SCOTUS decided on the 25th of March on the Medellin v. Texas case. Essentially it asserts that International Treaties (in this case, the U.N. Vienna Convention) are not automatically enforceable judicially, and the wording of the treaty itself can be used to determine whether the law must be codified by Executive or Legislative action.

The Vienna Convention held that foreign nationals needed to be notified of their right to consult their consulate if they were arrested and charged. The justice system in Texas had not offered Medellin that right, so he brought it up on appeal in the U.S. District Court, and it eventually made its way up to the Supreme Court.

I’m of the opinion that Justice Roberts (and the other four in the majority) have this right, legally. There’s a little debate at the Federalist Society which is interesting. If you can make your way through the legal stuff, (and if I can…you can) you’ll see those that support the decision have a pretty strong argument.

As always, though, with these international cases, I try to pretend that if an American was in another country and committed a heinous crime, would I want them to be extradited? Would it depend on the crime? Or would it depend on the country? Or neither?

It’s an interesting case.

Now I can understand technically that this might be the first time in our nation’s history that the right to bear arms has been “embraced” (possibly) by the Supreme Court, but what is so new about the right to bear arms?

The reason it hasn’t been “embraced” by the Supreme Court is because it hasn’t needed to be. What’s SHOCKING is that it took this long for someone in the District to appeal this obvious constitutional infringement. Let’s take a look at it, shall we?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Hmmm…what part of that is not clear? A well-regulated militia, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. First of all, there is a difference between a standing army and a militia, and even the National Guard fits the former definition better than the latter. A militia is by its definition ARMED individuals prepared to defend their community from whatever force it feels is infringing upon its community. For a Solicitor General to make this argument:

…Mr. Dellinger asserted that at the time the Second Amendment was drafted, “the people” and “the militia” were essentially synonymous; therefore, he said, the amendment, its two clauses properly interpreted, gave people the right to own weapons only in connection with their militia service….Mr. Dellinger, a former acting solicitor general, {stated} that the focus should be on “the scope and nature of the right that the people have.” He added, “It is a right to participate in the common defense.”

And how are people to participate in the common defense if they are unarmed? And what is “common”? The country? State? Neighborhood?

And what about the handgun violence in D.C. today? The Boston Globe calls it a mystery that the gun ban in DC hasn’t “accomplished everything that mayor and council of that era wanted it to.”

Really? But for a real groan, read this:

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, late in the argument, made an effort to save the statute by a similar historical analogy. Firearms were regulated in the country’s early years for the sake of safety, he noted, describing a Massachusetts law that prohibited keeping loaded weapons in the home because of the risk of fire. “So today, roughly, you can say no handguns in the city because of the risk of crime,” Justice Breyer said. “Things change.”

What? Risk of crime? So guns are at risk of just jumping up and committing crimes all on their own? I’m amazed at this twisted sort of logic. At least he didn’t cite “International Law.” If he did he might have done a little research on the UK gun ban in 1996-7.

If this case goes where I hope it’s going, this will be the most fortunate turn of events for the people of DC in decades.

The Supreme Court appears very close to deciding FOR the Voter ID law in Indiana. My esteemed colleague in DC and I have had a discussion about voter fraud vs. disenfranchisement.

On one side:

“The real question is, does it disenfranchise anyone?” Todd Rokita, Indiana secretary of state told CNN. “After six elections in the state of Indiana, the answer has been no. … That’s why the opponents to this keep losing in court.”

State officials claim that voter turnout actually has increased 2 percent since the law took effect. But Rokita concedes the state has never presented a case of “voter impersonation,” which the law was designed to safeguard against.

And on the other side:

Among those cited by Democrats is Mary-Jo Criswell, a 71-year-old Indianapolis Democrat, who could not vote last November because she had no driver’s license or valid passport.

She previously had used a private bank-issued card with her photo when voting. The former precinct committeewoman had difficulty rebuilding an identity trail, and still does not have a valid photo ID. Criswell said in an affidavit she felt intimidated by the burdensome bureaucracy she claims is needed to vote.

Does anyone but me see the problem with this logic? I have the following questions:

1. What percentage of the population does not have a valid driver’s license, or photo ID?
2. How much does it cost to get a photo ID?
3. Does it take any more time or physical ability to get a photo ID than the act of voting itself.
4. If either the cost or the effort or “bureaucracy” is too burdensome, what’s wrong with an absentee ballot?
5. On that note, how does one register to vote if one does not have a photo ID at the time of registering? If a photo ID is not necessary to register, shouldn’t the State of Indiana just make it required to issue a photo ID at the time of registration if the person does not possess said photo ID? I can’t imagine the cost for that being too prohibitive.
6. And, why would anyone want anyone to be able to vote without a proper ID? It seems very simple to me that making the case for Voter Disenfranchisement via requiring a photo ID is much harder than for the possibility of Voter Fraud by just “signing a poll book” without a photo ID.
7. Doesn’t it seem logical that the reason there has never been a case of “Voter Impersonation” brought to the courts in Indiana is because if it did happen, there’s little way to prove that it did, since the impersonator is unlikely to come forward and the impersonatee is unlikely to even know he’s being impersonated? And doesn’t it follow that since the crime of Voter Fraud is almost impossible to prove after the fact, and so easy to prevent ahead of time, that a photo ID just makes sense?
8. Conversely, can’t one logically conclude that since Voter Disenfranchisement is very easy to prevent ahead of time, that helping voters without IDs get them makes a lot more sense than fighting to allow just anyone to vote as anyone without photo ID?

Or am I missing something?

Update:  It appears that the lady cited as an example for the “disenfranchisement” has been proven to be guilty of…guess what?…voter fraud.  Turns out the ID she tried to use in the previous election was a Florida Driver’s license, and she was registered to vote in two States.  So she got caught, and now is screaming “disenfranchisement.”  Well…there…you…go.  Hat tip to Hot Air.

Interesting write up of Justice Clarence Thomas.

Here’s an article a couple of weeks ago in the Sun talking about what I was talking about the week before that:

That Anthony Kennedy is probably one of the most powerful men in America right now, as a “Moderate” on the US Supreme Court. In a three week period Kennedy ruled (the others’ positions were already clear) on Guantanimo Bay detainees access to U.S. Courts, CO2 emissions regulated by the EPA, and today…partial birth abortion.

From the article:

In his 19 years on the court, Justice Kennedy has been criticized for deciding cases without an overarching judicial philosophy. As a result, his vote appears to be up for grabs from one case to the next.

I’m not sure that’s a completely fair criticism, and not that it doesn’t have an element of truth in it, but that compared to Justice O’Connor, Kennedy is a downright idealogue. If you look at the two cases of Partial Birth Abortion, and CO2 emissions, Kennedy in both cases came on the side of affirming federal authority. Neither is a “state’s rights” victory per se, but it just happens that a pro-life stance will take precedent over a state’s rights stance everytime on the conservative side of the court.

As one can tell from the decisions (for emissions controls, against the Gitmo detainees–actually deciding not to take up the case (for now)–, and for a Partial Birth Abortion ban), Kennedy can swing either way and it’s all up to him.

On a political note, the National Review Online already has a compendium of reactions from some of the leading Presidential Candidates on the Partial Birth ban.

Update: I couldn’t resist linking to this post by Coyote Blog on the ideas of “choice,” breast implants, and partial-birth abortion.

The New York Sun

An interesting article on the recent ruling by the Supreme Court on the Bush Administration’s ruling on carbon dioxide emissions. Apparently John Paul Stephens, et. al., believes the EPA is not doing enough.

He said a refusal to regulate could be based only on science and “reasoned justification,” adding that while the statute left the central determination to the “judgment” of the agency’s administrator, “the use of the word ‘judgment’ is not a roving license to ignore the statutory text.”

In other words, ‘judgement” is not a roving license to use your own judgement, so the court’s judgement must intervene.

Regardless of your take on the issue itself, the interesting thing in this article is the resurgence of “Federalism” that this decision represents. John Paul Stephens, long an opponent of many of the states’ rights decisions over the Rehnquist years, uses this resurgence as a weapon:

This new twist on the court’s standing doctrine may have been an essential tactic in winning the vote of Kennedy, a leader in the court’s federalism revolution of recent years. Stevens, a dissenter from the court’s states’-rights rulings and a master of court strategy, in effect managed to use federalism as a sword rather than a shield.

This illustrates clearly how the most powerful man on the Supreme Court is now undoubtedly Anthony Kennedy. He used to share the “Moderate” and tie-breaker role with Sandra Day O’Connor. Now he is THE guy.

International Herald Tribune