Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses • Hacker News Board

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#71

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, May 14, 2020, 1:57 AM UTC

arkades wrote: post #6

Grakel wrote: post #3

What we should do is one thing. Saying the government can make us do it is something else entirely.

There's a couple centuries of common law precedent that the government can compel behavior for public health crises. The state supreme court here grossly violated legal precedent, and will have its ass overturned in a heartbeat if anyone has the time, resources, and will to escalate.

> There's a couple centuries of common law precedent that the government can compel behavior for public health crises.

The issue that was cobtrolling here was compliance with proper administative procedure, not the authority of state government to compel behavior. So precedent on the latter is immaterial.

> The state supreme court here grossly violated legal precedent, and will have its ass overturned in a heartbeat if anyone has the time, resources, and will to escalate.

It's a state law claim that has been adjudicated by the highest state court, there is no place for the case to be escalated to.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#72

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:01 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #22

duxup wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>do sheltering rules violate the Bill of Rights? Is an outstanding question about that? There have been other pandemics, government actions to enforce health standards and etc. I don't think they've been ruled to be unconstitutional.

Quarantine for people who are sick or known to be exposed is definitely legal. But orders for everyone to stay at home are pretty much unprecedented.

> But orders for everyone to stay at home are pretty much unprecedented.

Orders prohibiting most gatherings for non-essential purposes (with essential defined by the entity issuing the ruling), shuttering non-essential businesses, etc., very similar to today's shelter-in-place orders were fairly common in the 1918-1919 flu epidemic. They aren't at all unprecedented in the US.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#73

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:03 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #39

Retric wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they also occurred for the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic which also required people to ware face masks in public.

You've fallen victim to a widespread disinformation campaign. There were orders to close restaurants, ban public gatherings, etc., but general orders to stay at home were not issued during the Spanish flu. (It is true that many cities required people to wear face masks in public, and I agree that's almost surely constitutional.)

There is no substantive difference between prohibiting most of the things people can do outside of the home and prohibiting leaving the home except for things that wouldn't be on that list of prohibitions. The framing of today's shelter-in-place orders is different than the orders issued in the 1918-1919 epidemic, the substance (in outline, details differ because the scope of options available to address is different) is not.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#74

Post by ashtonkem » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:09 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #22

duxup wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>do sheltering rules violate the Bill of Rights? Is an outstanding question about that? There have been other pandemics, government actions to enforce health standards and etc. I don't think they've been ruled to be unconstitutional.

Quarantine for people who are sick or known to be exposed is definitely legal. But orders for everyone to stay at home are pretty much unprecedented.

Arguably true, but not as far as I believe you’re implying. The ability of the government to quarantine entire towns and counties has been tested and upheld in the courts over the centuries.

What’s new here is that people are being ordered to stay at home. But putting an imposition on a whole group of people without focusing on infected individuals is neither new nor unconstitutional.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#75

Post by kumarvvr » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:10 AM UTC

npongratz wrote: post #70

vmception wrote: post #4

> The legislature may have buyer's remorse for the breadth of discretion it gave to (the Department of Health Services). But those are the laws it drafted So although every state is different, Wisconsin isn't that different and its Supreme Court did not rule on the law and only on feelings. The majority opinion was across the ideological spectrum, the dissenting opinion was across the ideological spectrum as well. 4-…

> One member of the court had just left the court, could have easily been 4-4 or another combination The incumbent (Kelly) was voted out of office about a month ago, and the winning challenger (Karofsky) won't fill the seat until August 1, 2020. Kelly sided with the majority opinion in this decision.

I don't understand that when the incumbent has been voted out, why does he/she still have powers to make decisions?

Shouldn't they be some sort of stand-in and only take care of routine / bureaucratic tasks?

It's a system that is ripe for making these already out people do stuff that is ideological and hardline, while the voters obviously don't want it.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#76

Post by dang » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:26 AM UTC

hanging wrote: post #2

The jsonline link moved to: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/13/wisc... I emailed the mods address. Another: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/politics/wisconsin-supreme-co...

Changed from https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/05/13/wisconsin-sup.... Thanks!

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#77

Post by slenk » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:27 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #53

bsder wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deaths going down is only one thing that needs to occur. And, by the way, deaths going down is doing so soooo slowly because we really didn't get the R0 much 1.0. If people had actually locked down PROPERLY , deaths would be dropping much faster. In addition, you need testing and contact tracers. You also need abundant personal protective equipment in your health providers for if you get a spike. The problem is that…

I don't see why all those things need to happen before the Wisconsin legislature is allowed to have a say. The state can still have a stay-at-home order if the legislature thinks it's needed.

Except it would appear that legislatures are only voting party, not public health

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#78

Post by vxNsr » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:29 AM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #75

npongratz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One member of the court had just left the court, could have easily been 4-4 or another combination The incumbent (Kelly) was voted out of office about a month ago, and the winning challenger (Karofsky) won't fill the seat until August 1, 2020. Kelly sided with the majority opinion in this decision.

I don't understand that when the incumbent has been voted out, why does he/she still have powers to make decisions? Shouldn't they be some sort of stand-in and only take care of routine / bureaucratic tasks? It's a system that is ripe for making these already out people do stuff that is ideological and hardline, while the voters obviously don't want it.

I'm more confused about a court that has an even number of members... what do they do in ties?

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#79

Post by duxup » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:32 AM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #66

duxup wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It outright says you can go outside for activities, the type of activity you can do depends, largely on the number of people it would seem. It doesn't mince words about that ...

This strikes me as a dishonest response. The fact that the government graciously grants exceptions doesn't diminish the gravity of the order.

It's not an exception...its the nature of the order. You're not forced to remain in your home.

Re: Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down stay-at-home order that closed businesses

#80

Post by daenz » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:34 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #65

daenz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>can harm others Can you be more specific? It's the nebulousness of what "can harm" that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Taken to one extreme, there's almost nothing you can do that doesn't potentially harm others. For example, I could leave my stove burner on and burn down the entire apartment building. So many things come with risks to others, and those things are just part of existing in society.

Fine. I doubt you're arguing in good faith, but let's go there ... Vaccines. The government has the right to require your children to have vaccines before they go to school because not doing so has extremely harmful effects on others when we drop below herd immunity. Smoking. The government has the right to create anti-smoking laws because the market simply wouldn't produce a non-smoking bar that wouldn't affect the…

>Shall I go on?

You should, because you'll quickly realize that there are far, far more activities that potentially cause harm to others than there are laws that prohibit them. Also, vaccines and smoking have a history that are peppered with lawsuits about their legality, so as far as examples go, they are not the ones I would hold up as evidence of laws that people clearly think are constitutional.

The flu killed ~50,000 last year in the USA. Do we require all non-essential businesses to shut down and everyone quarantine? Is there some magical cutoff number between 50,000 (flu deaths) and 80,000 (COVID deaths) where we decide to shut down the entire country?

Also you're conflating "the government has the right" with "there exists a law." The government has the right to enforce the law, but there is no innate right in that law itself. If we overturned smoking laws tomorrow, it doesn't remove rights from the government, it removes laws that the government enforces.