Daily Archives: August 10, 2019

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Flowers v. Mississippi

Leave a comment

Back in 1996, there was an armed robbery at the Tardy Furniture Store, and four people were killed. The petitioner in this case, and all around asshole Flowers was eventually tried in Mississippi and convicted for the robbery/homicide of one of the people, and sentences to death. Seriously, fuck that guy.

The court had allowed evidence the Mississippi Supreme Court (SCOM) felt was inadmissible related to the murder of the other three people, and dismissed the case.

So Mississippi tried him for the murder of a second victim, and did the same dumb shit, and the SCOM again dismissed on the same grounds, but those persistent prosecutors in Mississippi weren’t about to let this douchebag get off for murder, and went after him again a third time. They prosecuted him for the murder of all four, again found him guilty a third time, and again sentenced this mortherfucker to death.

We all know Mississippi has some race problems, and even if this motherfucker was guilty, these inept motherfuckers could fuck up a wet dream. The assholes in Mississippi went out of their way to exclude black jurors, since Flowers was black, and they thought black jurors might acquit, over recent racial tensions.

There were mistrials multiple times, and it wasn’t until the sixth trial this motherfucker AGAIN was convicted and sentenced to death. But of course you know, that isn’t the end of this shit.

Flowers was like, “these racist motherfuckers in Mississippi kept striking my brothers and sisters from the jury, denying me the right to a fair trial, and equal protection under the law. 6th and 14th amendments, y’all!”

So Flowers asked SCOM to step in, but they upheld the conviction. But then SCOTUS was like, “Wait a fucking minute. You’re joking, right SCOM? Look again, assholes. We already ruled on this shit in Batson v Kentucky. Maybe you’ve heard of it? You can’t just strike jurors because they’re fucking black.”

But SCOM was like, “Fuck you SCOTUS, this is a good conviction. The state fucking told you we had other reasons for striking those black jurors. This was a small ass town, and all those people knew either the defendant or the victims.”

While the lone black SCOTUS justice was one of two who dissented, (along with Gorsuch), and felt the non-race-based reasons were reasonable and potentially a legit reason for the state striking those jurors, the other seven justices sided with Flowers in ruling this was some racist bullshit. Judgement for Flowers.

Read about the case and/or hear oral arguments here.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Cochise Consultancy Inc. v. United States, ex rel. Hunt

Leave a comment

We all remember that there were some warfare activities in Iraq, right? So because of all that, there were munitions scattered about the place everywhere, and that shit needed cleaned up.

So The Parsons Corporation were given a $60M government contract to find those munitions, and discard of them properly, back in 2006.

In the contract, Parsons had to provide adequate security for their employees, and they subcontracted that duty to a company called ArmorGroup, despite the fact that Cochise Consultancy (the petitioner here) had submitted a competitive bid.

As it turns out, this piece of shit for the Army Corps of Engineers named Wayne Shaw, had taken bribes, forged documents, threatened people, and shit like that to ensure Cochise got the bid over ArmorGroup, and eventually, his shady ass got the subcontract shifted to Cochise.

Once Cochise started, they were getting $1M more a month than ArmorGroup would have. Eventually, that shady dickhead Shaw got rotated away from Iraq, and Parsons put the contract out for bid again, eventually giving the bid back to ArmorGroup.

A Parson’s employee, Billy Joe Hunt, was involved in the corrupt scheme between Cochise and Parsons, and eventually in 2010, the FBI came knocking on his door, and he was quick to fess up, landing his ass in federal prison for ten months.

In order to encourage whistle blowers to blow some fucking whistles, the government allows for something called qui tam lawsuits under the False Claim Acts. It’s basically where a private person can sue a private party for defrauding the government, and then get 30% of the reward for doing it. As you can imagine, it encourages private people to report these scumbags, when they can get a reward for doing it.

So Hunt decided to go after Cochise and Parsons in 2013 to try to make some money. He was in federal prison for ten months, and was probably broke AF. So he saw an opportunity, and went for it.

But, unfortunately for Hunt, it was deemed past the statute of limitations by the time the FBI came after him, and he served his time. It had been seven years since the violations occurred, and of course Hunt knew about it all along.

The statute of limitations required it had to either be within six years of the violation, or three years after a government official knew about it, and the seven years exceeded both.

So a district court dismissed Hunt’s claim, but then a US Court of appeals disagreed, reversed, and sent it back, saying that Hunt was a Parson’s employee, and not a government official, therefore, the three year statute hadn’t been violated yet. The government had only recently found out, and they didn’t bother to intervene.

So as usual, two courts don’t agree, and SCOTUS here we come. Cochise of course didn’t like the Appeals Court ruling, so they sued to try to enforce the Statute of Limitations exclusion given by the lower court.

So SCOTUS were asked to resolve the idea that Hunt was not to be considered an acceptable person to “know about it” and start the clock on the three year statute of limitations.

SCOTUS told Cochise to go pound sand up their ass. Unanimous decision for Hunt. He wasn’t a government official, and acted within three years of a government official knowing about the fraud. Now fuck off and pay him you dirty fucks.

Hear oral arguments or read about the case here.