Tag: scotus

Eric Holder Says Democrats Should Make Packing And Rigging Supreme Court Part Of 2028 Platform

Former Attorney General Eric Holder said the next Democratic nominee for President should make “reform” of the Supreme Court a major item in their 2028 platform.

Then-President Joe Biden proposed reforms to the Supreme Court in a July 2024 op-ed in the Washington Post, citing the court’s ruling in United States v. Trump that granted immunity from prosecution for a president’s official acts and claiming the reforms, including 18-year terms for Supreme Court justices, were necessary to “strengthen the guardrails of democracy.” Holder said the conservative jurisprudence of the Supreme Court had to be stopped when former Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison asked if Democrats should target the court in the next presidential race.

“I think the Supreme Court has to be reformed, potentially, you know, expanded. We cannot simply allow this court to continue to do that which it has done,” Holder responded.

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Deranged Leftist Arrested with 200 Explosives, Molotov Cocktails, and Manifesto in Tent Outside Annual Red Mass for Supreme Court

Another deranged leftist was arrested Sunday outside of St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C., before a mass for the Supreme Court.

Several SCOTUS Justices were likely to attend the special mass.

Leftist Louis Geri was positioned outside the cathedral in a tent filled with 200 explosives, containers filled with chemicals, and a manifesto.

Geri warned the police to move so they would not be hurt:

Via Chillinois: LOUIS GERI told police, “You might want to stay back and call the federales, I have explosives,” according to an affidavit.

A member of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Bomb Squad then told him he needed to move because of a special event.
He replied, “I’m aware of that (referring to the Red Mass),” police wrote, and threatened to throw a bomb into the street as a demonstration, adding, “I have a hundred plus of them.”

Police said they would remove him against his will, and he replied, “Several of your people are gonna die from one of these.”

With a lighter in one hand, he handed them nine pieces of paper that amounted to a manifesto entitled, “Written Negotiations for the Avoidance of Destruction of Property via Detonation of Explosives.”

The threat against the Red Mass caused the justices to skip the annual event.

DC detectives found several canisters inside Geri’s tent, including containers with nitro methane. The detectives discovered what they described as grenades and explosives.

Louis Geri used a rubber band to secure a fuse on the explosives.

The deranged leftist also had modified bottle rockets with aluminum foil heads treated in Thermite solution.

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Supreme Court to Decide If Colorado Ban on ‘Conversion Therapy’ Violates Free Speech

The Supreme Court is scheduled to consider on Oct. 7 a free speech case involving a Colorado law that bans therapists from providing so-called conversion therapy to minors experiencing same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria.

A therapist challenging the law argues that it violates her First Amendment rights. On the other side of the debate, Colorado contends that it has the right to regulate mental health treatments for minors that it deems harmful and ineffective. It is among more than 20 states with such bans.

Colorado’s Prohibit Conversion Therapy for a Minor law, passed in 2019, prohibits licensed therapists from trying to “change an individual’s sexual orientation, including efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.”

Therapists who violate the law could be stripped of their licenses and face fines of up to $5,000.

Colorado has stated that its regulation was enacted in response to “overwhelming” scientific evidence that conversion therapy for minors is unsafe and not effective in the long term.

A practitioner of such therapy told The Epoch Times that the therapist’s work focuses on mending psychological wounds and is not coercive or harmful.

Opponents of conversion therapy, including the American Medical Association, point to practices such as electric shock and negative feedback methods such as smelling salts or chemically induced nausea to create a psychological aversion to the unwanted behaviors or attractions.

However, according to licensed counselor Christopher Doyle of the Institute for Healthy Families, modern therapists avoid these methods and instead favor exploring clients’ attitudes on sexuality, trauma, self-perception, and relationships.

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US Supreme Court Takes Up Challenge to Hawaii’s Gun Law

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Oct. 3 to take up a new Second Amendment case related to a Hawaii law that bars the carrying of handguns on private property open to the public, such as restaurants, malls, and many businesses.

The nine justices took up an appeal by three Hawaii residents who have concealed carry licenses, and a state-based gun rights advocacy group challenging Hawaii’s law while seeking to reverse a lower court’s determination that the state law complies with the Second Amendment.

Hawaii’s gun law bans firearms on private property unless the owner has specifically allowed them on the premises. It also blocks firearms in places such as beaches, parks, bars, and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Hawaii’s measure was challenged by state residents Jason Wolford, Alison Wolford, and Atom Kasprzycki—who own firearms and have concealed carry licenses—along with the Hawaii Firearms Coalition, a gun rights organization. The defendant is listed as Hawaii Attorney General Anne E. Lopez.

In a petition to the high court submitted earlier this year, the plaintiffs ask whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which upheld the state law, “erred in holding … that Hawaii may presumptively prohibit the carry of handguns by licensed concealed carry permit holders on private property open to the public.”

A judge blocked the Hawaii law after it was challenged in court by the gun rights group and the three Maui residents. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, largely reversed that decision and allowed Hawaii to enforce the law.

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Forcing baker to make same-sex wedding cake recreates printing press censorship: scholars to SCOTUS

hirty-five years ago, Justice Antonin Scalia led a Supreme Court majority to gut the free exercise of religion under the rubric of “neutral” and “generally applicable” law, a decision that most members of the current court “have called into doubt” even as lower courts employ the 1990 Smith precedent “to permit government oppression.”

So say a former federal appellate judge, the allegedly fifth-most cited legal scholar of all time and a dozen other First Amendment and antidiscrimination law scholars, who together urge SCOTUS to “emphatically cast aside” Smith in accepting a case whose central question it has repeatedly decided.

They are joined by 16 states and several religious denominations and advocacy groups in supporting Tastries baker Cathy Miller’s SCOTUS petition to hear her eight-year legal saga, after the California Supreme Court refused to review an appeals court ruling that overturned a trial ruling in Miller’s favor for refusing to design a cake for a same-sex wedding.

The Golden State “has repeatedly compared Cathy’s religious beliefs about marriage to racism,” her lawyers at religious liberty law firm Becket said. California made the same comparison when female inmates sued to block its law incarcerating males with them.

The California appeals court distinguished its ruling from SCOTUS precedents in favor of Jack Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop and Lorie Smith’s 303 Creative, against Colorado’s compelled creation of cakes and websites for same-sex weddings respectively, by claiming the cake Miller refused to make “conveyed no particularized message about the nature of marriage.”

Miller’s petition asks SCOTUS to resolve whether “compelled participation in a ceremony” is banned only when third parties view that participation as “endorsement,” if Miller must show “unfettered discretion or categorical exemptions for identical secular conduct” to prove a law is not generally applicable, and if 1990’s Smith should remain at all.

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Supreme Court Stays Ruling That Could Lead to Retrial of Death Row Prisoner

The Supreme Court on Sept. 26 temporarily stayed a federal appeals court ruling requiring that Alabama death row inmate Michael Sockwell be retried for murder.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit had ruled on June 30 that Sockwell’s conviction was unconstitutional because prosecutors engaged in racial discrimination during jury selection.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees emergency appeals from Alabama, issued an administrative stay of the 11th Circuit ruling. An administrative stay gives the justices more time to consider an emergency appeal.

A divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit had ruled that Alabama prosecutors violated Sockwell’s constitutional rights by excluding blacks from the jury at his trial.

The ruling made Sockwell eligible for retrial. He was convicted in the 1988 killing of Montgomery County Deputy Sheriff Isaiah Harris. Although Sockwell was sentenced to death, his lawyers said their client’s IQ is low enough to make him ineligible for the death penalty.

The panel majority specifically found that prosecutors violated Sockwell’s 14th Amendment rights when they “repeatedly and purposefully” turned away potential black jurors who were deemed more sympathetic to him because of their shared race.

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Trump asks Supreme Court to determine whether he can end birthright citizenship

resident Donald Trump on Friday asked the Supreme Court to take up his executive order on ending birthright citizenship, after a lower court deemed the order unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court previously narrowed the scope of injunctions against the executive order, finding that lower courts likely lacked the authority to issue sweeping injunctions, but did not rule on the constitutionality of the order.  

“The lower court’s decisions invalidated a policy of prime importance to the president and his administration in a manner that undermines our border security,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court in an appeal obtained by CNN. “Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”

The Supreme Court has not weighed in on whether it will take up the overarching issue of ending the practice so far.

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Supreme Court Rules That Trump Can Withhold $4 Billion in Foreign Aid

The US Supreme Court on Friday ruled 6-3 that President Trump can withhold $4 billion in foreign aid approved by Congress.

The three liberal justices, Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson, dissented.

Earlier this month, US District Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, blocked President Trump from cutting billions of dollars in USAID and foreign aid that Congress authorized.

Judge Ali ordered Trump to spend the money by the end of the month. Trump immediately appealed.

According to CNBC, the Supreme Court said, “the asserted harms to the Executive’s conduct of foreign affairs appear to outweigh the potential harm.”

CNN reported:

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed President Donald Trump to freeze $4 billion in foreign aid payments, handing the White House a significant victory in its months-long quest to claw back spending that was approved by Congress last year.

At issue is $4 billion in foreign aid, including for global health and HIV programs, that was allocated by Congress, but that Trump deemed wasteful and has been fighting on two fronts. In addition to defending the aid cuts in federal court, his administration is also seeking to “rescind” the money through Congress.

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Feds Move To Dismiss Marijuana And Gun Rights Case In Anticipation Of Landmark Ruling From Supreme Court

The Trump administration is asking a federal court to dismiss one of multiple pending cases concerning marijuana and gun rights, in large part because it expects the U.S. Supreme Court to make a precedent-setting ruling on the issue.

In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma on Tuesday, attorneys for the Justice Department urged a judge to dismiss a case “without prejudice” that involves a man charged in 2022 after police discovered cannabis and a handgun in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

Attorneys for the man, Jared Michael Harrison, also want the court to dismiss the case—but they take issue with DOJ’s specific request, as dismissing the case without prejudice would mean he could be prosecuted again. And they criticized the government’s arguments in support of its motion, noting that the department relied heavily on the length of the court battle that’s lasted three years. The lawyers also challenged the idea that outstanding Supreme Court cases that similarly deal with cannabis and federal firearms laws justify dismissal without prejudice.

But according to the federal government, the request would be “in the interest of justice,” while recognizing that the constitutionality of the statute in question–18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3)—”remains open both in this case and in the country as a whole. ”

“There are currently seven petitions for certiorari pending before the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of § 922(g)(3) under the Second Amendment, six of which involve as-applied challenges, and are a mix of petitions filed by the United States and criminal defendants,” DOJ said, adding that they expect there’s a “reasonable likelihood that the Supreme Court will grant certiorari” in at least one of the pending cases.

“Continuing to pursue this case at this time would needlessly waste judicial and prosecutorial resources,” the government’s filing said.

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SCOTUS Tees Up Potential Takedown Of Progressives’ ‘Independent Agencies’ Theory

he U.S. Supreme Court is signaling that it may be finally ready to put the kibosh on longstanding precedent used by left-wing progressives to cripple America’s separation of powers.

On Monday, the high court granted a request from the Trump administration to temporarily pause a lower court injunction by a Biden-appointed district judge. That edict attempted to block President Trump from firing Rebecca Slaughter, a Democrat member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

What was particularly notable about the Supreme Court’s order is the revelation that the justices will be considering the merits of the case, with oral arguments tentatively scheduled for December. The high court specifically instructed both parties to file briefs addressing two key questions: 1) “Whether the statutory removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission violate the separation of powers and, if so, whether [Humphrey’s Executor v. United States] … should be overruled,” and 2) “Whether a federal court may prevent a person’s removal from public office, either through relief at equity or at law.”

While likely not as well-known as other past SCOTUS decisions, Humphrey’s Executor has had major negative implications for America’s separation of powers and the ability of presidents to fully exercise their Article II authority.

The case first came to fruition in the early 1930s after Republican President Herbert Hoover appointed William Humphrey to serve as a member of the FTC for a full seven-year term. Upon taking office, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, sought Humphrey’s resignation due to the fact that the latter was a conservative.

When Humphrey declined to do so, Roosevelt fired him. According to Oyez, the FTC Act, which was passed by Congress, “only allowed a president to remove a commissioner for ‘inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.’”

While Humphrey passed away shortly after his firing, his executor filed suit to challenge Humphrey’s dismissal and recover his salary. The case ultimately made its way to the Supreme Court, which aimed to address the question of whether provisions of the FTC Act unconstitutionally encroached upon the president’s Article II powers.

In its 1935 decision, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Roosevelt, arguing that Humphrey’s termination lacked justification and that the FTC Act was constitutional. As summarized by Oyez, the high court “reasoned that the Constitution had never given ‘illimitable power of removal’ to the president,” and established the precedent that so-called “independent agencies” like the FTC were different than other federal departments because Congress created them “to perform quasi-legislative and judicial functions.”

As The Heritage Foundation’s Hans van Spakovsky recently observed, the decision “was pure poppycock” given that “the FTC, with its authority to promulgate regulations that have the authority of law and its power to pursue individuals it believes have engaged in unfair or deceptive practices, is engaging in the very essence of an executive function.” Furthermore, “[i]t is the president,” he added, “who is designated in Section 3 of Article II with the responsibility to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’”

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