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SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Niz-Chavez v. Barr

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Agusto Niz-Chavez fled Guatemala  and all its glorious violence for the good ole USA in 2005. Since then, he knocked up his wife here three separate times, so now he’s got three citizen babies.

In 2013 he got pulled over for a fucked up taillight, and officers busted him and sent him to immigration. He was issued a Notice to Appear (NTA) which told him to appear in court.

So this is basically a rules issue. If you’re here for more than ten years, we basically say you can stay, barring you being a scumbag murderer or some shit.

Chavez is like, “I’ve been here ten years, assholes. Why are you bothering me. I did my time, I’m here now.”

But the lower court judge was like, “Wait a minute fuck face, you were only here eight years when you got the NTA, and that triggers a stop time rule, meaning that when considering if you fulfilled the ten year requirement, any time after you got the NTA doesn’t count. But Chavez was like, “How can you say the stop time rule is in effect when the notice you sent, didn’t even have a fucking date as to when I was supposed to be removed?”

So basically Chavez ‘s team is trying to say because the notice he initially received didn’t have all the relevant info on it that Chavez needed, the time bar shouldn’t have kicked in, because they fucked up.

So basically, SCOTUS is being asked to let him off on a technicality.

In a 6:3 opinion, where Justices Roberts, Alito, and Kavanaugh dissented, SCOTUS ruled in favor of Niz-Chavez. As Oyez.com writes, the opinion stated that The government must serve a single document that includes all the required information for the notice to appear to trigger the IIRIRA’s stop-time rule.

The dissenters felt like there is no need for all that bullshit. Once you receive the NTA, you know you’ve been fucking told, and you know the government is on to you. You don’t get off because they don’t have a date set yet, or some shit.

Hear oral arguments or read about the case here at Oyez.com

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club

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Assuming we’ve all heard of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Right? Right! Well, there’ s an exemption for certain types of information which can be requested. One exemption, known as exemption 5, is for the “deliberative process privilege.”

Basically, it means that the agency, when considering a law, may speak candidly as they hash out how to draft a regulation, and they may say things people find bothersome as they make such deliberations, but that’s just part of the creative process. If regulators know their candid conversations would be open to the public, it could stifle that process and lead to a shitty regulation-writing process, rendering these groups more useless than they already are, and thus the exemption was written to protect that.

FOIA is more about delivering data, not people’s candid conversations and ideas.

Well, the environmental Karen’s at the Sierra Club filed a FOIA request for documents of that nature from USFAWS regarding a process to write regulations on the ability for US companies to use river water to cool machinery. Since some procedures to do that, put fish and other wildlife in that water at risk of getting sucked into the equipment, they wanted to know about that shit.

The USFAWS, citing exemption 5, told the Sierra assholes to eat a bag of dicks. Basically, their argument is, this information was them just hashing out how to draft a regulation, and the only thing that should matter to Sierra and the fish, is the data and the actual regulation. Not the things they considered but threw out. Being offended by this, the Sierra Club decided to challenge exemption 5, so here we are.

In a 7:2 decision where Kagan joined the right-leaning majority, they decided that the Sierra Club can kiss their lilly white asses, and Thomasses less than white ass too, while they’re at it. Drafts of a regulation are deliberative in their very nature, and thus full under the Exemption 5 rule.

Hear oral arguments or read about the case here, on Oyez.com.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Jones v Mississippi

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Piece of shit Brett Jones, at the tender age of 15, stabbed his grandfather to death. He was convicted of murder, and sentenced to life without parole. On appeal, this little prick lost, and his conviction and sentence were upheld.

However, the Supreme Court of Mississippi ordered the court to resentence him. They argued that in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), the courts considered life without parole cruel and unusual punishment for a minor, and that you can only sentence some scumbag kid that way, if you can show they’re going to be a lifelong scumbag, or what they described as permanently incorrigible.

So now SCOTUS has to determine if a juvenile must be deemed a scumbag of the highest order, who shall never be anything other than a scumbag is the rule under the 8th Amendment’s cruel and unusual clause.

The petitioner came out swinging with some touchy-feely bullshit arguing that even the worst of kids can change their ways.

But, Justice Alito dropped a hammer when he asked,

Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

There are a lot of people, they’re not psychologists maybe, but there are a lot of people who think that every human being is capable of redemption.

There’s actually a famous quote by Gandhi, who says exactly that. There are a lot of Christians who believe that. You think of the good thief on the cross. So, I mean, what if a judge says, you know, wow, the Supreme Court says I have to determine whether this person is capable of redemption, I believe that every human being is capable of redemption? What do you do with that?

Essentially arguing that there are a lot of people who think the concept of permanent incorrigibility is bullshit. And therefore, for them, this option is useless, making it as irrelevant as Greek mythology.

In a 6:3 opinion, where the touchy feely justices on the left dissented, SCOTUS ruled in favor of Mississippi. As noted above, a contrary ruling would effectively let every bleeding heart dismiss any life sentence because it hurts their feelings. But also, it leaves it open for the states to decide how they want to handle sentencing young little cunts like Jones.

Read about the case, or hear oral arguments here at Oyez.com

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Torres v. Madrid

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Roxanne Torres, your basic every day crackhead, back in 2014, got all hopped up on meth, sat her ass in a car, and was tripping balls in a parking lot, othewise enjoying her evening. Cops being curious about this car just sitting there running, decided to check it out. They went to open the door, presumably concerned she was dying or something.

Roxanne being high AF thought she was being carjacked and took the fuck off. Side note, don’t do drugs kids.

Anyway, this hurt the feelings of the cops who then shot her, which failed to slow her down, so then they pursued her. Roxanne in her meth-induced stupor decided to go all Smokey and The Bandit and shit. She then swapped her car which was bashed to shit, with another car she stole. Long story short, it didn’t work out for her.

Torres, having been shot, checked herself into a hospital, who are required to report people who show up with bullet holes in them. So cops came and arrested her dumb ass.

Two years later, she filed a civil-rights complaint arguing the cops had no business shooting her under the 4th amendment which reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

She was creatively arguing, (and by she, I mean her lawyer, because you know her dumb ass didn’t think of this shit. She’s a fucking meth-head) that shooting her was an unlawful seizure. That they had no cause at that point to shoot her since they didn’t know she was hopped up on meth, and thus a danger to others, although if they had known, they’d arguably would have been justified, since people on meth shouldn’t drive.

A district court told her to get fucked with this stupid argument, as did the tenth circuit. Citing qualified immunity, no action was taken against these modern day Wyatt Earp’s.

But her argument is that officers shooting at you, is a seizure, because it pretty obviously says you aren’t free to fucking leave. But in California v. Hodari D, SCOTUS ruled that a seizure isn’t achieved until the person is caught. So a failed attempt to seize isn’t a seizure.

Torres lawyers argue however, she was seized when she was shot, then she escaped seizure when she started singing “East bound and down, rollin’ up and truckin’.” Then, she was seized again the next day when they arrested her. So in that first seizure, they believe her 4th amendment rights were violated.

Justice Alito poignantly asked:

Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

If a baseball pitcher intentionally beans the batter, would we say, wow, that pitcher just seized the batter?

His argument being, her use of the word “seizure” seems a little creative at best. That we wouldn’t use seizure in common language in that way at all. She’s clearly trying to fit it in to help her client, but we’d never describe seizure that way otherwise.

Anyway, in a 5:3 decision, where only Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissented, John Roberts and company said, “The application of physical force to the body of a person with intent to restrain is a seizure, even if the force does not succeed in subduing the person.”

They added, “So cops, you can fuck right off with that shit. We’re not going to be like, OK, if you try to stop her by grabbing her arm, or Donald Trumping her by the pussy, that’s a seizure, but act like if you shoot her ass to stop her, it’s somehow not. Get the fuck out of here with that noise. You tried to stop her—with your gun—that’s a fucking seizure.”

Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito basically asked, “Where in the constitution, or even common fucking sense, is shooting someone considered a seizure. We’ll wait.”

Hear oral arguments or read about the case at Oyez, here.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc.

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Google makes phones using their proprietary Android software. That software is based off of Oracle’s Java. Google did this so private owners who also happen to be code monkeys, would know how to easily write programs for Android, since unlike the code-Nazis at Apple, Google want you to be able to download or install whatever the hell you want to your phone.

Although Google was based on Java, what they didn’t do is pay Oracle to use Java. They rewrote Android software from scratch, but used the same terms and shit that Java uses, so it wouldn’t be foreign to Java peeps.

Since Java is an open source language (Oracle allows people to code with Java without paying them), Google assumed that shit was what is called “fair use.” The term “fair use” is kinda ambiguous in law, but basically it means, if someone has a copyright on something, there are “fair” uses other people can employ of that product, without violating a copyright. Like if I were writing a magazine article, and I quote a book, I don’t have to get permission from the copyright holder of the book to quote from it, so long as I credit the book, and don’t copy the whole damn thing, shit like that.

A federal district judge sided with Google, saying that if they sided with Oracle, that would prevent innovators from using such software, but then the U.S. Appeals Court sided with Oracle, saying Google probably should have paid Oracle to use their language, but still kinda demonstrated they were open to a “fair use” defense.

Initially, SCOTUS told Google to get fucked, because they were completely disinterested in these code monkeys and their petty grievances.

But then, a jury sided with Google, and were like “fair use motherfuckers!” Then a Federal court reversed yet again, saying it was not fair use, and the jury was apparently comprised of a gaggle of idiots.

So since a million courts seemed to have an opinion at this point, and none of them agreed, SCOTUS was like, “Fine, we’ll listen to your bullshit case, nerds.” We’ll even give you an extra 30 minutes to sort this shit out.

I think a good analogy of Google’s position is basically like this. If I am a company that owns a copyright on a paint, and you make a picture with that paint and sell it, my copyright does not give me any rights to what you created with the paint.

So basically, they’re saying the copyright prevents another company from making a software that’s identical to Java, and calling it their own. But if someone uses Java to create a new software, Oracle doesn’t have a claim to shit.

So the question for the court is do copyrights protect a software interface, and if so, did Google’s usage constitute fair use or not.

In a 6:2 majority, where Justices Thomas and Alito dissented, and Justice Barrett couldn’t be bothered, SCOTUS sided with Google. They felt that this was a fair use, and that siding with Oracle would thwart the progress of science and useful arts.

Thomas and Alito felt the courts should have ruled on whether Oracle’s code was copyright-worthy, and that they felt it was. As such, they felt Google had no business copying it faithfully for their own use, without throwing some bones to Oracle.

You can hear oral arguments and read about the case at Oyez.com.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Trump v. Mazars

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So we all know, the DNC controlled House of Representatives not only hates Trump and are working hard day and night to remove him from office legislatively, if not at the ballot box. As a libertarian who dislikes Trump immensely, even I am put off by the amount of effort going into this by Democrats who are playing politics at the level of full-blown hatred, instead of just accepting that this is our current situation with Trump, and they should only make efforts to win in 2020.

Well, here’s another instance of them abusing their authority. Despite having no credible evidence of a crime, Congress has demanded Trump’s personal financial records, in hopes to uncover some wrongdoing. They’ve presented it as they need this info to consider how to draft new law.

Meaning they’re acting as though they aren’t looking to convict him of anything, they just want to be able to write good law, and his financial records will somehow help them. Is there anyone who believes this bullshit one iota? I hope not. Congress wouldn’t even elaborate on what law they’re looking to write.

So despite congress’ assertion, let’s assume they’re lying political hacks, because they have a good record of being exactly this. Let’s also assume that they’re using this in hopes to find an impeachable offense in the records, because they also have a record of this.

Here’s a couple of issues with this.

First: If the professionals at the IRS who most assuredly audited him didn’t find anything worthy of indicting him on, it is unlikely congress will either.

Second: Any write-offs he took advantage of, that the assholes in congress passed in the first place, will be used to argue Trump is just a greedy rich asshole, instead of that they passed a shitty law, favoring some of their favorite assholes, which Trump was able to exploit too.

Third: And this is most important, in a free country, my personal financial records should be none of anyone’s fucking business ever. EVER!!! The fact we have an income tax which penalizes people for success, instead of a consumption tax which merely takes a fair cut of commerce, is disgusting.

Fourth: We don’t subpoena records to see if there is a crime in them potentially, which is what congress is doing. We have evidence of a crime occurring, and then subpoena records that would confirm or exonerate someone of that crime, based on the evidence suggesting that the crime which occurred has evidence in those records.

Anyway, enough of my own personal opinions, let’s talk about this case.

Trump sued his accounting firm to prevent them from complying with his subpoena. That’s why it’s argued as him against them as opposed to Trump against the government.

Trump is claiming that this is an undue burden on him. But the respondent is arguing that Trump literally doesn’t have to do anything. The subpoena is for his accountant, and doesn’t require any work at all.

However, in this testy exchange, Justice Alito clearly saw through this shenanigan of an argument.

Stephen G. Breyer

Yes, you emphasized it goes to a private person and it’s for tax returns.

But the subpoenas that I’ve seen go far beyond that.

They apply to 15 Trump-affiliated entities.

They ask for all documents related to opening of accounts, due diligence, closing, requests for information by other parties, et cetera. Now that’s a lot of information, and some of it’s pretty vague.

And if somebody subpoenaed you for that information or subpoenaed your tax accountant or subpoenaed somebody in your business, wouldn’t you at least want to know what was being turned over? Wouldn’t you want to ask them? And might that not take time? And might that not take effort? So my problem is there may be burdens here, third-party or not, and not just political burdens.

The job of the House and Senate, in part, as the President, is politics.

That doesn’t bother me. But the Clinton v. Jones information does bother me.

And the fact that what I hold today will also apply to a future Senator McCarthy asking a future Franklin Roosevelt or Harry Truman exactly the same questions, that bothers me. So what do I do?

Douglas N. Letter

Justice Breyer, I fully understand that concern.

None of the subpoena recipients have complained about burden.

The reason these subpoenas go back a ways is because, as you know —

Stephen G. Breyer

I’m sorry to interrupt you.

I’m not talking about their burden.

I’m talking about the President’s burden in having to monitor, decide if there are privileges, figure out what his answers are to all those documents you are requesting which go, in my opinion, way, way, way beyond just tax returns.

SCOTUS is now charged with determining if Trump must comply with these unreasonable and clearly dishonest requests from congress.

SCOTUS opined that they understand this shit had deep political implications, and potentially opens the door for congresses of the future to go after any sitting president they dislike.

The president argued that congress should demonstrate a specific need, and SCOTUS said, “Nah, dawg.”

But the House argued that that they only needed to have a valid legislative purpose, and SCOTUS said, “Nah, dawg” to that, too, fearing it opens the door for a malicious congress to harass a president.

SCOTUS instead, decided to write their own rules for this.

  1. The courts have to prove only the president’s records will help, and not some other asshole’s
  2. Courts can’t make this shit any broader than is needed for what they’re doing
  3. Courts should review it, to make sure it’s legit, kinda like a warrant
  4. The courts should determine if the president is being harassed, or the subpoena is legit.

Thomas said Congress should simply not have the right to ask for private and unofficial documents from anyone, in his dissent. Alito felt like the House hadn’t met the burden of the test laid out by SCOTUS above. The rest sided with Mazars.

 

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Mathena v. Malvo

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So if you’re old enough, you’ll remember the D.C. sniper shootings back in 2002. It was all over the fucking news. Well, it was two assholes, Lee Boyd Malvo (then 17 years old) and John Allen Muhammad. Muhammed was an adult, tried, convicted, and sentences to death, that all around piece of shit was executed in 2009.

When SCOTUS, in 2012, decided Miller v. Alabama, they decided that it was cruel and unusual punishment to give a minor mandatory life in prison without parole. In a later ruling in  Montgomery v. Louisiana they decided that Miller must be retroactive as a matter of constitutional law. So Malvo, didn’t get a mandatory sentence, but he did get life without parole. So Malvo’s cheeky counsel is creatively trying to say that the ruling was about life, not about it being mandatory, and asked for relief.

Petitioner Mathena, chief warden of Virginia’s high-security Red Onion State Prison on the other hand, thinks this whole thing is some bullshit. Malvo is a first class scumbag, and at 17, certainly knew WTF he was doing, and deserves the sentence he got. It wasn’t mandatory, it was the sentence the jury came to. So Miller and Montgomery don’t fucking apply here.

The case was dismissed, being withdrawn by Malvo, due to a passage of new legislation which passed in Virginia on February of 2020 saying that if someone is given a life sentence under the age of 18, they are eligible for parole after 20 years.