Court Decides for Cruz On Campaign Finance

 

Apparently, the Supreme Court has learned nothing from the fallout of its ruling in Citizens United, the case which equated giving money to politicians with free speech and empowered the wealthy and corporations to wield disproportionate influence in the governing of this nation. 

Now, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, speaking for its six conservative members, the court has struck down a law which put a monetary cap on the amount a candidate can be repaid on a loan he made to his campaign from post-election donations. Starkly restated, a donor can say, " now that you have won the election, using your own money as you have a right to do, I will put the money back in your pocket in the hope and expectation that you will remember my generosity as you perform your official duties."

Incredibly, Justice Roberts said that scenario does not smack of the appearance of corruption sufficient to justify campaign finance limits.

Roe v. Wade Leaked Draft

 

Apparently, the Supreme Court is about to overturn Roe v. Wade, thus terminating the right of a woman to abort a pregnancy, a right established fifty years ago and subsequently reaffirmed by the court. The leaked draft of an opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined in by at least four of the other conservative justices, disparages Roe as "wrongly decided". The opinion relies on the absence of any reference in the Constitution to a right to abortion and concludes that access to abortion remains a contentious, political issue best left to state legislatures.

This putative decision effectively rejects the existence of a constitutional right to privacy, a right recognized for decades and which underlies other bedrock decisions of the Supreme Court. Other recognized rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution but found to be supported by due process, equal protection and/or privacy rights, guaranteed by or implicit in the Bill of Rights  amendments to the Constitution, are now at risk of being abrogated by this court.

Thus, the right to contraception, based upon marital privacy, the right to engage in consensual same sex and the right to same sex marriage are all subject to challenge on the same ground relied upon by the current court; that these rights are not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution and, therefore, should be left to regulation by the states.

The Supreme Court is ushering in a theocratic era in which the liberties of citizens will be subject to the religious convictions of a majority of the legislators in the states where they live. Does anyone believe that this is the democratic republic envisioned by the Founders?

Tucker Carlson-American Nationalist

 

Hey Tucker. What a hatchet job the NY Times has done on you. Pouring over years of telecasts, interviewing scores of people, quoting your own words, laying out all those nasty facts. Talk about conspiracies, they're clearly out to destroy you and all because you speak up for the threatened white man and all other legacy Americans who just want to live in a country that looks like the one they grew up in. 

I hope you don't give the Times the satisfaction of knowing it nailed you by denying and attacking its reporting. Show what a man you are by admitting that the piece accurately describes what you stand for and what you are promoting. That would tick off your detractors and make your followers very happy.

Supreme Court Hears Case on Whether Miranda Warning Is a Right

 

The Supreme Court is considering whether the well-known case of Miranda v. Arizona created a constitutional right or something less. That case held that the police were required to give certain warnings to a suspect in custody before interrogation. In the absence of such warnings (the right to remain silent among them), any admission obtained from a suspect would be inadmissible at trial.

The conservative justices seem to be toying with the notion that Miranda established a constitutional rule, not a constitutional right. That is a distinction without a difference. It simply defies common sense and sound legal construction to suggest that a procedure required by the Constitution does not confer a constitutional right.

If the court adopts that reasoning, it will put in motion a steady erosion of the protection afforded an accused under the Constitution.

Governor's Proposal To Modify Bail Law

 The changes to the bail reform law, proposed by Governor Kathy Hochul, are sensible and needed and will preserve the benefits of bail reform while remedying the law's unintended downside.

As a retired Criminal Court judge, former prosecutor and charter participant in the Manhattan Bail Project (which promoted pretrial release without bail), I have long denounced the misuse of bail to incarcerate poor people, more often persons of color, and have advocated and successfully utilized pretrial release without bail in most cases.

However, New York is alone, and wrong, in limiting the factors a judge may consider in weighing bail decisions to a single criterion, the likelihood of a released defendant's return to court when required. By denying judges the discretion to hold persons whose release would pose a danger to the community by reason of propensity for violence, serious mental issues and repeated acts of violence, with or without weapons, the courts are stripped of an essential, judicial power and the public is exposed to unacceptable and unnecessary risk.

The governor's proposal not only addresses identified shortcomings in existing law; it makes welcome additions to funding for pretrial, mental health and employment services, so that persons held can be sooner released safely and keep those persons already released from reoffending.

Senate Hearing on Nomination of Judge Jackson

 Sen. Lindsey Graham's prosecutorial inquisition of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, disrespectful in tone, contemptuous in manner and unfair in blocking the judge's attempts to respond, was unwarranted, reckless, and unworthy of a senator and the process of judicial selection. After first professing offense at earlier attempts by Democrats to block the judicial nomination of Judge Janice Rogers Brown, a Black woman, and reenacting his out-of-control rant, last performed at the Kavanaugh hearing, Sen. Graham then disgraced himself and the process by using the occasion to make direct appeals to his rightwing base and by launching long, angry and accusatory tirades at Judge Jackson while refusing to allow her to complete her answers.

One can only hope that fair-minded viewers will see the parallels between the despicable treatment of this Black woman and the disparagement of Anita Hill by this same Senate committee more than 30 years ago.

Jackson's Record as Defender Likely Target of Senators

 

A host of Republican senators, many of them lawyers who should well understand the duty of an attorney, especially when appointed by the court, to effectively defend an accused, plan to attack Judge Ketanj Brown Jackson at the hearing on her Supreme Court nomination, for her brief tenure as a public defender.

The hypocrisy of these senators knows no bounds. Though they profess to be champions of constitutional rights and the rule of law, when it comes to the defense of indigent criminal defendants by women attorneys of color, they opt to punish the defenders of those rights for daring to accept their court-assigned clients and to represent them to the best of their ability.

It is troubling that these same senators raise no such objections to judicial nominees whose careers may have been spent soliciting the lucrative cases of corporations charged with serious criminal violations which affect the public at large.