Posted on 04/17/2018 8:07:34 AM PDT by SMGFan
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Tuesday that part of a federal law that makes it easier to deport immigrants who have been convicted of crimes is too vague to be enforced.
The court's 5-4 decision concerns a provision of immigration law that defines a "crime of violence." Conviction for a crime of violence subjects an immigrant to deportation and usually speeds up the process.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
everyone wants to be liked.
it is human nature.
Becoming more and more rare that I judge or politician that is #MAGA. Deep state is real...
Scalia solution tames the justices.
Jeezus, not again.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/10/argument-analysis-faithful-scalia-gorsuch-may-deciding-vote-immigrant/
Hard to call on this one - the press is Gaga “ooh Trump lost feel the burrrrn “ but Obama supported this law too and brought the case originally. So Obama is the ultimate loser here.
That said - the ruling looks correct - burglary isn’t inherently “violent” and if he is is badly worded or poorly constructed it shouldn’t be enforced as such. (Wish that Roberts had been consistent here with obamacare...)
Thanks.
Souter II?
Gorsuch was a Bushie who just weirdly hired a long-time Bush attorney to be a clerk for him.
A U of Miss grad who looks like she might have succeeded through loyalty, shall we say, rather than the usual smarts and stellar academic record of the clerks generally hired right out of top law schools.
Sure had the look and feel of a ‘minder’ sent over because they have Gorsuch in some way compromised.
I also found it interesting that Steve Pieczenik listed Gorsuch yesterday as a Trump appointment that surprised him because he was such a Bushie.
They may have Robertsed him within a year.
WTF is vague about crime of violence or the intent of a foreign prototerrorist to access America via crime instead of work?
These morons are breeding terrorists
There is no right to become American, it is an earned privilege.
Gorsuch is obviously another scumbag scam globalist
WTF?!?!?!?!
We’ve been duped again.
Anything that the ASSPRESS writes is most likely, and should be presumed to be, a lie, unless and until proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, otherwise.
Justice Gorsuch did NOT join Kagan’s opinion in full. He wrote a an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
HIS opinion, is actually the controlling opinion under the Marks rule, because it provided the narrowest grounds needed to get to the 5 votes on the judgment.
Read his opinion, NOT the ASSPRESS rendition of his opinion, and you will see that the ASSPRESS is lying, as usual.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/15-1498_1b8e.pdf
Unlike Kagan, Gorsuch bases his reading of the law and the void for vagueness doctrine on an ORIGINAL UNDERSTANDING of the Constitution and Constitutional principles.
“Vague laws invite arbitrary power. Before the Revolution,
the crime of treason in English law was so capaciously
construed that the mere expression of disfavored
opinions could invite transportation or death. The founders
cited the crown’s abuse of “pretended” crimes like this as one of their reasons for revolution. See Declaration of
Independence ¶21. Today’s vague laws may not be as
invidious, but they can invite the exercise of arbitrary
power all the same—by leaving the people in the dark
about what the law demands and allowing prosecutors and
courts to make it up.
The law before us today is such a law. Before holding a
lawful permanent resident alien like James Dimaya subject
to removal for having committed a crime, the Immigration
and Nationality Act requires a judge to determine
that the ordinary case of the alien’s crime of conviction
involves a substantial risk that physical force may be
used. But what does that mean? Just take the crime at
issue in this case, California burglary, which applies to
everyone from armed home intruders to door-to-door
salesmen peddling shady products. How, on that vast
spectrum, is anyone supposed to locate the ordinary case
and say whether it includes a substantial risk of physical force? The truth is, no one knows.”
Is simple burglary a crime of violence?
Congress can fix the law by amending it to make it less vague. The Constitution also allows Congress to limit the jurisdiction of the courts. Either approach will work if Congress chooses to take action.
Unfortunately, Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell have demonstrated they have no interest in bringing conservative legislation to the floor, much less strong arming the Republican caucus to pass legislation. Contrast to when Pelosi and Reid had majorities in both houses of Congress. Legislation somehow got written and passed.
Can it be any more clear that if Americans want their country back, it’s not going to happen WITHIN the system?!
That said - the ruling looks correct - burglary isn’t inherently “violent”...
I guess the idea is that “violence” means violence to a person. i.e. you can blow up someone’s house to get to the safe. If nobody is home, it’s burglary and, therefore, not violent.
I have to say that it may not appear that way, but I agree with this decision. Laws MUST be precise. This is why I hate that most speed limits are not precisely enforced. In a perfect world, they would all be bumped by ten MPH and then precisely enforced.
We usually see "felony"....or a real crime.
From Gorsuch’s controlling opinion:
“Having said this much, it is important to acknowledge some limits on today’s holding too.... Vagueness doctrine represents a procedural, not a substantive, demand. It does not forbid the legislature from acting toward any end it wishes, but only requires it to act with enough clarity that reasonable people can know what is required of them and judges can apply the law consistent with their limited office. Our history surely bears examples of the judicial misuse of the so-called “substantive component” of due process to dictate policy on matters that belonged to the people to decide. But concerns with substantive due process should not lead us to react by withdrawing an ancient procedural protection compelled by the original meaning of the Constitution.
Today’s decision sweeps narrowly in yet one more way. By any fair estimate, Congress has largely satisfied the procedural demand of fair notice even in the INA provision before us. The statute lists a number of specific crimes that can lead to a lawful resident’s removal—for example, murder, rape, and sexual abuse of a minor. Our ruling today does not touch this list. We address only the statute’s “residual clause” where Congress ended its own list and asked us to begin writing our own.
Just as Blackstone’s legislature passed a revised statute clarifying that “cattle” covers bulls and oxen, Congress remains free at any time to add more crimes to its list. It remains free, as well, to write a new residual clause that affords the fair notice lacking here. Congress might, for example, say that a conviction for any felony carrying a prison sentence of a specified length opens an alien to removal. Congress has done almost exactly this in other laws. What was done there could be done here.
But those laws are not this law. And while the statute before us doesn’t rise to the level of threatening death for “pretended offences” of treason, no one should be surprised that the Constitution looks unkindly on any law so vague that reasonable people cannot understand its terms and judges do not know where to begin in applying it. A government of laws and not of men can never tolerate that arbitrary power. And, in my judgment, that foundational principle dictates today’s result....”
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