Current Supreme Court Term - Spring 2022 and July
13, 2022
Review of the Supreme Court Term - July 13, 2022
First
Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or
the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Second Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security
of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear
Arms, shall not be infringed.
Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) (NOW
OVERRULED):
1. “Our cases recognize ‘the right of the individual,
married or single, to be free from unwarranted
governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally
affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or
beget a child.’ Our precedents ‘have respected the
private realm of family life which the state cannot
enter.’ These matters, involving the most intimate and
personal choices a person may make in a lifetime,
choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are
central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth
Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to
define one’s
own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe,
and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these
matters could not define the attributes of personhood
were they formed under compulsion of the State.”
2. “[T]he liberty of the woman is at stake in a sense
unique to the human condition and so unique to the
law. The mother who carries a child to full term is
subject to anxieties, to physical constraints, to pain
that only she must bear. That these sacrifices have
from the beginning of the human race been endured by
woman with a pride that ennobles her in the eyes of
others and gives to the infant a bond of love cannot
alone be grounds for the State to insist she make the
sacrifice. Her suffering is too intimate and personal
for the State to insist, without more, upon its own
vision of the woman’s
role, however dominant that vision has been in the
course of our history and our culture. The destiny of
the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own
conception of her spiritual imperatives and her place
in society.”
Poem About The 2020-21 Term (that still seems relevant):
The Supreme Court is deciding cases
Without showing any of their faces.
They are busy taking away some rights,
While raising others to still greater heights.
The Justices often don’t all agree,
Dividing by a vote of 6 to 3.
Those on the right are in total control,
Enjoying their new and commanding role.
Marching in lockstep as they stride ahead,
Reveling in the rightward course they tread.
The liberals can wail loud in dissent,
But the rest of the Court will not relent.
Those 3 on the ropes all hope for magic,
Wave a wand to turn the 6 less tragic.
Magic may work in fairy tale endings,
But the Court can’t change based on
pretendings.
Only time will switch its true direction,
A pendulum based on each election.
Class 8 - May 19, 2022
Last Class of the Semester - no posted material.
Class 7 - May 12, 2022
Sec. 3, 14th
Amendment:
“No Person shall be a Senator
or
Representative in Congress, or
elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office,
civil or military, under the United States, or under any State,
who, having previously taken an oath,
as a member of Congress, or
as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State
legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any
State, to support the Constitution
of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or
rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the
enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of
each House, remove such disability.”
Impeachment Resolution
Resolution impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the
United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Resolved, the Donald John Trump, President of the United
States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and
that the following article of impeachment be exhibited to
the United States Senate:
Article of impeachment exhibited by the House of
Representatives of the United States of America in the name
of itself and of the people of the United States of America,
against Donald John Trump, President of the United States of
America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment
against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.
ARTICLE 1: INCITEMENT OF INSURRECTION
The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives
"shall have the sole Power of Impeachment" and that the
President "shall be removed from Office on Impeachment, for,
and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes
and Misdemeanors." Further, section 3 of the 14th Amendment
to the Constitution prohibits any person who has "engaged in
insurrection or rebellion against" the United States from
"hold[ing] and office ... under the United States.' In his
conduct while President of the United States — and in
violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute
the office of President of the United States and, to the
best of his ability, preserve, provide, protect, and defend
the Constitution of the United States and in violation of
his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed — Donald John Trump engaged in high
Crimes and Misdemeanors by inciting violence against the
Government of the United States, in that:
On January 6, 2021, pursuant to the 12th Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, the Vice President of the
United States, the House of Representatives, and the Senate
met at the United States Capitol for a Joint Session of
Congress to count the votes of the Electoral College. In the
months preceding the Joint Session, President Trump
repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the
Presidential election results were the product of widespread
fraud and should not be accepted by the American people or
certified by State or Federal officials. Shortly before the
Joint Session commenced, President Trump, addressed a crowd
at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. There, he reiterated
false claims that "we won this election, and we won it by a
landslide." He also willfully made statements that, in
context, encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — lawless
action at the Capitol, such as: "if you don't fight like
hell you're not going to have a country anymore." Thus
incited by President Trump, members of the crowd he had
addressed, in an attempt to, among other objectives,
interfere with the Joint Session's solemn constitutional
duty to certify the results of the 2020 Presidential
election, unlawfully breached and vandalized the Capitol,
injured and killed law enforcement personnel, menaced
Members of Congress, the Vice President, and Congressional
personnel, and engaged in other violent, deadly, destructive
and seditious acts.
President Trump's conduct on January 6, 2021, followed his
prior efforts to subvert and obstruct the certification of
the results of the 2020 Presidential election. Those prior
efforts included a phone call on January 2, 2021, during
which President Trump urged the secretary of state of
Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, to "find" enough votes to
overturn the Georgia Presidential election results and
threatened Secretary Raffensperger if he failed to do so.
In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security
of the United States and its institutions of Government. He
threatened the integrity of the democratic system,
interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and
imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby
betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of
the people of the United States.
Wherefore, Donald John Trump, by such conduct, has
demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national
security, democracy, and the Constitution if allowed to
remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly
incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law.
Donald John Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial,
removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy
any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United
States.
18 U.S.C. § 2383:
“Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any
rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the
United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort
thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not
more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of
holding any office under the United States.”
Class 6 - May 5, 2022
Original
Politico Story About Leak - https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473
Draft Opinion - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21835435-scotus-initial-draft#document/p24/a2102416
Class 5 - Apr. 28, 2022
Woman
in Gold
Rue
Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain
City of Austin, Texas v. Reagan Nat’l Advertising
Justice Thomas dissenting:
“Under Reed, Austin’s off-premises restriction is content based.
It discriminates against certain signs based on the message they
convey—e.g., whether they promote an on- or off-site event,
activity, or service.
The Court nevertheless holds that the off-premises restriction
is content neutral because it proscribes a sufficiently broad
category of communicative content and, therefore, does not
target a specific ‘topic or subject matter.’ This misinterprets
Reed’s clear rule for content-based restrictions & replaces
it with an incoherent and malleable standard.”
Class 4 - Apr. 21, 2022
The Public Health Act of 1941 as amended, gives the CDC
authority to make and enforce such regulations "as in [its]
judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction,
transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign
countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or
possession into any other State or possession. For purposes of
carrying out and enforcing such regulations, the [CDC] may
provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection,
sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or
articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be
sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other
measures, as in [its] judgment may be necessary.
Class 3 - Apr. 14, 2022
Administrative Procedure Act: 5 U.S.C. § 706 (Scope of Review)
To the extent necessary to decision and when presented, the
reviewing court shall decide all relevant questions of law,
interpret constitutional and statutory provisions, and determine
the meaning or applicability of the terms of an agency action. The
reviewing court shall-
(1) compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably
delayed; and
(2) hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and
conclusions found to be-
(A) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise
not in accordance with law;
(B) contrary to constitutional right, power, privilege, or
immunity;
(C) in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or
limitations, or short of statutory right;
(D) without observance of procedure required by law;
(E) unsupported by substantial evidence in a case subject to
sections 556 and 557 of this title or otherwise reviewed on the
record of an agency hearing provided by statute; or
(F) unwarranted by the facts to the extent that the facts are
subject to trial de novo by the reviewing court.
In making the foregoing determinations, the court shall review the
whole record or those parts of it cited by a party, and due
account shall be taken of the rule of prejudicial error.
Class 2 - Apr. 7, 2022
Art. II, Sec. 2:
Empowers the president to “nominate, and by and with the Advice
and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint . . . Judges of the
Supreme Court.”
Art. I, Sec. 3:
“The Vice President of the United States shall be President of
the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally
divided.”
Class 1 - Mar. 31, 2022
Code
of Conduct for United States Judges
Presidential
Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States - Draft
Final Report December, 2021
Ketanji Brown Jackson, in the hot seat.
Senator’s questions, designed to defeat.
Cotton, Hawley, and Cruz,
Tried to inflict a bruise.
But she kept cool, showing she won’t be beat.