What is it about the smartest and brightest people that keeps them from making a final decision? Our officials seem to constantly "punt" things down the road and the Supreme Court has just done it as well. Their decision on the Arizona Law SB 1070 does not end the problem, in my view it makes it worse. But, since lawyers need to have business, the SCOTUS majority obliged again.
The decision is apparently divided into four parts, three of the minor ones were voted down 5-3 and the major one, the heart of the law, was unanimous to PUNT it back to the Ninth Circus! With Kagan recusing herself, eight of the members were left to wrestle with the complex issue of can a cop ask a lawbreaker for ID! Wow! They couldn't do it! Now we get to see this all play out again as lawsuits will abound as people affected by the terror of being asked for their drivers license in a traffic stop get a ambulance chaser to defend their honor. Amazing!
One of the reasons the American life has become uncertain in regards to things as simple as proof of a drivers license (especially if you are not white apparently) is your "feelings" might be hurt. Then when you spend years going through the system to have Big Brother tell you, yes, your feeling were hurt, we get a mixed bag of legal mumbo-jumbo. So, when some person thinks they are being "profiled" for being brown skinned or some other nonwhite color, the process will be on its way up the ladder once more. That is the decision, or should I say, non decision, the SCOTUS came up with on SB 1070.
They did the same thing with the "navigable waters" a few years ago, leaving everyone to interpret their ruling and there ended up with as many of those as there are people. It is a terrible disservice to the people to have such muddled decisions when they SCOTUS claims to be the final arbiter of the law. What a joke. The only correct decision should have been Justice Scalia's decision but since we know politics is alive and well in the SCOTUS, he just could not muster the political votes to prevail.. Justice Roberts went over to the other side for political reasons. I have tried to figure out why he did that and the only reason I could come up with was the simplest one. If he stayed with the other three "conservatives" the vote would be 4-4 and the Ninth Circus decision would have prevailed. So, by voting with the left he kept the decision alive and the Ninth's at bay. Could this be true?
But we see the results of these non decisions by those we hire to make them. Hell, the only person that seems to be making decisions is Obama. Of course he is making punitive ones for those he dislikes, but he is making them. Now Arizona and the other states that passed laws mirroring SB 1070 will be punished by Big Brother for being naughty children. What happened to Federalism? Now we see Obama canceling the Feds part of a program to accept illegals from Arizona's state and local police. This is lawlessness in my opinion. Obama doesn't have any respect for the rule of law and it appears he thinks he is the king. Well, he may gain some votes from segments of the country but that is a last gasp of a failed President's attempts to "change" America. November can't come soon enough.
This is the vote.
KENNEDY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS,
C. J., and GINSBURG, BREYER, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., THOMAS, J., and ALITO, J., filed opinions concurring in part and dissenting in part. KAGAN, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
HERE is the official decision of 76 pages. Be sure to read Scalia's "from the bench" dissent.
HERE is the SCOTUS list of decisions this term.
Todd
ReplyDeleteYour link took me to the Montana decision on campaign funding, not Arizona v. US.
The correct link is
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-182b5e1.pdf
Ray Shine
Thanks, I have now fixed it.
ReplyDelete