Dewey! Minty! Come a runnin'!!

The BBQ Pit
1

You’re not gonna believe this one. Hispanic reactionaries and Texas buggery be damned, this is serious business!

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/021031/sextoy.shtml

and

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030409-1.html

Thats right! GeeDubya wants to nominate a man who wants to make clit buzzers illegal! Is he out of his ever lovin’ mind!

Now, I expect you two legal beagles to give us a good show, full of high-pollutin’ Latin, you know, dire jurists and omnia Gaulia divisa and that sort of stuff. Streets could be full of bitter women with hair-trigger tempers, and, what with the concealed carry laws and all…well, I just leave it to your imagination, and assume you will be as horrifed as I.

For now, I’ll just entertain you with an old vaudeville song: She Was Only the Banker’s Daughter, But There Was a Substantial Penalty for Early Withdrawal

2

Interesting! I’ll look forward to the comments from our reident jurisconsults – what is interesting is that Pryor’s being nominated as Circuit judge – i.e., to the appellate level, one step down from SCOTUS and a step above the judge who just rejected his arguments in the first cite.

Anybody know anything about Pryor’s politics? Aside from defending Alabama’s act in making vibrators illegal in that state (which it would be his job to do as Attorney General, even if he approves of 'em and takes his wife out of state to use one legally on her at every possible opportunity).

3

How do you know that he wants to make the toys illegal, elucidator?

4

Cite No. 1?

"Attorney General Bill Pryor filed the appeal with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Wednesday, Alabama Public Television reported.

U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith Jr. ruled earlier this month that the law violated the constitutional right to privacy.

It’s the second time Pryor has appealed a ruling against the 1998 law. Smith tossed it out in 1999, but the 11th Circuit sent the case back to district court for reconsideration, leading to Smith’s latest decision"

Am I missing something, or are you?

5

Actually, I think y’all want Sua Sponte for the legal advice in this case.

:smiley:

This is so stupid I don’t even need to say how stupid it is.

6

Yes… yes he is.

7

Oh. Right. Wonder what Laura’s take on this is?

8

The fact that he would nominate a lunatic like John Ashcroft as AG should render us incapable of shock at any other nominations.

What was the stated reason for the state prohibition of said buzzers?

9

The dark suspicion that somebody, somewhere is having too good a time.

10

I’ll repeat the query as to how you know he wants to outlaw sextoys.

What your cite actually says is that as the attorney general of his state, he has appealed a decision that says such a law is unconstitutional.

You’re drawing conclusions again.

11

Well he’s fighting to reinstate a bad law which has been righteously struck down not once but twice by a federal court. That says something about his character and intelligence. Why such a determined, quixotic campaign to salvage such an asinine law. He has to be either a moron or a zealot or both, which frankly seem to be the primary qualities that Junior looks for when making nominations or appointments.

12

Part of the AG office’s job is to defend the laws of the state from constitutional challenge. The AG need not approve of a law personally in order to do so.

I did like your thread title, though.

13

I suppose you also believe that lawyers defending a murder suspect must really approve of murder, eh, Elucidator?

14

If any legal beagles wanna go look it up…

http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/dildo1.htm
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/dildo2.htm

Scylla, doesn’t a state’s attorney general get to pick and choose which cases he decides to go after, or otherwise support? So couldn’t this be taken as indirect proof that he’s in favor of outlawing the sale of vibrators?

Anyway, dunno about y’all, but I’m having fun doing Google searches for “sex toys alabama”. :smiley:

15

A federal court that was reversed and remanded by the 11th Circuit in the first instance, and may be reversed again in this second instance. What’s your point?

And it bears repeating: this is part of the AG’s job description. The AG need not personally approve of a law in order to defend it from constitutional challenge, i.e., to do his job.

16

I’m sure Ashcroft had a good singing voice once upon a time.

17

The lawsuit was not initiated by the AG’s office, so it’s not a matter of the AG “going after” anything. The AG’s office is the law firm for the state. When the state gets sued, the AG’s office defends it.

Frankly, opponents of this law should be thrilled that he’s appealing the ruling. If he just lets the district court’s ruling stand, then only the defendants effectively benefit from the ruling. If he appeals and loses, the decision will be binding on all the states within the 11th Circuit. (And he’s gotta be the one to appeal, since the plaintiffs won at the trial level).

18

I live in Alabama.

And The Idjit (what we call him down here) has worked diligently to keep the evil vibrators from the graspy, tricksy claws of frustrated women throughout the State of Alabama.

PLEASE GET THIS MAN OUT OF MY STATE!

Besides, I think vibrators fall under the “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” clause. And the one (ONE!!!) “novelty” store in Montgomery keeps getting raided. You basically have to leave the state! Thank Og for Ebay (which The Idjit is trying to ban them from being shipped to Alabama too).
And the REASON?? Sodomy Laws. If it’s not male/female, vaginal penetration only, it’s obscene (and therefore illegal) in Alabama.

19

Diogenes:

But you really don’t know what his motivations are. Neither do I, actually. IANA lawyer, but it seems to me that often important points of law get wrapped up in silly and stupid cases. Cases are argued not always because of the case itself, but because of the principles involved in the case.

For example, it may be a silly and stupid law (I certainly think so.) However, it appears to me that the AG is arguing against the proposition that the Federal government has overturned a state law on the grounds that it’s unconstitutional, and that he thinks it is wrong for them to do so.

My very limited understanding of Constitutional law reminds me that the state has those powers not specifically granted to the Federal Government.

So, while it may be a stupid law that shouldn’t exist, all that is really shown in that cite is that the AG thinks it is being overturned at the Federal level for a bad reason.

Now it may be that this guy is a crazed dildo hater, and that is his sole motivation.

On the other hand, it seems to me that these kind of conflicts between Federal and state governments are very common, and also very important as they denote our system of checks and balances and decentralized rule.

What seems to be most unusual about this case is that it has the salaciously reportable and tittilating factor of being about dildos.

Dildos probably aren’t the central issue here. It’s probably got the AGs attention because it involves an esoteric but important aspect of law.

Whether or not the AG thinks Dildo’s are cool, he probably has a strong interest as the representative of his state in challenging the Federal Government’s ability to interfere with the legal decisions of his state’s government. That is in fact his job.

Dildos are of course a fun topic, but there might be more than meets the eye, and the quick and easy “He’s trying to take our dildos away!” may not really be an accurate asessment of the situation.

Be advised though, that if I am wrong, and it is a dildo crusade, than I am prepared to stand with you on the wall and fight with you.

If they want our dildos they can have them when they pry them from our cold, dead (yet sexually sated)…
You get the image.

20

Don’t state AG’s have some discretion about what appeals to pursue or not pursue?