Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 878 posts

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#391

Post by joshuamorton »

mjburgess wrote: post #353
majormajor wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because (and here Sotomayor is correct) the states were being obligated to take on burdens that "crossed state lines" and a complete remedy to relieve them of these burdens actually requires a universal injunction > However, the SC was extremely fed up with district courts sending inumerable number of cases their way Well hold on then. So you think the Court was wrong in this case? That they were just on tilt? Beca…

Imagine you're a SC judge in this case, and you have to craft a judgement which allows universal injunctions in incredibly narrow and highly specific cases, whilst ruling out almost all of them. And that the area of law you're dealing with is a puddle of mud (equity). You can either try to do this and roll the dice again on letting district courts interpret this judgement, or just say, basically no -- if you want to…

> Imagine you're a SC judge in this case, and you have to craft a judgement which allows universal injunctions in incredibly narrow and highly specific cases, whilst ruling out almost all of them. And that the area of law you're dealing with is a puddle of mud (equity).

You can of course, also not take up the issue on this case. I can't find the article offhand, but I believe Steve Vladeck made this point that the SC has passed over a number of egregiously bad universal injunctions, handling them entirely on the shadow docket, and decided to grant full cert and a hearing on this case.

You can maybe argue that that's good in the sense that they're making a strong stand that even in the best example this is disallowed, which is clearer precedent. But also they could have picked a "better" case in the sense of it being a clearer misuse, and used that as the vehicle for the same ruling. Using a Kacsmaryk injunction for the same ruling sends a very different message than this case.

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#392

Post by threemux »

mjburgess wrote: post #370
threemux wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Justice Jackson's dissent is honestly one of the most embarrassing things I've read from the Court and I've been reading most every opinion for years now. Heavy on the pathos, completely devoid of cogent legal theory. Kinda reminds me of Breyer, who, charitably, had an esoteric style. Kavanaugh is good to read on any topic - his writing is clear and often easily understandable by the layman. Gorsuch is an excellent w…

They're both excellent judges in non-ideological cases, and many of Sotomayor's majority judgements read well and she's clearly very on-the-ball in orals. It's a shame in these cases -- I think Sotomayor is more of an ideologue than Thomas.

Yeah you can certainly criticize Thomas's legal theories, but his interpretation is logically consistent and he sticks to it even to the point of frequently solo dissenting.

It's important to read his stuff too because it seems to gain more acceptance as time goes on.

Your points on Sotomayor are well taken, her dissents are often way over the top. However I'm starting to think Justice Jackson is potentially worse when it comes to histrionics

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#393

Post by lelandbatey »

laughing_man wrote: post #366
lelandbatey wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Yes. It's in the constitution. Says it right there. Please explain how all our eyes deceive us.

You're relying on a 21st century layman's interpretation of legal language written in the 19th century. "[S]ubject to the jurisdiction thereof" means, in broad strokes, people who are here legally.

It does not mean that in broad strokes. It very specifically was meant to exclude folks such as children of diplomats, as decided in United States vs Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649 (1898): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/169/649

A great summary: https://law.stackexchange.com/a/33057

In short the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes three and only three groups of people:

1.Children born to foreign diplomats here on diplomatic business, who have diplomatic immunity to US Law

2.Children of members of an invading army that has occupied and controlled some part of US territory, born on that occupied area, who are obviously not subject to US Law (which has rarely happened in the US, although Guam was occupied during WWII, and parts of Alaska, and small parts of Maine during the War of 1812); and

3. Members of Native American tribes, subject to the jurisdiction of their tribal governments, who do not pay US taxes. (This was true when the 14th amendment was passed, but it no longer is. See section below on the act that changed it in 1924.)

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#394

Post by magicalist »

827a wrote: post #247
magicalist wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If things should be different then we need legislative/constitutional changes lol, yes, like birthright citizenship written plainly into the constitution. What good are your further legislative/constitutional changes worth if the executive can just ignore them except for the single individuals who file suit?

The ruling today very explicitly and clearly does not touch the birthright citizenship issue.

> The ruling today very explicitly and clearly does not touch the birthright citizenship issue.

In practice it absolutely does, because now everyone is scrambling to try and protect their clients that were previously covered by the larger injunction. The supreme court could have just not taken the case in the first place, or let the injunctions stand as an appropriate use of injunctions (for grossly unconstitutional executive orders)

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#395

Post by Smeevy »

majormajor wrote: post #343
tshaddox wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like "nobody has the votes to make big changes" should be an indicator that not making big changes is the proper result. "Nobody has the votes" seems like a weird way to put it, because is implies that everyone wants to make changes, they just can't agree which changes to make. On the contrary, I think the issue is that most congresspeople do not want to make changes. Changes are scary. If your name is ass…

> "Nobody has the votes" seems like a weird way to put it, because is implies that everyone wants to make changes, they just can't agree which changes to make. On the contrary, I think the issue is that most congresspeople do not want to make changes. Changes are scary. If your name is associated with a change, and that change becomes unpopular, it might threaten your reelection! The split in Congress is driven by th…

Your argument leaves out the chilling effect of gerrymandering on implementing the will of the people.

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#396

Post by toomuchtodo »

bdangubic wrote: post #361
toomuchtodo wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re not armed yet, you’re already behind the curve. No one is going to protect you except you and potentially your sphere/community.

unless you can arm yourself with a nuke, “arming” yourself for a fight against US government is laughable :)

You don’t have to defend yourself from the entire US government, just the government representation who shows up and decides to violate laws or your rights (and your life is in imminent danger). “Better to be judged by twelve vs. carried by six.” Otherwise, you’re default dead. Odds are better in jail on US soil than an El Salvadorian prison. I agree full out civil war against the US military on US soil is a different threat and engagement model. 5 million people participated in the No Kings protest, more than double total active military members on US soil, for example.

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-are-in-the-us-...

https://www.militaryonesource.mil/data-research-and-statisti...

(position derived from first principles and threat modeling, with input from several US military service members and a physical defense subject matter expert)

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#397

Post by beej71 »

firesteelrain wrote: post #279
lostapathy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual parties in the case. So every person wronged by the government should sue individually?

Not necessarily. That’s where class actions come in The point is that relief should be tied to proper procedure, not handed out universally by default. One judge shouldn’t decide national policy based on one plaintiff unless the case is structured to justify it

It seems like the GPs issue still remains, except instead of individual lawsuits forever, it's class action lawsuits forever, does it not?

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#398

Post by hackyhacky »

mjburgess wrote: post #252

[flagged]

> In all of these 6-3 cases where Sotomayor writes the dissent, she writes entirely for the press and reserves only the last few pages to engage in anything like the legal arguments. Her effect in these cases is profoundly pathological on the public discourse.

That's one interpretation. On the other hand, I can understand her reaction at the conservative majority's repeated disrespect for stare decisis and existing case law, their tendency to craft non-textual and ahistorical reading of the Constitution to suit their short-term political goals, and their seeming bottomless capacity for subservience and deference to an obviously unlawful executive branch that has repeatedly evinced contempt for the judicial.

So, given the extraordinary depths that the majority is sinking to, her dramatic dissents are more justified than you think.

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#399

Post by underlipton »

firesteelrain wrote: post #279
lostapathy wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual parties in the case. So every person wronged by the government should sue individually?

Not necessarily. That’s where class actions come in The point is that relief should be tied to proper procedure, not handed out universally by default. One judge shouldn’t decide national policy based on one plaintiff unless the case is structured to justify it

No. If a ruling has determined that a government action has the potential to be illegal and must be halted for the suing party, it should absolutely be halted for everyone, because you're dealing with an action that's ambiguously illegal for everyone. It's not just the wronged party at the center of this issue, it's the capacity for the government to engage in illegal activity. Once you've identified behavior as questionable, you stop the behavior.

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#400

Post by majormajor »

tshaddox wrote: post #367
majormajor wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Nobody has the votes" seems like a weird way to put it, because is implies that everyone wants to make changes, they just can't agree which changes to make. On the contrary, I think the issue is that most congresspeople do not want to make changes. Changes are scary. If your name is associated with a change, and that change becomes unpopular, it might threaten your reelection! The split in Congress is driven by th…

I disagree. The trouble with your explanation is that there are plenty of issues which have had clear broad bipartisan support for decades. This is mostly stuff that doesn't even come up in mainstream political discourse and isn't even clearly associated with a particular party. It's basic stuff like consumer protection (e.g. predatory loans, telemarketing), government integrity (e.g. lobbying, term limits), and more…

As a former-red-state-citizen for decades, "basic stuff like consumer protection" is not something that I think has clear broad bipartisan support. Caveat emptor! Regulation [of scammers] bad! Free speech [for scammers] good! "I'm from the government and..."

A certain amount of less-partisan stuff does get passed all the time. But, to get more subtle about it, I think the danger if you help pass something like consumer protection - even if MOST people on both sides would support it - isn't that you risk getting branded with it if it backfires. It's that you get labeled soft in a way that the die-hards who dominate primaries can be rallied against. The right wing has been VERY aggressive in pushing purity tests for decades, and eventually you have convinced everyone of the final-battle-of-good-and-evil stakes. The left has been doing it more and more too, sadly - but it's not like what they were doing before was working too great.

That situation also gives increasing sway to the rich lobbyists who also want to make sure those basic things don't happen. Your base won't get mad at you for failing to ban abortions nationally because obviously you can't. So they don't put much blame on you for not getting the smaller stuff done either, or scrutinize your donors too much.

Post reply on HN