#Georgia Supreme Court

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

In other news today, a Georgia judge delivered a rousing defense of reproductive rights and overturned the state's six-week rule: “Whether one couches it as liberty or privacy (or even equal protection), this dispute is fundamentally about the extent of a woman’s right to control what happens to and within her body.”

"Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property ... forcing (her) to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights ..."

full ruling at: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25178630-mcburney-sistersong-final-order

Summary by Marcy Wheeler on her substack:

Here is how Judge McBurney frames the issue:

Whether one couches it as liberty or privacy (or even equal protection), this dispute is fundamentally about the extent of a woman’s right to control what happens to and within her body. The baseline rule is clear: a legally competent person has absolute authority over her body and should brook no governmental interference in what she does -- and does not do -- in terms of health, hygiene, and the like.

(There is the vaccine exception, wherein the government can condition some receipt of benefit (such as public education or Medicaid/Medicare coverage) on the administration of vaccines or other preventative medicine -- or outright mandate the treatment through a valid exercise of state police power.)

And the issue to be decided here: how to balance the rights of a not-yet-viable fetus against the rights of the only person in this great wide world who can -- by choice or by legislative imposition -- maintain that pregnancy until it is viable?

Judge McBurney writes:

While the State’s interest in protecting “unborn” life is compelling, until that life can be sustained by the State -- and not solely by the woman compelled by the Act to do the State’s work -- the balance of rights favors the woman.

Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote. Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.

And then he invokes the Handmaid’s Tale:

For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability. It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could -- or should -- force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another. Considering the compelling record evidence about the physical, mental, and emotional impact of unwanted pregnancies on the women who are forced by law to carry them to term (as well as on their other living children), the Court finds that, until the pregnancy is viable, a woman’s right to make decisions about her body and her health remains private and protected.

When someone other than the pregnant woman is able to sustain the fetus, then -- and only then -- should those other voices have a say in the discussion about the decisions the pregnant woman makes concerning her body and what is growing within it.

He then addresses the mental health issues at hand:

A law that saves a mother from a potentially fatal pregnancy when the risk is purely physical but which fates her to death or serious injury or disability if the risk is “mental or emotional” is patently unconstitutional and violative of the equal protection rights of pregnant women suffering from acute mental health issues.

He concludes:

A review of our higher courts’ interpretations of “liberty” demonstrates that liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices.

Accordingly, Section 4 of the LIFE Act is hereby DECLARED unconstitutional. The State and all its agents, to include any County, Municipal, or other local authority, are once again ENJOINED from seeking to enforce in any manner the LIFE Act’s PECAP termination ban in Georgia. Because Section 4 is stricken and thus its amendments to O.C.G.A. § 16-12-141 are gone, Section 11 necessarily fails as well, as a woman does not require a legislatively bestowed exception to pursue a pre-viability PECAP termination. Finally, O.C.G.A. 16-12-141(f) is DECLARED unconstitutional. It, too, shall not be enforced by the State or any of its agents.

How this ruling plays with the Georgia Supreme Court is another matter. Professor Anthony Michael Kreis says it fails to “center legal history and the evolution of the common law in the analysis much at all, which is going to be a real missed opportunity-- and a limitation of its reach-- on appeal.”

(Thanks Rebecca Solnit)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lydia O'Connor at HuffPost:

A week after a judge struck down Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, the state’s Supreme Court announced Monday that it’s reinstating the ban while it weighs Georgia officials’ appeal of the lower court’s ruling. Following the high court’s 6-1 vote, the near-total ban on abortions will go back into effect at 5 p.m. local time on Monday, upending a major win for reproductive rights advocates. “It is cruel that our patients’ ability to access the reproductive health care they need has been taken away yet again,” Kwajelyn Jackson, executive director at Atlanta’s Feminist Women’s Health Center, said following the ruling. “Once again, we are being forced to turn away those in need of abortion care beyond six weeks of pregnancy and deny them care that we are fully capable of providing to change their lives.” Justice John Ellington, the ruling’s sole dissenter, wrote in his dissent that the state should “not be in the business of enforcing laws that have been determined to violate fundamental rights guaranteed to millions of individuals under the Georgia Constitution.” Georgia’s six-week ban went into effect in July 2022, a month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.

When Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney struck down that ban last week, he determined that the law treated women like “some piece of collectively owned community property” and that until a fetus reaches viability at around 22-24 weeks, such a ban was a violation of Georgians’ constitutional rights.

The Georgia Supreme Court saw fit to reinstate the state’s 6-week abortion ban while the appeals process is underway.

[gurutrends]

Young Thug Lawyer’s Contempt Charge Reversed By Georgia Supreme Court

Young Thug‘s attorney Brian Steel will no longer have a contempt of court order on his record, thanks to the Georgia Supreme Court. On Tuesday (October 22), the Supreme Court of Georgia decided to overturn the judgement against Steel. The lawyer was held in contempt during Thug’s RICO trial back in June when confronted the case’s then-judge Ural Glanville about a private conversation reportedly…

[sohaibsmart]

Younger Thug's lawyer escapes jail time after being held in contempt of court docket. Here is what to know in regards to the advanced RICO trial.

Rapper Younger Thug’s lawyer prevented jail time Wednesday, due to the Georgia Supreme Court docket, after he was held in contempt by a Georgia choose within the high-profile RICO case in opposition to his well-known shopper. Prosecutors have accused the rapper of main an Atlanta-based road gang to commit acts of homicide and theft, amongst others. The cost in opposition to Brian Metal, who has…

[cynicalclassicist]

Nice to see the Georgia Supreme Court behave more like a Supreme Court should!

👍

[lets-steal-an-archive]

Under the six-week ban, providers could not perform abortions if they detected fetal cardiac activity, which emerges at about six weeks into pregnancy. Many women, McBurney wrote, do not even know they are pregnant at six weeks.

“For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability,” McBurney wrote. “It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could – or should – force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another.”

In a footnote, McBurney added: “There is an uncomfortable and usually unspoken subtext of involuntary servitude swirling about this debate, symbolically illustrated by the composition of the legal teams in this case. It is generally men who promote and defend laws like the Life Act, the effect of which is to require only women – and, given the socio-economic and demographic evidence presented at trial, primarily poor women, which means in Georgia primarily black and brown women – to engage in compulsory labor, ie, the carrying of a pregnancy to term at the government’s behest.”

[yemme]

Women knew other women would die in the 2016 election and still voted Republican. Sinister. RIP.

[reasonsforhope]

"The Supreme Court on Thursday issued a surprising 5-4 ruling in favor of Black voters in a congressional redistricting case from Alabama, with two conservative justices joining liberals in rejecting a Republican-led effort to weaken a landmark voting rights law.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh aligned with the court’s liberals in affirming a lower-court ruling that found a likely violation of the Voting Rights Act in an Alabama congressional map with one majority Black seat out of seven districts in a state where more than one in four residents is Black. The state now will have to draw a new map for next year’s elections.

The decision was keenly anticipated for its potential effect on control of the closely divided U.S. House of Representatives. Because of the ruling, new maps are likely in Alabama and Louisiana that could allow Democratic-leaning Black voters to elect their preferred candidates in two more congressional districts.

The outcome was unexpected in that the court had allowed the challenged Alabama map to be used for the 2022 elections, and in arguments last October the justices appeared willing to make it harder to challenge redistricting plans as racially discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act of 1965...

The case stems from challenges to Alabama’s seven-district congressional map, which included one district in which Black voters form a large enough majority that they have the power to elect their preferred candidate. The challengers said that one district is not enough, pointing out that overall, Alabama’s population is more than 25% Black.

A three-judge court, with two appointees of former President Donald Trump, had little trouble concluding that the plan likely violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting the votes of Black Alabamians. That “likely” violation was the standard under which the preliminary injunction was issued by the three-judge panel, which ordered a new map drawn.

But the state quickly appealed to the Supreme Court, where five conservative justices prevented the lower-court ruling from going forward. At the same time, the court decided to hear the Alabama case.

Louisiana’s congressional map had separately been identified as probably discriminatory by a lower court. That map, too, remained in effect last year and now will have to be redrawn.

The National Redistricting Foundation said in a statement that its pending lawsuits over congressional districts in Georgia and Texas also could be affected."

-via AP, June 8, 2023

[william-r-melich]

Biden Trials - 05/09/2024

Things seem to be going former president Donald Trump's way in the 4 criminal court cases against him. The documents case in Florida is being indefinitely delayed because of some pre-trial issues, as well as the appearance of the prosecuting attorney Jack Smith having been possibly hired illegally. The prosecutors recently admitted that the documents they seized were in a different order then the scanned copies they turned over to the defense, who argued for discovery, which could delay the proceedings even further.

The Epoch Times yesterday reported the following. "President Trump was charged with 40 counts related to allegedly mishandling classified information. His valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, were charged alongside him as codefendants." Judge Aileen Cannon, who's overseeing the case, wrote that to now set a date for the trial to commence before resolving the “myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA [Classified Information Procedures Act] issues” would not be fair or prudent. From the same article, I quote. "The judge still has before her several motions to dismiss charges or the indictment entirely, motions to unseal information that the defendants argue is critical in the case, and ongoing discovery issues to resolve." She also said she has yet to rule on eight substantive motions, two of which have not yet been docketed publicly, and that there are extensive discovery issues.

On top of all these issues, Trump is currently required to be in attendance in the New York "Hush Money" trial, wherein the prosecutors say they will need two to three more weeks to present their case. The other two defendants in the case, Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira, wanted a speedy trial. The judge said she had considered that against due process rights. She wrote this. “Upon such review, the Court finds that the ends of justice served by this continuance, through the last deadline specified in this Order, July 22, 2024, outweigh the best interest of the public and Defendants in a speedy trial.”

Judge Cannon has scheduled a May 20th deadline (the original trial date) to resolve seal requests over a hearing on grand jury matters. On May 22nd, the judge will hear arguments on the defendants' motion to dismiss the indictment charges due to a vindictive and selective prosecution.

On June 21st, the court will hear arguments on whether special counsel Jack Smith's appointment was unconstitutional as what has been previously claimed by former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese. Meese has amicus briefs in both of Mr. Smith's cases against Trump.

Partial evidentiary hearings will be held from June 24th to June 26th for the defense's motion to compel discovery from prosecutors and the scope of what they are required to hand over.

The trial date is not likely to emerge until after the judges July 22nd status conference.

The goofy racketeering case in Fulton County Georgia is falling apart from the compromised prosecutor, Fanni Willis who hired a man with whom she had an affair with as her lead attorney. She's agreed to fire him while she's being investigated, so that trial is delayed and stands a good chance of being dismissed.

The New York "Hush Money" trial is becoming more ridiculous every day. Judge Juan Moron (Juan Merchan) is the presiding judge, who recently put another gag order on Trump, has fined him $1,000 for violating it on Truth Social. Mr. Moron said this. "Mr. Trump it’s important you understand the last thing I want to do is put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well." If he does that the prison would probably have to shut down a wing of the prison on Rikers Island to secure it for his constitutional right to Secret Service protection. I doubt he'll do it, for if he does that would all but ensure a Trump victory, but with this heavily biased judge, you never know. Porn star Stormy Daniels testified yesterday about the affair which she previously denied happened in a letter signed by her, an incident she now apparently says did occur. Never mind that it's completely immaterial to the 34 misdemeanor counts of accounting errors which have expired from the statute of limitations running out but are kept alive by being linked and raised to a felony charge for a mysterious, unnamed crime. Dictators like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are probably envious, and I have no doubt that we're being mocked, ridiculed, and laughed at around the world.

The case in Washington D.C. spearheaded by Jack Smith is also being delayed because of the presidential immunity arguments being weighed by the justices at the U.S. Supreme Court. They might not make a determination on that until June or July. Jack Smith's appointment there is also being questioned on its legality.

So, there you have the Biden trials, all with serious issues of illegitimacy leading to ridiculous clown shows and numerous delays. And in spite of their obvious attempts to hurt Trump with multiple gag orders and demanding that he be detained in court, he continues to fight them stronger than ever while rising in popularity. Some of these trials appear at this point as unlikely to survive past the upcoming election this November. And Trump is correct to call these Biden trials, for they obviously really are political witch hunts at Biden's direction, election interference that's thankfully backfiring. Boy, what a joke, what a sham, what an embarrassing disgrace!

[wicked-witch-ofthe-east]

How steeped in colonialism is our country? Spot what’s missing from Andrew Jackson’s biography on the White House webpage: https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/andrew-jackson/

ANSWER: There is no mention of the Indian Removal Act - a law signed into place in 1830 (the second year of his eight year ruling!) allowing Jackson to set aside tribal land west of the Mississippi in exchange for tribal lands occupied in the East. The Cherokee Indians of the Georgia state region took this up with the Supreme Court in a case titled “Cherokee Nation v. Georgia.” The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee Nation granting them the right to self-govern on their land and stating that Georgia’s extension of state law was unconstitutional. Jackson refused to enforce the courts decision and thus the Trail of Tears began. Keep in mind, the Cherokee Nation had just played a pivotal role in helping Andrew Jackson win the war of 1812. They were allies for the man, and this is how he treated them.

The Cherokee Nation did everything right according to the “system” and still, an abuse of power lead to destruction. This was one of the first legal precedents of our system exploiting and undermining the marginalized.

My life is steeped in hipocracy. Uphold Cherokee v. Georgia!! Accountability for abusive presidents!!

[ivovynckier]

Now that we're done with Willis' fanny, can we turn our attention to corrupt Clarence?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Brandi Buchman at HuffPost:

The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday shot down the Republican National Committee’s attempt to reinstate controversial election rules in the crucial swing state. The RNC’s legal effort was in direct response to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox, who just last week invalidated several rules that the Georgia Election Board’s Republican-majority panel had approved in August and September. The judge deemed multiple rules unconstitutional and said the board had overstepped its authority because only the state’s General Assembly can set laws for how elections are governed. Among the rules Cox invalidated was a vaguely defined “reasonable inquiry” rule, which allowed broad probes into contested election results that critics said could gum up the vote certification process. He also struck down a rule mandating a manual hand count of ballots — not a vote tally, but merely a hand count of how many ballots had been turned in — on election night, when poll workers are already overburdened.

Cox also invalidated a rule expanding the area where partisan poll watchers can observe voters, as well as one that said anyone who hand-delivers an absentee ballot for someone else must show their ID and provide a signature. He similarly rejected a rule that would have surveilled ballot drop boxes after hours during the state’s early voting period. He also invalidated a rule that would have mandated a daily report of votes cast during the early voting period. Early voting has already begun in Georgia. Once Cox ordered the board to immediately remove the new rules and tell state and local election officials to disregard them, the RNC filed a motion for an appeal. The Georgia Supreme Court responded with a one-page order published Tuesday that stops the RNC’s attempt to quickly raise the issue and dashes all hope that the new rules will take effect in time for this year’s presidential election. (The RNC can pursue an appeal later if it chooses.)

The initial lawsuit against the RNC over the new election rules was brought by Eternal Vigilance Action Inc., a group founded by former Georgia state Rep. Scot Turner (R) and Republican James Hall, an election board member in Georgia’s Chatham County.

[...] In a separate lawsuit over the election board’s new rules brought by plaintiffs including the Democratic Party, as HuffPost reported, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled last week that election board officials cannot “play investigator, prosecutor, jury and judge” by refusing to certify election results based on their singular suspicions of fraud.

Georgia Supreme Court to election deniers: get rekt!

[gurutrends]

Republicans appeal to Georgia Supreme Court to revive election ballot hand-count rule

The Republican National Committee and Georgia Republican Party appealed a Georgia judge’s decision striking down seven new rules for the upcoming election, including one rule that would have required thousands of poll workers to hand-count ballots. Judge Thomas A. Cox Jr. determined that the seven rules each contradicted Georgia’s election laws and exceeded the authority of the Georgia State…

[autonom-us-project]

State-by-State: What are your abortion rights in 2024?

In June 2022, the United States Supreme Court made the morally bankrupt decision to overturn the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, which had previously ruled that the choice of whether to end or continue a pregnancy belonged to the individual rather than the government, federally protecting the right to abortion.

Now, with the responsibility of protecting the right to reproductive freedom left to the states, it can be hard to keep track of the constantly changing laws and regulations. To help, we’ve gathered the most important information on each state’s current legalities, restrictions, and other need-to-know details regarding your reproductive autonomy below*.

To see information about abortion rights in your state, simply click the hyperlink. This is a work in progress, so if your state isn't posted yet, check back soon!

ϴ=abortion is banned entirely, [Highest Risk]

▼​= abortion is legal but heavily restricted and threatened, [High Risk]

▽= abortion is legal but unprotected, [Moderate Risk]

√= abortion is legal and protected, [Low Risk]

Alabama ϴ Alaska √ Arizona ϴ Arkansas ϴ California √ Colorado √ Connecticut √ Delaware √ Florida ▼ Georgia ▼ Hawaii √ Idaho ϴ Illinois √ Indiana ϴ Iowa ▼ Kansas √ Kentucky ϴ Louisiana ϴ Maine √ Maryland √ Massachusetts √ Michigan √ Minnesota √ Mississippi ϴ Missouri ϴ Montana √ Nebraska ▼ Nevada √ New Hampshire ▽ New Jersey √ New Mexico ▽ New York √ North Carolina ▼ North Dakota ϴ Ohio √ Oklahoma ϴ Oregon √ Pennsylvania ▽ Rhode Island √ South Carolina ▼ South Dakota ϴ Tennessee ϴ Texas ϴ Utah ▼ Vermont √ Virginia ▽ Washington √ West Virginia ϴ Wisconsin ▼ Wyoming ▼

*Please note, information on this website should not be used as legal advice or as a basis for medical decisions. Consult an attorney and/or a physician for your particular case, if possible.

[evilmark999]

"I'll go to my deathbed knowing that they lied. They looked into the State Senators' eyes - and the people of Georgia and people of America - and lied to them about this - and KNEW they were lying - to try to keep this charade going on, that there was fraud in Georgia..."

When Tucker Carlson said, "this is not a conspiracy theory," and when Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity and the rest of the entertainment sycophants still at FOX echoed and continue to echo those same kinds of statements, then you can take it to YOUR deathbed that it IS all a lie, that they're ALL liars - from top to bottom - that they're ALL very KNOWINGLY liars, and don't deserve to be trusted to tell one iota of the truth. Ever!

Just like Donald Trump. And just like Rudy Giuliani. And just like every other christofascist MAGA supporter. Knowingly liars. Full stop!

Write all of their names down, and never forgive, and never forget. They are ALL very KNOWINGLY deceiving everyone that isn't one of them, and will look YOU or anyone or EVERYONE in the eye without a care at all...

Too many names. I ran out of tags...

[thateclecticbitch]

Sending my condolences. I'm sorry people are being idiots in your notes

hi if ur unaware georgia 🇬🇪 (where i live) has officially banned gay marriage, gay ‘propaganda’, gender reassignment surgery and anything ’promoting’ it. a trans model, kesaria abramidze, has been murdered as a direct consequence of this legislation. if you have a queer georgian in your life pls let them know they are loved and let this solidify why we Need pride and hope cause jesus fuck man