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Rich_Olszewski
Guest
Just so. As in the Westboro Church matter - weighty enought in regards to the 1st Amendment as to require their attention and adjudication…
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He_Man
Guest
See, now you are adding qualifiers. Your tried to be clever and contrarian, and got called on it. You said it was not a decision. I pointed out it was. They make decisions every day. What to eat for lunch, when to go home, which stall to use.
They decided not to hear the case. You can qualify what you meant by saying the intent was a reference to a legal verdict, but that just morphs the argument, one you made to be rebellious.
Anyway, all of that is really neither hear nor there. It was a good decision on their part.
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Rich_Olszewski
Guest
If you want to put it that way, their decision to have the Sauerbraten, red cabbage, and potato dumplings and good Czechvar beer to accompany the meal was also a good decision on their part.
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kenofken
Guest
They also decline to hear cases like fender bender disputes and cases brought by crackpots claiming their backyard is a sovereign nation. Should one of the parties in those cases be able to proclaim a “unanimous Supreme Court verdict” on the particulars of their case?
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He_Man
Guest
One of those parties can do whatever they want, and none of us should care. The topic was titleds “U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Hear Challenge to ‘In God We Trust’” and the general theme of the posts was “awesome” or “good call on their part.”
I didn’t see the plaintiff or defense teams chiming in one way or another on here. It was a bunch of people who are glad the USSC didn’t hear the case, who posted on an unrelated message board. The only post that used terms like “unanimous Supreme Court verdict” was yours, ironically.
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Digitonomy
Guest
I’m not so sure about that. There are plenty of cases where the issues are frivolous, or where there is no lower court disparity to be resolved, or where the issues are simply not yet ripe for Supreme Court involvement. This probably falls under the second category, and there is very good reason for SCOTUS not to waste its time on it.
I too wonder how Roberts and others would vote if presented with a very direct challenge to a 38-year old precedent. However, I don’t feel his majority opinion last week has any bearing on it. While both may in theory fall under the First Amendment, the WBC case was very clearly a matter of freedom of expression weighed against other concerns; the right to abortion is much less directly endorsed by the First Amendment.
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kenofken
Guest
I finally got around to reading the 9th Circuit opinion in the case, the one that the Supreme Court let stand by refusing to hear the case. It seems that panel wasn’t even entirely convinced that “In God We Trust” would hold up as being constitutional. They dismissed the claim of Newdow (the atheist) because they felt bound by the most applicable precedent they had in their circuit, a 40-year old case. Under more modern tests developed by the Supreme Court, it’s possible the national motto on the currency might be seen as a violation of the Establishment Clause. One judge in particular, Reinhardt, suggested that possibility in a concurring opinion. He basically said the ruling against Newdow was technically a correct interpretation of the available precedent, but probably doesn’t represent the best and most current legal thinking on the subject. So our national motto may well be a violation of the law, but one that is of so little consequence that the Supreme Court, like most of us, didn’t rate it worth their time to worry about.
ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/03/11/06-16344.pdf
ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/03/11/06-16344.pdf
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The_Wanderer
Guest
The SCOTUS is actually doing something worthwhile for once.
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