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U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#341

Post by masonic »

da_chicken wrote: post #125

The important thing to understand about this case is the background and what the SCotUS actually ruled on. It's actually rather narrow ruling even if it is extremely important. The court exercised judicial restraint here, and made the minimum ruling necessary. Timbs was convicted of possession/sale/whatever, jailed for a year, and fined $1,200. The state confiscated his Range Rover as well. Timbs sued or appealed the…

Had the 8th Amendment not been considered to have been incorporated before this?

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#342

Post by craftyguy »

milesvp wrote: post #204
KorematsuFred wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this very remarkable about American legal system. The supreme court could have technically showed some bleeding heart by not showing judicial restraint. Instead they just did their job. Americans must thank this judicial culture.

Yes actually. The courts aren’t there to set law, that is for the legislature. Also by limiting their ruling to the narrowest ruling they can, they keep decisions as local as possible. Courts handle exceptional circumstances, and it’s important they not rule too broadly, else there can be huge overarching unintended side effects of their ruling. The parallel in programming would be some god class that handles every e…

> The courts aren’t there to set law, that is for the legislature.

They set the interpretation of the law, which could literally go any which way, and is not reversible without further legislative action to repeal/amend the law. So in a way, they most definitely set law by solidifying its 'meaning'.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#344

Post by cryptonector »

Finally! Joyful day!

I've not read all of the decision yet, but it seems that any decision about retroactivity was left for later. That will now lead to a bunch of fun cases where plaintiffs demand their property and monies back, and the cities and States will have a hard time ponying it up. Localities and States that play fast and loose with the Constitution should pay a steep price when it later turns out that the SCOTUS gets to make the obvious ruling. That will teach the cities and States to not violate the Constitution willy-nilly. It was obvious to anyone who bothered to read the Constitution and Incorporation case law that civil asset forfeiture was on very thin ice, both, as a matter of jurisprudence, and as a matter of plain reading of the Constitution.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#345

Post by dsfyu404ed »

lostapathy wrote: post #178
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So while it takes a long time to get those rights properly enshrined, at least they seem to be safe. Our rights are so unassailable that I need to repeatedly pay a non-negligible amount of money to the government bear arms and get the approval of my local police chief if I want said arms to be reasonably modern. /s Some animals are more equal than others. Some rights are more unassailable than others. At least I can…

Keep in mind that the 2nd amendment hasn't even been incorporated against the states for 10 years yet (McDonald v Chicago). So while the right has been incorporated, the court has yet to really rule on the scope of what that means. Just 10 years ago, it wasn't clear that you as an individual actually had that right, as it pertains to state restrictions - things have certainly improved. Edit: I guess my original point…

I suspect that nothing will change until the court rules that some form of scrutiny stricter than the status quo needs to be applied before curtailing the 2nd before that ruling will have any teeth. Incorporation means nothing without strict or intermediate scrutiny because states can just do whatever they want in the name of some nebulous concept like "public safety".

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#346

Post by novacole »

grigjd3 wrote: post #324
novacole wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads to me as a way for the authors of the amendment to narrow any potential loopholes in the protection of the newly freed slaves at the time. All persons born in the United States are citizens of the United States. However, this says nothing about whether or not you are a citizen of the particular state you were born in. So potentially, a state could deny equal protection under the law (protections under stat…

I find this argument a bit weak. Ratification of an amendment is a big process and I find it hard to believe that no-one realized the implications of the 14th amendment beyond it's impact on former slaves. People realized the implications, and went forward with the text anyhow. Otherwise, you have to assume that everyone involved was just completely ignorant to the implications of the text written as is, which is a c…

The 13th, 14, and 15th amendments were specifically written for the special case of newly frees slaves.

The 14th amendment was ratified in 1868. The total population of the US in 1870 was around 38 million. The total number of immigrants was around 2 million. The slave population was around 5 million.

The implications of the 14th amendment are clear today and they may even have been clear then. Nevertheless the most pressing, most politically salient issue was the newly freed slaves. In one day (the day after ratification) the United stares gained 5 million new citizens.

I would not be surprised at all if the people involved at what time were a tad bit myopic, with respect to the problem at hand.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#347

Post by aerotwelve »

mikekchar wrote: post #291
alasdair_ wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyone can become President Somewhat irritatingly, I (and a large number of other American Citizens) cannot ever become president because we were not citizens at birth.

Is there not also a weird clause where you have to agree in the existence of a supreme being (it can be any supreme being, I think) because otherwise you can't take the oath of office? I suppose an atheist is very unlikely to become president of the US any time soon, but I always wondered what would happen if one did get voted in.

I certainly don't think so.

There's a clause that explicitly bans religious tests for federal public office[1], and a landmark SCOTUS case clarified that state governments cannot do this either[2].

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Religious_Test_Clause

2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torcaso_v._Watkins

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#348

Post by markman »

mikekchar wrote: post #291
alasdair_ wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyone can become President Somewhat irritatingly, I (and a large number of other American Citizens) cannot ever become president because we were not citizens at birth.

Is there not also a weird clause where you have to agree in the existence of a supreme being (it can be any supreme being, I think) because otherwise you can't take the oath of office? I suppose an atheist is very unlikely to become president of the US any time soon, but I always wondered what would happen if one did get voted in.

Probably the single smartest decision the founding fathers made was to separate church and state.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#349

Post by aidenn0 »

Fellshard wrote: post #151
aidenn0 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the executive believes it to be unconstitutional then it's not an abdication of their assigned role.

It's not the executive's role to determine whether something is constitutional or not.

Are you claiming that the legislature can compel the executive to violate the constitution? I'm pretty sure that's not right.

Re: U.S. Supreme Court Puts Limits on Police Power to Seize Private Property

#350

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #250
School-Cotton wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Latin was the international language of Europe for almost a thousand years after the collapse of the Roman Empire, during which time many scientific advancements were made. There are plenty of Latin words for things that didn't exist in Antiquity.

There are tiny communities who use recreational Latin today. Here's the Vicipaedia article on the telephonum: https://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephonum But that doesn't really constitute a good argument that there is a Latin word for telephones.

Given that telephone is Ancient Greek (though obviously coined more recently), I don't see why there shouldn't be a Latin word for it.
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