A court consumed with raw political power that cares nothing about stare decisis or the law.
Have you ever seen a spool of thread or a ball of yarn get so tangled up that trying to untangle it becomes futile, so much so that you throw it into the garbage?
Doesn’t it seem like that’s where America is headed with its fifty states with fifty different laws competing against federal laws and governors from red states refusing to accede to federal mandates from the federal executive because the guy in the white house is not of their party? All the while calling itself the United States of America.
There is nothing united about America right now; the country has an illegitimate supreme court that has zero legitimacy in its makeup, a court that, as a matter of raw power, eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, recognized a Second Amendment right to carry guns outside the home, made it harder to address climate change and expanded the role of religion in public life. The New York Times Adam Liptak, on July 1, 2022, wrote; By one standard measurement used by political scientists, the term that ended on Thursday was the most conservative since 1931. “Every year since John Roberts became chief justice, the court’s results at the end of the term have been less conservative than many court watchers feared they would be at the term’s outset,” said David Cole, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “This time, the doomsayers got it exactly right, as the court traded caution for raw power.” That can only be the consequence of the three justices Donald Trump named to the court, particularly of his appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the court after the death in 2020 of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The momentous and earth-shattering decisions of this radical right-wing court this term is only a small harbinger of things to come as the court’s next term will decide the fate of affirmative action in higher education, how to interpret the Voting Rights Act in the context of redistricting and whether a web designer has a First Amendment right to refuse to work on projects involving same-sex weddings. The justices agreed to hear one more blockbuster that could radically reshape American elections on the power of state legislatures to set voting rules. If the past is prologue, and in this case, it is, these decisions will effectively send America catapulting back into the dark ages.
The progress of America is now stopped, and a full reversal of rights that generations of Americans have enjoyed are now in effect by six right-wing frauds, five of whom were appointed by two illegitimate Republican presidents, Goerge W Bush and Donald Trump, both of whom lost the popular vote in 2000, and 2016 respectively but became president because of the equally fraudulent electoral college process that selects the American President.
If you thought that was all, you are sorely mistaken as state legislatures dominated by radical republicans are busy passing anti-voting rights laws, laws that would criminalize any woman who seeks abortion services in states that still offer them, and even laws that make it a criminal offense to film police in the execution of their duties.
In Arizona, Republican Governor Doug Ducey recently signed a bill into law that makes it a misdemeanor to film police from closer than eight (8) feet. This is Fascism, plain and simple. This writer wrote a while back that this would be the way forward for Americans trying to hold the fascist state actors accountable.
This was foreseeable as the cops all embarked on the same lie and began to parrot the same talking points, you are dividing my attention from what I am doing”. At scene after scene, they parrotted the same lie. I warned that their unions told them to say it and that laws would be passed based on that lie. The first amendment to the constitution is now out the door in Arizona. It will be copied and pasted to all states run by republicans and even blue states because police unions have huge clout and long pockets to fund fascism.
Weren’t it for a brave young woman with a cell phone, Derek Chauvin would still be a police officer terrorizing and killing innocent people?
Republicans like Ducey and the bill’s sponsor, Republican representative John Kavanagh know this, which is why they wrote and signed that bill into law. It is designed to stop aggrieved citizens, particularly black people, from shining a light on the state death squads that operate under the color of law.
Kavanagh admitted that cops complained to him that people followed them around and filmed them; the cops lied that people filmed them from within one to two feet. That is a lie as police force people filming to stay long distances away, often so far away they cannot see or hear what is happening. It is on those lies that this legislation became law in Arizona.
The undeniable truth is that the court that was designed to protect the constitution is now the greatest threat to the Democratic process.
* The Supreme Court ruled in Plessy V. Ferguson (1896) that race-based segregation was legal, a decision that was not overturned for more than 50 years. In this case, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of segregation so long as it was separate but equal.
* Lochner v. New York (overruled by West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish) In Lochner v. New York (1905), the court ruled the law interfered with employer-employee contracts and was government overreach, as well as a violation of the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause Until 1937, the rule was the law of the land. Courts adhered to the precedent, striking down similar labor cases.
*Bowers v. Hardwick (overruled by Lawrence v. Texas).
Michael Hardwick was arrested by a police officer in Georgia in 1982 for sodomy and sued, challenging the state’s law and naming then-Attorney General Michael J. Bowers in this suit. The Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that there was no constitutional protection of sodomy, and states could outlaw homosexual intercourse. In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the court reversed the decision entirely. In a 6 – 3 ruling, justices ruled for John Lawrence, who had been convicted under a sodomy law. The court said making it a crime for two men to have sex violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The decision would also pave the way toward the landmark 2015 ruling of Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S.
* Wolf v. Colorado (overruled by Mapp v. Ohio)
In the 1949 case. Wolf vs. Colorado, Julius A. Wolf, Charles H. Fulton, and Betty Fulton were charged with conspiracy to perform an abortion. Wolf challenged the evidence used against him, arguing it was seized illegally and in violation of his Fourth Amendment right. The court, however, said illegally obtained evidence did not have to be excluded from court by default. Years later, Mapp v. Ohio (1961) saw another stunning reversal from Supreme Court precedent. In that case, justices ruled in favor of Dollree Mapp, who was convicted of possessing obscene materials during an illegal police search of her home for a separate investigation into a missing fugitive.
*Pace v. Alabama (overruled by Loving v. Virginia
Pace V. Alabama (1882) concerned Tony Pace, an African American man, and Mary Cox, a white woman, who were charged with adultery and fornication in Alabama under a law that severely punished interracial relationships. Pace took a legal challenge to the Supreme Court, arguing it violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Justices ruled that Alabama’s law was not in conflict with the Constitution, despite more severe punishments levied against African-Americans in violation. In Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court reversed that ruling in another case — nearly 100 years later. Mildred Jeter, a Black woman, and Richard Loving, a White man, were arrested in Virginia and sentenced to a year in jail for violating a law banning inter-racial marriages. Loving challenged the statute, arguing it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court agreed. “Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State,” Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the majority opinion.
The supreme court has made monumentally horrible decisions that have negatively affected the lives of ordinary Americans in ways yet to be fully understood.
The court continue to rule and overrule settled laws that should have remained, instead choosing to ignore stare decisis, let the decision stand. Here are a few other examples.
- Roe v. Wade (1973)
- Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977)
- Baker v. Nelson (1972)
- Lochner v. New York (1905) and Adkins v. Children’s Hospital (1923)
- Chisholm v. Georgia (1793)
- Adler v. Board of Education (1952)
- Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)
- Pace v. Alabama (1883)
- Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce (1990)
- Oregon v. Mitchell (1970)
- Wolf v. Colorado (1949)
- Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
- Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.