The judge also found that the Dickersons missed the deadline for certification as a class-action suit.

 

[nobody_special]

 

[Sindawe]

Funny, her ruling seems to be in direct contraction to the following from the U.S. Constitution:

Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Source: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am10

Or this from the Louisiana Constitution:

§24. Unenumerated Rights

Section 24. The enumeration in this constitution of certain rights shall not deny or disparage other rights retained by the individual citizens of the state.

Source: http://senate.legis.state.la.us/Documents/Constitution/

but then, I'm not a lawyer skilled at making plain english mean what I want it to mean at any given moment.

"U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon" Yes, she does strike me as most vile...

Methinks the Bard was on to something with is comment on lawyers in King Henry VI, even if that was not his intent.

 

[Titan6]

I wonder if I can get the police here to close the roads to keep all the riff raff out this summer....

 

[DKSuddeth]

please provide a link for that decision.

 

[cane]

Not all Federal Courts agree with her:

In the U.S., the right to travel is derived from the synthesis of several rights. This was quite well laid out in Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958) at 125-126.

"The right to travel is a part of the `liberty' of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. . . . Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country, . . . may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values

 

[Robert Hairless]

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/04/03/judge_finds_no_right_to_travel/ :banghead:

 

[ConstitutionCowboy]

Bah! This is just another case of one government employee looking out for a couple others.

The only way the judge could have logically come to this conclusion is if the Dickersons claimed their constitutional right to travel was violated. If they claimed their right to travel was violated, that would be a different story.

Woody

If you want security, buy a gun. If you want longevity, learn how to use it. If you want freedom, carry it. There is nothing worth more than freedom you win for yourself. There is nothing more valuable to that end than the tools of the right that make it possible. B.E.Wood

 

[gotarheels03]

if the "right to travel" isn't a fundamental and unenumerated right then what is?

If things like "abortion rights" can be found in the BOR and the "Right to Privacy" can be found in "prenumbras and emanations" of the BOR (Griswold v. CT i think) then surely the "right to travel" can also be found.

I'm not saying i'm for/against either of the rights I mentioned. I'm just using them as examples.

I've always found it funny, how anti-gun liberals love their "right to privacy" which is a judicial construction and not actually written in the Constitution, but they can be against the RKBA which IS enumerated in the BOR.

 

[ConstitutionCowboy]

Rights do not have to be enumerated or word smithed out of select passages from the Constitution. Read the Ninth Amendment. All you need to know about unenumerated rights is there, in that Ninth Amendment...

What the Court conjured up in Roe v. Wade out of our right to privacy is what is contrary to any logic.

Woody

"The Right of the People to move about freely in a secure manner shall not be infringed. Any manner of self defense shall not be restricted, regardless of the mode of travel or where you stop along the way, as it is the right so enumerated at both the beginning and end of any journey." B.E.Wood

 

[geekWithA.45]

This smells like one of those "oops, we filed the wrong petition and questions in the wrong jurisdiction" kinda things, or it didn't come up through the courts with the right questions.

In lawyer's terms, the question, when posed to the feds is something like "Dear feds, please enforce our right of travel against the state of LA", to which the fed court ticks off flaws like "wrong jurisdiction, past the deadline, and there's nothing in the constitution that lets us force the state of LA to let you use a specific bit of road in an emergency".

 

[gezzer]

Sounds like instant reversal on appeal to me.

 

[hugh damright]

U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon said there is no right to travel within a state guaranteed by the Constitution.

Sounds right to me ... it is one thing to say that there is such a right, it is another to say that it is federally protected.

 

[Flyboy]

U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon said there is no right to travel within a state guaranteed by the Constitution.

I can appreciate the lack of Federal jurisdiction here, but I have to wonder...unless one lives right on the border, how can one possibly travel between states without first travelling within a state?

 

[Lucky]

Meh, uppity cit-zens ought count their blessings they didn't get executed for trying to cross a bridge - this time...

 

[Ratzinger_p38]

@woodcdi

Yup, more 'living constitution' garbage. And they tried to indoctrinate that as fact to me when I was in high school.

 

[hoppinglark]

hey this is good, the Real ID comes out in a year and then we'll have check points at the border of every state.
Hillary will soon be in office and our children can start their school days saying "heil furher"
And to all you ATF, and DEA agents who read these boards, there are no firearms in my home, and i have no Sudafed. I am not a thought criminal.

*hope that keeps them off my back

 

[Al Norris]

Sounds like instant reversal on appeal to me.

Yup. There are tons of Supreme Court decisions; Circuit Court Decisions; State Supreme Court decisions... The right to travel is a fundamental right... Are we sure the plaintiffs posed the proper question?

Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958).
Chicago Coach Co. v. City of Chicago, 337 Ill. 200, 169 N.E. 22.
Stephenson v. Binford 287 U.S. 251, 264, et al.
Whyte v. City of Sacramento, 165 Cal. App.534, 547.
Schactman v. Dulles 96 App DC 287, 225 F2d 938, at 941.
Davis v. Wechsler, 263 US 22, at 24.
Thompson v. Smith, 154 SE 579.
Adams v. City of Pocatello, 416 P.2d 46, 48; 91 Idaho 99 (1966).

All of the cases above, recognize the Right to Travel as a fundamental Right, not owning its existence on the Constitution, but predating that Constitution in Common Law.

The problem here, is that we really don't know what was asserted by the plaintiffs or what the Court actually said. If it is to be assumed as simple as the news article makes it out to be, then the Judge is plainly wrong... Otherwise, all bets are off.

 

[the naked prophet]

If not for the right to freely travel, what is the difference between a prisoner and a free man?

 

[brickeyee]

Without reading all the text of the decision you cannot tell what was really decided.
It really sounds like someone filed a really bad case.