LOL. It's fun to see birthers start acting like toddlers when when you prick their precious little theories.
SCOTUS opinions begin with a question and end with a decision ...
Yes, but there's more to it than that. There's all that stuff in between, where the court explains the reasoning behind the decision. And that's where you'll find the court's definition of natural born citizen. If you read it for yourself, you'll find it.
ANYTHING in between the question and the decision is BACKGROUND. Justice Gray could have written in the background that Ark was the King of France - that does not make it so ...
LOL. So according to birther legal theory, everything in the body of a SCOTUS opinion, other than the question and the final ruling, is worthless and has no bearing on legal precedent.
Do I have that right?
Do I have that right?
It is not according to "birther theory" - as you call it. It is according to United States law. If Wong Kim Ark v. United States had settled the question of natural born citizen, ALL of the liberal attornies on cable TV would have cited it as stare decisis - which is Supreme Court precedent.
NONE HAVE - NOR WILL, BECAUSE THE TERM HAS NOT BEEN SETTLED.
Stare decisis: Latin for "to stand by things decided." Stare decisis is essentially the doctrine of precedent. Courts cite to stare decisis when an issue has been previously brought to the court and a ruling already issued. Generally, courts will adhere to the previous ruling, though this is not universally true.
Nothing in a Supreme Court opinion except the ACTUAL wording in the paragraph affirming or denying the petition [and the reason(s) therefore] matters.
In Ark, they strictly limited the decision to his citizenship based on the 14th Amendment - which Ark clearly was. As to the natural born citizenship question, basically, they punted.