*Kelo *wasn’t a choice for me, not because it wasn’t one of the biggest turds the SCOTUS has dropped, but rather because using my newfound dictator-of-the-law status on Kelo would be pointles - states have done a wonderful job of fixing the damage themselves.
Actually, it was a bad mistake on my part, though I didn’t think it was a mistake of spelling. I read it as him talking about the Supreme Court, which would be “its.” However, rereading it, he said…
My only excuse is that it is a mistake I always make (English habit of using the plural for singular collective nouns), and I spent half of the day editing a brief where I had to take it out. But I blew it big time that time.
Well no - because that isn’t what anti-choice folks claim to be looking for, or at least the smart ones. Generally speaking they said that abortion should be a state decision. They might argue in favor of an amendment to the federal constitution granting rights to 3 week old fetuses, but they don’t argue in favor of a Supreme Court ruling that no state may permit abortions.
Yes, but if you asked them what they’d do given the choice (perhaps in a thread like this one) they’d ban abortion entirely by any means necessary. It’s the same impulse that makes us lefties all states-rightists when it comes to gay marriage.
That said, by “some kind of rule” I meant something along the lines of “states cannot ban medically necessary abortions, or abortions of pregnancies caused by rape or incest” or somesuch (though I maintain that such exceptions are completely illogical based on the stated views of anti-abortion people).
I don’t find this surprising at all. If you’re pro-life, Roe has to be pretty close to the top of the list of “hated SCOTUS decisions,” so of course you’re going to decide to overturn it. But there’s really no equivalent case that a pro-choice advocate would want to overturn (maybe Gonzales v. Carhart, which was IMO a travesty, but small potatoes compared to most liberal hobbyhorses).
I’ll settle for one: Buckley v. Valeo. Fuck Citizens United v. FEC, the problem lies several steps further back, in Buckley, when the SCOTUS ruled that spending money to influence elections is a constitutionally protected form of free speech. That has to go, before we can call America anything but a plutocracy.
From The Next American Nation, by Michael Lind (The Free Press, 1995), pp. 256-259 (from before the McCain-Feingold Bill, but I don’t think the picture has changed all that much since it passed):
They don’t come much more libertarian than Goldwater, and even he was appalled at this state of affairs.
Hell, I hate Roe v. Wade, and I’m practically a pro-choice absolutist. Sociologically, I think it was an absolutely necessary step towards progress in the US. Legally, I think it was wrongly decided.
Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly — prior to this case, the pleading standard in federal cases had been notice pleading, Twombly changed it to require plaintiffs to furnish enough facts to make a complaint “plausible” to federal judges. Unfortunately, federal judges, so very often rich, white, middle-aged men, have a bit more skepticism with respect to accusations of employment discrimination and profit-motivated malfeasance than is perhaps due. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal for some of the mischief that Twombly has wrought. Wikipedia includes the following gloss on Twombly: “This latter change in the law [regarding the pleading standard] has been met with a great deal of controversy in legal circles, evidenced by a rather saucy dissenting opinion from Justice Stevens.”
Boy Scouts of America v. Dale — villa has talked about Yoder (a case that actually does not perturb me as much as it does him) providing an escape hatch from disliked laws on the basis of their offending religious sensibilities, but BSA v. Dale is by far a bigger offender. In the first place, *Yoder *is DOA post-Smith. In the second place, courts applying Yoder applied far more rigorous scrutiny in determining whether the non-compliance issued from real-deal, well-substantiated, long-term religious beliefs. BSA v. Dale only requires some vague notion of “expressive association.” A Yoder plaintiff had to make a showing with respect to several factors on a long list of potential characteristics of religions to separate genuine religions/deeply held beliefs of conscience versus mere pretexts. Under BSA v. Dale, you just have to make a few unsupported assertions about what your organization stands for.
And just for good measure, let’s get rid of Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, a case which blessed the practice of fancy suburbs passing various overbearing occupancy laws (such as no more than two unrelated persons living in a single home) in order to exlcude undesirables.
Wait, what? - you think there are 10,000,000 abortions done yearly in the US?
Anyway, my own #1 choice would be the Citizens United case. I’d have to think on the others.
*Twombly *is bad, no doubt. But at least if you’re aware of it, you can take pains to avoid the problem. It’s maddening because it truly was a “solution” in search of a problem. Notice pleading worked perfectly well for generations.
I hadn’t considered Twombly, because it tends to benefit my clients. In antitrust law I think it has a good effect - treble damages make plaintiffs willing to roll the dice in groundless complaints. I hadn’t considered it in other areas.
Dale is certainly horrible too. I wish Yoder were dead, and it certainly should be after Smith (for proof, read my law school seminar paper ), but there is a surprising amount of dispute over it. What you see as a saving grace of Yoder, however, I see as a further weakness in it. It sucks the judicial system into determining what is a religious belief and what isn’t. Which will, I think, inevitably bias things in favor of established beliefs. Which to me runs against the entire purpose of the religion clauses, which I see as defending minority and unpopular beliefs.
), but there is a surprising amount of dispute over it. What you see as a saving grace of Yoder, however, I see as a further weakness in it. It sucks the judicial system into determining what is a religious belief and what isn’t. Which will, I think, inevitably bias things in favor of established beliefs. Which to me runs against the entire purpose of the religion clauses, which I see as defending minority and unpopular beliefs.