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SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Monasky v. Taglieri

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Michelle Monasky, the petitioner, decided American men just weren’t for her, and so she decided to marry this Italian prick Domenico Taglieri. They were married in the US, but after a couple years later, moved to Italy.

Taglieri was an abusive fuck, but apparently in a moment of intimacy, got Monasky pregnant. Monasky and Taglieri split up in Italy for work reasons, and resided a couple hours from each other. While she was pregnant, she eventually decided she’d had enough of Taglieri’s bullshit, and began considering coming home to the USA.

Once the baby was born, she applied for a visa for the tyke, and came home.

Taglieri, didn’t find this funny at all. So he sued in an Italian court to have the child returned.

The Hague Convention that most civilized countries are a part of, has rules against one parent taking a baby out of its home country, to get away from another parent, without expressed permission. However the wording is a little vague, because they don’t say, “from the country the child was born in” or a very objective term like that.

Instead, they wrote it as “under the law of the State in which the child was habitually resident immediately before the removal.”

Since the kid was only a couple months old, it wasn’t even old enough to have a fucking habit. It was in Never-Never-Land as far as it knew.

A district court agreed Monasky must return her child to Italy, according to Hague rules. But, she’s fighting it as you might expect, arguing that her child wasn’t old enough to be “habitual” at anything.

And besides, Taglieri is a physically abusive prick, remember?

So now she’s asking SCOTUS to tell the district court they’re a bunch of morons, and rule in favor of her, saying that she didn’t violate Hague Convention rules, and allow her to keep her child here in the USA.

SCOTUS reviewed and unanimously sided with Taglieri. A child’s habitual residence is based on the all the information about their residence, not some bullshit agreement between the parents or something. For his short ass little life, the kid was Italian. So he is to be returned to Italy until this shit can be settled otherwise.

 

Argument preview: Justices return to international child-custody convention

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/18-935

 

 

Libertarianism

Average Joe SCOTUS: McKinney v. Arizona

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All around piece of shit, James McKinney, had a horrific childhood fraught with abuse. He started drinking and smoking weed by age 11, dropped out of school, ran away from home, shit like that. You kinda feel for the guy, but still, as an adult, he’s a total douchebag.

Anyway, he eventually committed robbery with his half-brother and two people were killed. So McKinney was convicted and sentenced to death.

No one wants to die, including McKinney. So because of the PTSD he suffered as a young kid, he believes that to be a mitigating factor in why he’s such a piece of shit now. Which is maybe true, but so long as you’re not delusional, you fucking know it’s wrong, and that you shouldn’t do it. So I’ve personally got little sympathy.

However that’s not important, I’m not trying this case.

So why are we here at SCOTUS? Well, SCOTUS in Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 (1982), determined that any mitigating evidence should be considered in a death penalty case, and therefore McKinney thinks his PTSD diagnosis is mitigating, and therefore would like not to be executed, please and thank you.

And also, in Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002), SCOTUS ruled that Death Penalty must be imposed by a jury sentencing hearing, and not by a judge. But Arizona was like, “Fuck you, that ruling happened after this mother fucker was convicted.”

But McKinney’s lawyer is nothing but creative. He wants a resentencing based on Eddings, which he believes must consider McKinney’s PTSD. Then he thinks that resentencing must be held to today’s standard as a result of Rings, that a jury must award the death penalty.

So now SCOTUS must determine whether this prick gets a needle in his arm or not.

The “liberal” justices agreed with McKinney. They make a fairly compelling argument that if SCOTUS makes a constitutional ruling, that the constitution shouldn’t be subject to timing. In other words, if it’s unconstitutional, it was always unconstitutional. It shouldn’t be deemed only unconstitutional after they hand down their ruling. Thus, they believe all such ruling should be retroactive and applied as such, to any relevant case.

However, Ginburg and her merry band of left-leaning cohorts are in the minority. The right-leaning majority decided that an appellate court can decide if they fucking want, and there’s no reason to retroactively change this. Ruling for Arizona, and goodbye McKinney.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Intel Corp. Investment Policy Committee v. Sulyma

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This dude Sulyma worked for Intel from 2010-2012, and as such was involved in their retirement plan.

Because government hasn’t found an industry it can resist regulating, taxing, or both, it passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which sets standards as to how investments are supposed to be diversified and other shit like that.

Intel had run afoul of these guidelines, and as such, Sulyma potentially lost potential income/gains in his retirement plan. It should be known, that had they diversified better, it’s not a guarantee that the other funds they might’ve invested in, would have done any better whatsoever. So Sulyma’s argument is purely hypothetical, versus having an objective understanding of the different in performance he might’ve expected.

So Sulyma decided to sue Intel in 2015, because fuck it, suing people is the American way, right? I have a shiny dollar that says he got his dumb ass fired, and was merely seeking revenge, but ahh well, that’s not important.

ERISA has a 3 year time bar, which says, ““from the earliest date on which the plaintiff had actual knowledge of the breach or violation.” 2012-2015 is the time we’re discussing, so  guess what? This dude is just over his three years. But Sulyma and his ambulance chaser are nothing if not creative.

So these assholes are saying, “Sure, you sent us like all kinds of paperwork that told us precisely what you invested my retirement money in. Sure, I should have read through it. But I’m lazy AF, and I didn’t. Fuck you. So that means, I didn’t know shit. And therefore, I had no knowledge that Intel was fucking up until I did read that shit. Therefore, it hasn’t been three years since I knew you were in breech, you motherfuckers. The law says “actual knowledge” not a possibility of knowledge.”

So here we are at SCOTUS deciding if Sulyma’s neglect, is a good enough excuse to allow him to sue past the time bar.

SCOTUS decided that the wording of the law is pretty clear. Even if Sulyma’s a dumb fuck who screwed up, the law is written with the phrase of “actual knowledge” and there’s no fucking way you can define that as anything other than this dumb fuck actually knew it. Not, that he had the opportunity to know it.

Unanimous decision for Sulyma.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Holguin-Hernandez v. United States

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SCOTUS must be bored AF to take on this one. But anyway, basically this Holguin-Hernandez dude (We’ll call him HH because I don’t feel like typing that shit out again) got his dumb ass busted with a little weedy-weed in his pockety-pocket. Enough weed in fact, the state assumed he meant to sell some of it.

HH got 2 years in jail, and 2 years supervised release. So anyway, this dumb fuck gets out, and goes straight back to slinging hash. We all know weed makes you stupid, right? Well he got busted again. So the judge revokes his release and re-sentences him for his new crime.

His lawyer asked the sentences be concurrent. Which basically means, they wanted whatever time he had left for his old crime to be served at the same time he served for his new crime. So if he had 12 months left on his old clock, and his new term was another two years, he’d just be in prison for two years. Get it?

But the judge told them to shove that concurrent option straight up their ass, and sentenced him to consecutive sentences instead. Which means he’ll serve one after the other. When sentenced, he didn’t raise any objection, he just bent over and took it like a man. But later, he tried to appeal.

On appeal, the courts were like, “If you were going to appeal, you should have objected at trial, and you didn’t. So fuck you and your appeal.” But HH was like, “Dude, my lawyer was an incompetent fuck, and he didn’t tell me that.”

But the courts were unsurprisingly without sympathy. So here we are at SCOTUS determining if his shitty attorney argument is gonna get him the concurrent sentence relief he’s hoping for.

SCOTUS felt HH made a fair argument, and unanimously sided with him. Assuming his dumb fuck lawyer didn’t manage his trial well, it’s also fair to assume his dumb fuck lawyer failed to advise him to question his sentence during sentencing in order to be able to appeal.

SCOTUS felt the right to appeal shouldn’t be jeopardized in the way.

Libertarianism, SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Hernandez v. Mesa

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On the face of it, this one makes me fucking sick. So apologies in advance for my strong opinions. I can’t find anything humorous to say on this one.

Several Mexican kids were playing near the U.S./Mexico border, jumping back and forth across it.  Border agent, Jesus Mesa, rolls up on a bicycle to do his job, and catches one of the kids—detaining him in the U.S.

Before I go on, I want to be clear; I think border enforcement is an important job, and I have nothing against them doing it, as the job description says they should. But this is not that. It’s not even fucking close, IMO.

Another boy, 15-year-old Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca managed to escape back to Mexico with his friends, and thus was not detained. He stood there, watching as his buddy was detained by Mesa.

Mesa alleged the boys, including Hernandez, started throwing rocks (allegedly not confirmed in video of the incident). Now I don’t know how fucking hard 15 year olds can throw a fucking rock, but I’m pretty sure, it’s not deadly. Yet somehow, this cop Mesa shot young Hernandez across the border in the face, killing him.

I’ve tried my best to find any reason whatsoever to defend Mesa’s actions, but I just can’t. If he was getting pummeled with rocks, and since he was on a bike, didn’t have something to protect himself, I can see where he might have panicked and fired to get the kids to stop doing it. He had one of the boys in custody after all, so he was probably trying to not let this kid go, and at the same time, avoiding injury from the rocks.

Anyway, the U.S. for reasons I cannot comprehend, opted not to charge Mesa at all. Not even for a lesser crime than murder. This incident occurred in 2010, so before anyone wishes to argue Trump is to blame for the inaction, this was the Obama DOJ.

Mexico charged Mesa with Murder, but the U.S. refused to extradite Mesa. So this man gets to walk free, when he clearly erred in shooting Hernandez.

Anyway, the parents of the boy, who aren’t Americans, are suing for wrongful death, since they can’t seem to get any other justice for their sun, and SCOTUS needs to decide whether they have cause to do so.

The majority opinion split along left/right lines ultimately decided that congressional authorization must be given to sue the agent who shot Hernandez, because of the international issue which potentially has national security issues at stake if this becomes precedent. But ultimately, that the constitution does not protect non-Americans in a situation which occurs outside America, just because the incident was perpetrated by an American.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2019/09/27/sleeper-supreme-court-case-could-make-suing-rogue-federal-agents-almost-impossible/#588a54ff2965

 

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2019/17-1678

 

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Retirement Plans Committee of IBM v. Jander

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IBM has a retirement plan, part of which is based on company stock. The person managing that stock, failed to act on information that IBM’s microelectronics unit was having issues, which would have presumably lowered the stock’s value, and thus harmed the holders of the stock. So they sued, because that’s what you do when you think someone fucked you in the ass without so much as a reach around.

Back in 2014, SCOTUS ruled in  Fifth Third Bancorp v. Dudenhoeffer, 573 U.S. that the person running such funds is not given a “presumption of prudence.” This is a fancy way of saying, the courts do not assume this person has done the right thing unless there’s strong evidence to prove otherwise. Making the burden of proof for beneficiaries to prove wrongdoing, not that high. They pretty much just have to show that they could,  “plausibly allege that a prudent fiduciary in the defendant’s position could not have concluded that [an alternative action] would do more harm than good to the fund.”

As such, the IBM peeps were like, “this dude fucked up, and we want our god damn losses covered. These assholes knew there was a problem, but instead of buying other stuck which was a safer bet, they kept investing in IBM stock.”

So now here we are at SCOTUS trying to decide if a fiduciary who knows the company stock may have an issue, but keeps investing anyway, be assumed to have done more harm than good under the previous 5/3 Bank ruling?

SCOTUS however, decided that they’ve heard all the arguments and they were bored AF with them. So much so, that they couldn’t even be bothered to give an opinion. So they sent it back to the second court to deal with that shit.

SCOTUS For The Average Joe

Average Joe SCOTUS: Ritzen Group Inc. v. Jackson Masonry LLC.

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Ritzen Group was trying to buy a piece of property from these deadbeats at Jackson Masonry. But then at the last moment, Jackson sent over some bullshit paperwork that caused Ritzen to have to pull out of the deal. Jackson was shit at their finances, and ended up filing for bankruptcy. So clearly, they were trying to pull something over on Ritzen in selling the property.

So Ritzen sued Jackson for breech of contract, but then Jackson was like, “Oh you’re gonna sue us asshole? We’ll sue you!” And so they did—claiming Ritzen entered into the deal when they didn’t have the money to actually buy the property, and thus were themselves in breech of contract.

So then the deadbeats at Jackson, having filed for bankruptcy, sought protection from Ritzen’s lawsuit, which is what bankruptcy does, among other things. But Ritzen filed a motion to lift the protection against Jackson, and were denied. So Ritzen sued the bankruptcy estate, and they ruled in favor of Jackson, saying that Ritzen’s failure to secure financing for the property was the breech of contract, not Jackson’s bullshit paperwork.

So Ritzen, having been fucked every step of the way, appealed yet again in district court, both appeals were denied. One denied because the courts said Ritzen didn’t appeal in time. The other, they just didn’t think Ritzen proved it’s argument worth a shit.

So now we’re at SCOTUS trying to figure out if the denial of relief for Ritzen are considered a final order, which affects how long Ritzen had to file its appeal. Because there’s steps in the process, and in order to file appeal, you first have to have a final order, otherwise you’re appealing before it’s been decided.

Unanimous decision for Jackson. Once a bankruptcy court has denied relief to the creditor, it is a final decision and therefore open for appeals, which means Jackson waited too damn long.