Posted on 04/17/2018 8:03:55 AM PDT by BOARn
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.
A federal appeals court in San Francisco previously struck down the provision as too vague, and on Monday the Supreme Court agreed. The appeals court based its ruling on a 2015 Supreme Court decision that struck down a similarly worded part of another federal law that imposes longer prison sentences on repeat criminals.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the 2015 decision "tells us how to resolve this case."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Justice Gorsuch did NOT join Kagan’s opinion. He wrote a an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Gorsuch joined Kagan’s liberal block in the vote. That’s all that matters. Do you think Democrats really care about his opinion? Of course not. They won.
“shall not be infringed” is totally vague to a lib ‘Rat. Tons of wiggle room in there.
He joined parts of the opinion, and wrote his own opinion.
The media NEVER gets reporting on case law correct. Their one line headlines can never capture the nuances in a legal holding.
Morons who only care about “winning” or “losing” and who can’t read beyond the headlines and go to primary sources are the ones who “don’t care about an opinion.”
This issue goes beyond immigration. Gorsuch’s reasoning will also strike down the proposed ATF regulations on devices that allow semi-automatics to be fired “more quickly” than originally designed.
It’s based on an original understanding of giving notice to citizens of exactly what they are to be charged with.
There is room for reasoned disagreement on how far the void for vagueness doctrine extends, and Gorsuch directly addresses the difference of opinion that he has with Justice Thomas.
However, his approach is clearly tied to and based on an original understanding of the Constitution. Just like Justice Thomas’ opinion.
Kagan’s approach is different and its based on results.
Just like the people trashing Gorsuch because they are too dumb to read beyond the ASSPRESS headline.
Who is any court to tell the president he cannot deport anybody?
If SCOTUS says “crime of violence” is too vague, Ryan and McConnell can draft a revision to the statute in 20 minutes, pass it in both houses in a week, and have it on President Trump’s desk for signature.
But Ryan and McConnell are open border globalists.
Spit.
This is about ILLEGAL INVADERS, not citizens.
While pointy-head academics debate the finer points in their ivory towers, the nation sinks.
Thanks for posting the link.
It was an informative analysis.
Sounds like something that can be rewritten more tightly, then permitted, however.
Agreed.
However, this from the article is of concern:
"Conviction for a crime of violence makes deportation "a virtual certainty" for an immigrant, no matter how long he has lived in the United States, Justice Elena Kagan wrote..."
Assuming she writes from a lenient open-borders perspective, WTH wouldn't a crime of violence make deportation a virtual certainty!!
Am tempted here to write about zero-tolerance by the libs in our schools as being inconsistent, but the two are not related. American students are entitled to presumptions that may or may not be offered to those here at our pleasure.
The Supreme Court has absolutely NO SAY on matters of immigration.
That is solely the purview of the Executive Branch.
Justice Kagan. Born and raised in New York City. Went to Harvard Law School.
Her adjustment to the atmosphere of Harvard was rocky, she received the worst grades of her entire law school career in her first semester.
While at the University of Chicago, she published a law review article on the regulation of First Amendment hate speech in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul; an article discussing the significance of governmental motive in regulating speech;and a review of a book by Stephen L. Carter discussing the judicial confirmation process. In the first article, which became highly influential, Kagan argued that the Supreme Court should examine governmental motives when deciding First Amendment cases and analyzed historic draft-card burning and flag burning cases in light of free speech arguments.
Kagan joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School as an assistant professor in 1991.
In 1993, Senator Joe Biden appointed Kagan as a special counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee. During this time, she worked on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Kagan served as Associate White House Counsel for Bill Clinton.
In 2001, she was named a full professor and in 2003 was named Dean of the Law School by Harvard University President Lawrence Summers.
During her deanship, Kagan upheld a decades-old policy barring military recruiters from the Office of Career Services because she felt that the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy discriminated against gays and lesbians.
As dean, Kagan supported a lawsuit intended to overturn the Solomon Amendment so military recruiters might be banned from the grounds of schools like Harvard.
On January 5, 2009, President-elect Barack Obama announced he would nominate Kagan to be Solicitor General.
~ Wikipedia
If the only problem is that the law is too vague, then make it clear by listing specific “crimes of violence,” e.g., Murder I,II,III, aggravated assault, simple assault, vehicular homicide, rape, etc. Problem solved.
Just like the people trashing Gorsuch because they are too dumb to read beyond the ASSPRESS headline.
I don’t care what the press writes.
I care that Gorsuch is voting with Dirtbag democrats on immigration issues while Americans lay dead in the streets of Democrat sanctuary cities.
Apparently, you haven’t noticed we are in a war here for the future of our country. Tip toeing through the tulips is not how you defeat rampaging Democrats.
This is BS ... but OK ... just rewrite the law to replace “crimes of violence” with specific crimes.
This is about ILLEGAL INVADERS, not citizens.
While pointy-head academics debate the finer points in their ivory towers, the nation sinks.
Exactly. But it’s even worse. These are CRIMINAL illegal invaders we are talking about here.
Justice Gorsuch never said that such illegal invaders CAN’T be deported.
“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....”
Sometimes failure is a good thing. It makes one reconsider what went wrong. And then leads to finding something that is the RIGHT solution.
In the greater scheme of things this will likely prove to be a boon to Trump's plans to stem illegal entry, not to encourage it.
The category in which Dimaya's convictions fell is a crime "that, by its very nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force ... may be used in the course of committing the offense." (Emphasis added.)
If two people get into a public argument over politics, and it turns into a shouting match such as they may be arrested for disturbing the peace, under this standard "disturbing the peace" may be a crime involving a substantial risk that physical force may be used in the course of disturbing the peace, particularly if one or both people are armed. They could be punished for what might have happened, not just what did happen.
Do we want that?
Not that significant of a law. Very few illegals impacted
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