The limits of federal power are governed by the 10th Amendment. There is some discussion of that amendment going on over in this thread
Huh? That doesn’t make any sense. The Supremacy clause says nothing about federal law trumping state law, and citing the Constitution as proof that the Constitution supercedes state law is circular reasoning.
You do agree that the Alaskan Constitution is a law? And that it is a law of a United State? And that it was made pursuant to the US Constitution? Isn’t it then the supreme law of the land? I don’t understand why people cite the supremacy clause as invalidating state laws when in fact in does the opposite.
You must have missed this part at the end: “anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding”
To the contrary, another Superior Court judge who felt the first decision was legally incorrect would have no choice but to rule the opposite way. The way to resolve confusion is to get a precedent-setting decision. One of the best ways to get the Supreme Court to take a case is to present them with a conflict in the circuits below: two opposite precedents in different federal circuits.
The Ryan: “anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding..” The Constitution of Alaska is not a “law of the United States”. It is subordinate to the laws of the United States when the two conflict. The Supremacy Clause can and does put federal laws above state laws and state constitutions. That’s the way it is.
That said, there is legitimate disagreement about the scope of authority Congress has under the Constitution, disagreement that I would suggest in its modern form goes back to FDR and his New Deal initiatives.
Oi. There are multiple misapprehensions in the above paragraph.
First, while it’s true that the defendant has already “been in jeopardy,” that jeopardy resulted in a conviction:
The judge’s ruling dismissed the conviction as a matter of law. If an appeals court heard the case and disagreed with the ruling of law, they would simply re-instate the conviction. There would be no second trial.
Secondly, the federal government can’t appeal anything, as they are not a party to this criminal action. The State of Alaska may certainly appeal the judge’s decision, and, if they do, the result will be either a re-instatement of the conviction or a precedent-setting decision that invalidates the Alaska law at issue.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the “legal repercussions” of the court’s decision is limited to one Alaskan in one case: Scott A. Thomas. If Mr. Thomas were arrested tomorrow on new charges and tried before a different judge, he could be convicted and sentenced without regard for this decision. (Actually, he might be able to raise some sort of estoppel defense, but I doubt it. Fodder for another thread, in any event).
- Rick
From reading the article, it appears that there already is binding precedent, from the 1975 Alaska Supreme Court decision in Ravin v. State. I’ve just reviewed Ravin and some of its progeny, and it appears that the applicability of Ravin has never been in doubt, even in the face of the 1990 initiative. Possession of marijuana within the home with no intent* to sell has been an Alaska constitutional right, under the right to privacy, for 28 years now.
This just looks like a prosecutor who was grandstanding and a reporter who was talking out of his ass. There is nothing new here.
Sua
*The bastids still warp the word “intent,” asserting that intent can be determined by the amount of pot - in Alaska, 8 ounces means that you obviously mean to sell the pot. :rolleyes:
If Alaska can’t get away with it, it’s highly unlikely that any other state will.
Actually, there is:
This is the opportunity to set a precedent, but only if the state chooses to appeal it. It appears from the above case that it is the state’s policy not to appeal aquittals based on Ravin, so as to avoid setting a precedent. I think that is a terrible state of affairs, if the result is that conviction on this law is determined only by the luck of the draw of a judge who chooses not to follow Ravin.
Actually, there isn’t. If Alaska passed a law tomorrow, by initiative or otherwise, declaring that all Inuit in the state were now slaves, as a matter of procedure, said law would be “constitutional” until a court bitch-slapped the state Attorney General for trying to enforce the law. But the law is, substantively, unconstitutional.
So the attorney general and the prosecutors in Alaska are apparently playing games by avoiding the official overturning of the 1990 initiative by the courts. Their own actions recognize that the initiative is unconstitutional - if this schmuck Guaneli actually believed that an initiative actually trumps the Alaska Constitution, he should appeal (and go back to law school, and resign due to incompetence).
Sua
I don’t see how you reached that conclusion. That phrase does nothing to invalidate my reasoning.
Bricker
I’m not claiming that it’s a law of the United States. I’m claiming that it’s a law of a United State. In SuaSponte’s example, would you claim that the law is not unconstitutional because it would result in slavery being present in one state, and the 13th Amendment prohibits slavery within the United States plural?
I agree that federal laws are usually considered to take precedence over state laws, but I don’t see anything in the supremacy clause supporting this position.
The Ryan:
Here’s the problem:
The phrase I have bolded above refers only to laws made by Congress, not laws or constitutions of the individual states. Acts of Congress are made pursuant to the federal Constitution. Acts of state legislatures are made pursuant to their own state constitutions.
I hope that helps your analysis.
Well, I don’t see anything about a right to privacy, but until President Bush gives me the recognition I so richly deserve and appoints me to the seat vacated by Ginsberg or Souter, I’m afraid that you and I are in the same boat: convinced of the correctness of our views, but powerless to effect change based on them. The Supremacy Clause has been construed to mean that federal laws supercede state laws and state constitutions, even if you don’t see support in the wording of the Clause for that position. And I frankly think there will be a change on the privacy thing before there’s a change in that construction.
- Rick
Hmmm… if this legalization sticks…
…wait for it…
Juneau where I’m spending my next vacation!!
Ahem.
Don’t try it, Forty-Six&Two
The Alaska Constitution protects, under the right to privacy, your ability to possess pot free of governmental interference in your own home. If you’re there on vacation, you ain’t in your own home.*
Sua
*Yah, you have some privacy rights in a hotel room, but they are less than in your residence, and taking the chance may not be worth it.
Bricker: what definition of “in pursuance” do you think is appropiate? Also, do you have a theory as to why the framers used the phrase “United States” if they meant “Congress”?
That’s simple, The Ryan: only Congress makes laws under the U.S. Constitution. State legislatures make their laws under their respective states’ constitutions.
Of course, there is an easier way to resolve this issue, instead of a word-for-word parsing of the Clause - it has long been recognized, and is a matter of law, that the Supremacy Clause confers supremacy to the US constitution and laws enacted by Congress over state constitutions and laws. De facto and de jure are one and the same, when dealing with the proper interpretation of law.
Sua
Strictly speaking, that’s a non sequitor. But I’ll assume you meant to say “‘In pursuance’ means ‘under’”. But then the obvious question is “what does ‘under’ mean?”
Argumentum ad populum.
No, that’s not argumentum ad populum. The statement you disagreed with was “However, that state contitution is subordinate to the US Constitution and federal laws.”
The fact is that the law has been interpreted that way for so long, by so many, that it is unassailable. That is neither a fallacy of argumentum ad populum or argument from authority, although it may seem like it could be either. But in fact it is a correct statement of the law; it’s valid to cite to an authority when the authority is, in fact, authorative on the point in question. And it so happens that one of the things that is considered persuasive in this area is long-standing practice and tradition.
If I say that Reagan was elected president in 1980, you cannot dispute that by claiming “argumentum ad populum”, despite the fact that it was the votes of many people that caused him to be elected.
- Rick
No, the statement that I dispute is "the Supremacy Clause confers supremacy to the US constitution and laws enacted by Congress over state constitutions and laws. "
I do not dispute that state constitutions are held to be subordinate to the federal constitution. What I dispute is that this supremacy is conferred by the supremacy clause.
It’s valid to present such a cite as support, but not as proof.
That’s not a valid analogy, because the point of disagreement is not a policy decision (supremacy of federal law or election of Reagen) but of fact (whether it’s granted by the supremacy clause). A better analogy would be that a majority of voters voted for Reagon, and when asked why they all said “Well, he was the governor of the most populous state, so he is constitutionally entitled to the presidency”. I wouldn’t dispute that Reagan was president, but I would dispute that he obtained that office simply because he was governor of California. If the voters say that he’s the president, then he’s the president, because the voters are the ones with the power to decide that. But if the voters say that he’s the president because he was governor, that doesn’t make it true. Similarly, if the courts say that federal law is supreme, then federal law will be supreme, because they are the ones with the power to decide this. But if they say that federal law is supreme because of the supremacy clause, that doesn’t make it so.
I’m glad you dispute it; the courts of the United States couldn’t give a flying fuck that you do. They have already decided what the Supremacy Clause means - if you went into court and argued that federal supremacy was not conferred by the supremacy clause, you would be sanctioned for advocating a frivolous legal argument.
The Ryan, the problem is that you are analyzing the wrong thing. In law, what matters is not the words of a clause, statute, etc., but the interpretation given those words by the courts of law.
Let me give you an example - protection against search and seizure.
State constitutions contain their own version of the Fourth Amendment - protection against unreasonable search and seizure. In most cases, the wording of the protection is nearly or exactly the same as the federal Fourth Amendment. The following are New York’s search and seizure provision [N.Y. Const. Art. 1, s. 12] and the US Constitution’s [U.S. Const. Amend. IV.]
Exactly the same words. Yet you will find that, in New York state, you have considerably more protection against search and seizure than you do under the US Constitution. New York State courts have interpreted the state constitutional provision to, for example, bar searches and seizures after sundown in most instances, bar seizure of evidence that is not particularly described in the warrant, etc.
Same words, different interpretations. And the interpretation is what matters.
So you can mentally masturbate trying to determine the proper 18th Century definition of the phrase “in pursuance,” as much as you like, but it will accomplish nothing. My earlier post contained neither non sequitors nor argumentum ad populum. It stated what the law is.
Sua
Regardless of whether Federal rules still apply, the State of Alaska doesn’t have to lift a finger to help the federal government bust you if they choose not to do so.
Well, you can a call citizens actually discussing what their Constition means rather than simply accepting what the PTB tell them “mental masturbation”, but I call it responsible citizenship.
As “what matters in law”, that’s not the issue here; we’re not in a courtroom. As a matter of law, the courts’ interpretation is all that matters, but not as a matter of fact. If the courts interpreted the Third Amendment as saying that the government has the right to put murals of soldiers in any private house it wants because it prohibits quartering soldiers, but not drawing them, I would accept that as a matter of law, the government now has that right. But that does not in any way change the reality that as a matter of fact, that is not what the Third Amendment means. And I’m surprised that I could be sanctioned for making an argument that a judge disagrees with- that sounds like a violation of the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
PS Are you sure that all of the additional protections are solely from judicial interpretations? California also has restrictions on searches after sundown, but from statute.