#us courts

[corporationsarepeople]

“He has attacked the judicial system, our system of justice and the rule of law his entire life,” said J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former federal appellate judge and one of the founders of the recently formed Society for the Rule of Law. “And this to him,” Luttig told me, “is the grand finale.”

The 2024 presidential election, in the estimation of Paul Rosenzweig, a senior counsel during the investigation of President Bill Clinton and an assistant deputy secretary in the Department of Homeland Security in the administration of George W. Bush, isn’t a referendum on Joe Biden. It isn’t even a referendum, he said, on Donald Trump. “This election,” he told me, “is a referendum on the rule of law.”

More unnerving, though, than even that is an idea that has coursed through my conversations over these past several months: That referendum might already be over. Democracy’s on the ballot, many have taken to saying — Biden just said it last week — but democracy, and democratic institutions, as political scientist Brian Klaas put it to me, “can’t function properly if only part of the country believes in them.” And it’s possible that some critical portion of the population does not, or will not, no matter what happens between now and next November, believe in the verdicts or other outcomes rendered by those institutions. What if Trump is convicted? What if he’s not? What if he’s not convicted and then gets elected? What if he is and wins anyway? More disquieting than what might be on the ballot, it turns out, is actually what might not.

“Our democracy rests on a foundation of trust — trust in elections, trust in institutions,” Bassin said. “And you know what scares me the most about Trump? It’s not the sledgehammer he’s taken to the structure of our national house,” he told me. “It’s the termites he’s unleashed into the foundation.”

[obsessore]

NEPA just got fucked 😭😭😭

us court rulings are ruining everything 😭

[uboat53]

Sigh

Another day, another time we find out that courts are using psuedoscience to adjudicate vitally important disputes.

I feel like a science literacy class should be a requirement for becoming a judge.

[anthroxlove]

[zenosanalytic]

just to give you a Crystal Fucking Clear idea of what the Republicans in charge of Georgia are doing I want to surface this from the first paragraph of the article:

The state has also admitted to releasing the personal information of Georgia's six million voters, including birthdates, driver's license and social security numbers.

So they 1)create a site where you can cancel ANOTHER PERSON'S registration, then they 2)~Accidentally Leak~ their citizens' voter registration info. I also remember, tho I don't have a link to verify, that on release there was a super-simple exploit that allowed you to bypass the verification check so you could cancel a registration even WITHOUT the information they'd just ~leaked~ to the public.

And at the same time Republicans in Georgia are doing this, Republicans in Arizona Are Trying to CANCEL the Registration of 40k+ Arizonans. Before the SC weighs in I just want to be clear: they have FOR YEARS allowed illegal district maps to stand in elections because "changing them so soon before an election would cause chaos"... up to 15 months before said elections. For them to allow Arizona to RETROACTIVELY(retroactive legislation is unconstitutional) CHANGE VOTER REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS 3 MONTHS BEFORE AN ELECTION would be against all precedent, contradict numerous rulings the sitting justices themselves handed down, and be JUST the sort of lawless, partisan hypocrisy they've shown themselves capable of time and time again.

The state of Georgia did what with voter registrations?!

[wizard-laundry]

QUICK REMINDER

In the US: threatening government officials is a felony under federal law (the president in particular is protected under 18 U.S.C. § 871). Even memes.

be careful with your jokes if they spill over to active officials.

[oxytocinatrocities]

"The House," a parable I drew about leaving the Mormon church.

I've come to think this metaphor also applies pretty well to constitutional originalism and the absurd idolization by both U.S. political parties of a document written hundreds of years ago by men who didn't know about the carbon cycle and owned human slaves.

I want to include some altered version of this in the graphic novel I'm working on, as well :)

[scottiestoybox]

Let's talk about Trump's DC entanglements showing up again...

[zenosanalytic]

this whole thing is actually interesting is a kind of horrifying way, cuz Trump's whole strategy with this is just to demand his lawyers make disbarrably bad arguments purely to drag out his cases until the 2024 election so that, if he wins, he can claim presidential immunity from prosecution and then pardon himself for the crimes he did(which, technically, he's not allowed to do, but with all the partisan republican judges we have these days saying the law is whatever they want it to be, legality's rapidly becoming a meaningless concept here anyway so *shrug*).

"we're all sort of making it up at the end of the day" is definitely one of those beautifully true and reusable quotes originating from a context you wouldn't expect*

*trumps lawyer said this in court today when probed on what he is basing a legal assertion he made on

[nando161mando]

[enjymemink]

Thank you Yemen 🇾🇪

Despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, they showed more empathy than those so-called civilized developed countries.

[uboat53]

Want to hear a tale of deliberate misinformation? I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear it's the anti-abortion movement doing it.

In 2000, the FDA approved mifepristone, a medication that is used in medicated abortion. Specifically, mifepristone blocks a hormone called progesterone which helps the body maintain the inside of the uterus so that pregnancy can continue. It did so after a 4 year review in which it was shown that the drug had incredibly minor risks and was extremely effective.

However, when the FDA approved mifepristone, it decided to put a bunch of restrictions on it. These restrictions were not studied during the 4 years and were put in place through a process known as "accelerated approval". Many of those restrictions have since been removed as 23 years worth of data have shown that the drug is safe (safer than Tylenol and Viagra, in fact) and effective for much longer than initially supposed.

There is a case, however, in federal court, where an anti-abortion group known as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine is arguing that the FDA authorization for mifepristone should be revoked because it was approved under the "accelerated approval" process.

As you can see from the above, this is false. The drug was approved normally and the restrictions were accelerated. In fact, the group has filed hundreds of pages of FDA documents into evidence that, if read accurately, actually disprove their own case!

The problem is that this case was filed in Amarillo, Texas. Due to a quirk in the 5th Circuit Court, all cases filed in this courtroom are assigned to Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a far-right jurist who had strongly fought against abortion, contraception, and LGBTQ rights before becoming a judge. He has become the go-to judge of choice for far-right conservatives these days who file cases in Amarillo specifically so that they can get him to do things like authorize discrimination against LGBTQ people in health care, employment, and education and limit access to birth control, all in violation of Supreme Court precedent. He has also previously seized control of border policy and some aspects of US foreign policy in an attempt to force the Biden Administration to continue the Trump era "remain in Mexico" policy, another far-right ruling that was overturned by the Supreme Court.

I'm sure it will not surprise you, then, that Judge Kascmaryk, in a hearing on Wednesday, accepted without question the fiction that mifepristone's approval was rushed under the "accelerated approval" process.

Far-right groups are increasingly relying on false arguments like this in court and, increasingly, they are finding far-right judges who are willing to accept them.

Source for the details of mifepristone

Source for the false argument and court details

[zenosanalytic]

Yeah, and a rare story of justice in the US, but for real consider what it says about our police, our prosecutors, our judges, our politicians, our whole goddamn system, that it took a fucking GOLF MAGAZINE to see that this case was bullshit, and get enough important enough people to care about it.

when i saw the headline ‘golf digest helps free man from prison’ i thought it was gonna be, like

“he’s clearly in the background of this golf photo! that proves he wasn’t at the crime scene!!”

as opposed to, like

“this guy in prison sent us his cool golf fanart but we didn’t want to promo a serial killer, so we looked into his case and thought it looked pretty flimsy and probably racially motivated”

(here’s the first article from 2012 and the followup)

[agentfascinateur]

The case in California vs Biden & Blinken

Taking a page from Trump & January 6th:

Dereliction of duty is recognized as a crime in some state laws, such as an Ohio statute governing law enforcement personnel, but no general federal law makes it a crime. There is, however, a robust body of dereliction of duty law in the armed forces. Since the president is commander in chief, there is some justice in invoking the concept, even though Trump was never subject to military law, either before or during his time in office. The Manual for Courts-Martial sets forth the elements of the offense of “dereliction in the performance of duties.” The first three apply across the board: (a) that the accused had certain duties; (b) that the accused knew or reasonably should have known of the duties; and (c) that the accused, willfully or through neglect or culpable inefficiency, failed to perform those duties. A fourth element applies where the dereliction of duty resulted in death or grievous bodily harm: (d) that such dereliction of duty resulted in death or grievous bodily harm to a person other than the accused. The manual elaborates: A person is derelict in the performance of duties when that person willfully or negligently fails to perform that person’s duties or when that person performs them in a culpably inefficient manner. “Willfully” means intentionally. It refers to the doing of an act knowingly and purposely, specifically intending the natural and probable consequences of the act. “Negligently” means an act or omission of a person who is under a duty to use due care which exhibits a lack of that degree of care which a reasonably prudent person would have exercised under the same or similar circumstances. Culpable inefficiency is inefficiency for which there is no reasonable or just excuse. The manual also provides that “where the dereliction of duty resulted in death or grievous bodily harm, the intent to cause death or grievous bodily harm is not required.” Dereliction can be a serious offense in the armed forces. The maximum punishment turns on whether the conduct was willful, negligent, or the result of culpable inefficiency. Importantly, for willful dereliction that results in death or grievous bodily harm, confinement for up to two years is authorized. Had Trump been subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, there would be no question that his actions and failures to act on Jan. 6th rose to the level of willful dereliction. And there were fatalities and grievous bodily injuries at the Capitol that day. Setting aside technical definitions of dereliction of duty, even its broader, colloquial sense—someone’s failure to perform an action it was his responsibility to perform—is now no longer the main point. It could have formed the basis for an impeachment, but Trump is no longer subject to impeachment. Indeed, he escaped his last impeachment, coming as it did so close to the end of his term, in part because some thought his misconduct could be adjudicated in criminal and civil proceedings. (“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office,” Mitch McConnell said. “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation.”) Even so, reference to dereliction of duty in connection with Jan. 6th is quite understandable. It contributes to our understanding of just how grave a betrayal Donald Trump’s behavior represented. It may go to his intent, and it would certainly be taken into account on sentencing in the event he is criminally charged in connection with the assault on the Capitol. Particularly as the Jan. 6th Committee trains its sights this week on his conduct during that assault, it is worth keeping in mind, if only for contextual reasons as the Department of Justice, state prosecutors in Georgia and perhaps elsewhere, and Americans generally, make the critical decision whether he should face criminal charges.

(Source: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trumps-inexcusable-jan-6th-dereliction-of-duty )