Setting aside the outrageous claim that federal judges have absolute highest authority over everyone and everything - including over elected officials and democracy - the Supreme Court is horrible because they DO NOT GIVE COMPLETE RULINGS! The CORE of "rule of law" and "due process" is everyone has a right to know what the law is. But the Supreme Court endlessly REFUSES to do so. Take the latest example: the ruling on the baker who refused to make a cake for a gay couple. The Supreme Court ruled - but stressed it ONLY applied to that case - REFUSING to make a ruling on the greater issue and core issue: can a business be required to do services for gay marriage ceremonies and other rituals if it violates their religious beliefs. OVER AND OVER the Supreme Court REFUSES to make overall rulings. It refuses to outline the overall constitutionality on all abortion issues. REFUSES to make an overall ruling on 2A rights versus restrictions. Sure, this is great for their fellow lawyers by making certain basically NO ONE knows what the constitutionality is - until someone is willing to spend $10 million to take it to Supreme Court - and then it will ONLY rules as narrowly as possible. The view of the Supreme Court is that NO ONE has a right to actually know the law in relation to the Constitution ahead of time. You have to guess and gamble everything. Not only should "ignorance of the law" be a legal excuse, it is REQUIRED by the lazy asses on the Supreme Court.
They just keep taking rights away from the regular every day guy and girl... They use the Constitution to wipe their asses! No suprise here.
The Court can only rule on things actually brought into their courtroom you know. If a case doesn't present a need for a broad ruling they can't just make one anyways. They would all get impeached and be tossed out.
But surely a decision by the Sup Ct is binding on lower courts where the facts of the case are similar?
Not so. The Supreme Court - like any federal court - can not only rule as broadly as it wished, but even can self generate cases. However, in the case of the baker and a cake for a gay wedding, the issue was before the court as one of many issues. The court punted on all but 1 issue. SO... as a baker do you now know "the law?" No, the Supreme Court declared everyone just has to make their best guess. That is exactly contrary to the core principle of the rule of law.
We have three legs of our government the legislative make law, the executive which has various powers as the leader and the legal and the Supreme Court heads that and its important just because its critically looked at over cases doesn't mean its not doing its job. In my view they are supposed to handle cases of law and look at the US Constitution and case law and come up with rulings the cases are largely handled that way.
Sounds like you're just miffed that they refused to rule in favor of the Christian bigots in a more meaningful way, opting instead to support Colorado's state rights.
I was going to say, be thankful they decided to not yet write the new laws in this area. They will, just not yet. And if Kennedy has his way this new found Constitutional right to wedding cake from the bakery of your choice will take precedence over the constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.
Have you read the latest ruling? The latest ruling avoids the issue by invalidating the underlying state agency action that brought the case to court in the first place. They didn't REACH the issue so there is nothing to set precedent on.
This is how lawyers run up their bills and all members of the Supreme Court are lawyers. Drag everything out to the maximum billing possible rather than concluding a case. The driver is a liar. In fact, the officer gave him a break for not giving him a ticket for not having proper registration on his car.
I would like to see qualified person who is not a lawyer appointed as a justice. Such as a university Constitution academician. Someone to remind all those lawyers of how the Constitution was intended. Lawyers do screw things up! And nothing in the Constitution requires a Law degree to be a Justice.
No I didn't read the judgement but I've been following it up and thanks to your advice I understand it better.
The fact at they are appointed for life is the worst aspect of all.Are they somehow immune from dementia???I don't think so.Like many in our congress they are too old to serve and should be required to retire at age 80.
Well we know damn well our congress isn't going anywhere near anything to do with firearms.No way they are cutting off that NRA gravy train.
We certainly have a bunch of keyboard warriors here on PF who claim to be experts on Constitutional Law. Perhaps Trump will appoint one of them.
I agree that SCOTUS is unnecessarily vague on a regular basis. This is a small infraction compared to the bulk of them. There is still a war going on between textualists and structuralists. Gorsuch, Scalia, etc thought that the role of the judiciary is to interpret the law as the words meant at the time of ratification. Ginsburg and co. think that it's best to have the judiciary guiding the interpretation of the law with common norms and the such. The recent ruling on labor relations is a good example of this: Ginsburg didn't refer to the law much at all, instead saying that the country can't be put back to a time before union regulations. The Gorsuch wing would say that's beside the point and that if she wants such policy she should get the legislature to pass it.
Where the facts of the case are similar. That is probably the kicker But truth is that many on the right do not want the Supreme Court to make a Ruling in law. The want them to put in place laws that suit their own agendas. Not that a baker can refuse to make a cake but that gay couples do not have the right to ask for cake in the first place
The last justice without a law degree was Stanley Reed, who served on the Court from 1938 to 1957. They had become lawyers in other ways, however It's difficult to see how anyone could stay on the court for any length of time without some state or maybe even the Federal Congress making him a recognized attorney, and also hard to understand how he would/could turn it down, ( or maybe he could just say he thought one member should not be an attorney, I dunno.) Is Constitution Academician an actual title or just a description of a qualified person. I can't find it on the net.
OIC, i asked because I have seen Academician used as an actual title. I think the Soviet Union had it, and it may be other places. Yours sounds nice, there should be some official designation for a Constitutional Scholar, some recognition of an authority on that document. OTOH maybe not, maybe that's part of its uniqueness and its spirit, that any citizen is seen as fit to comment on it and possibly add to our understanding