Posted on 06/03/2019 4:19:33 PM PDT by Libloather
The Supreme Court on Monday found that a criminal defendant can be sentenced for violating his supervised release, even if the release expires while he is incarcerated ahead of facing new charges.
The justices, divided in the 5-4 decision, ruled against Jason Mont's argument that a district court shouldn't be able to charge him for violating his release because the term had expired at the time of the new sentencing.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sided with conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh in the majority. Justice Neil Gorsuch joined liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan in opposing the decision.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
You shouldn’t look at this as a right or left issue. The fact that the ruling allows the government to charge the defendant gives more power to the government. Although many conservatives believe in “law and order” the result is the painful and inexorable march towards more centralized government power.
I would hope that conservatives believe in conserving individual liberty over expanding government powers.
Gorsuch is a Federalist Society member.
I think the truism is correct that both Dem and GOP pols on average are to the left of their voters and their stated positions.
Then of course there are the RINO/corporate/neocon interests in all the supposedly conservative groups, including the Federalist Society, such that their gold standard for judges isn’t necessarily so golden.
And even the Dems who are far more devious than our side, who could very well be encouraging some of their more moderate attorneys to posture for judicial nominations from the FS.
It’s about being able to enforce the law against criminals—that is indeed a left/right thing.
The same could be said from a leftist perspective, at least in this case WRT Ginsberg. I’m sure lefties are scratching their heads and wondering the same thing.
Guess what, SC Justices are human beings! Can’t really be fit in one mold or another. They aren’t robots. And speaking of Gorsich in particular, both the left and the right were all in a tizzy during his nomination thinking he’d lead the charge to reverse Roe on a white horse or something when the opposite is really the case. I’d be very worried if one of the recent abortion laws in the news now comes before the Court. Gorsich is on record many times supporting the status quo, very reluctant to reverse precedent. So all that hoopla surrounding his nomination was for nothing. For both “sides”.
Now, if I may end on a light note, here’s my theory why we are hearing that Ginsberg has apparently shown some life when so many on FR have told us she’s dead: this is obviously a Ginsberg clone, crafted in the clone vats reverse engineered from the Roswell crash. Note, they were tested when Elvis was similarly resurrected.
For the humorless, that last paragraph was biting parody, meant to make every fool on FR feel as foolish as they are for believing such a crazy conspiracy theory as that. Of course, probably won’t stop the most foolish of that group. But can’t help every bong addled freak. Hopefully though for the most part, that dark chapter in FR is now mostly over. Makes us all look stupid for actually taking such crap seriously.
Yes.
Not a clear case of left/right.
We’re all criminals now
Was it her, or was it some think tank that came up with this?
I’m seriously wondering...
Really—you don’t think parole violations should be enforced? You think the USSC should just arbitrarily wipe them away?
Ruthy must be getting some...
I’m conservative and I might have dissented from the majority opinion here too, because they used a process crime to add years to the appellant’s sentence. You can’t read too much into Gorsuch’s vote, as it appears to be based on the unique facts of this case.
That's a good point. I've never heard of any liberal judge "evolving" to the right.
Justice Neil Gorsuch joined liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan in opposing the decision.
Gorsuch seems the bigger problem.
I’m no lawyer, but it sounds pretty technical, and a charging issue. Why didn’t they just charge him with the new crimes instead of a parole violation?
When I was in law school my class in Constitutional Law had the privilege of meeting with Hugo Black. He started the meeting by laying out the usual guidelines of such meetings and then proceeded to tell of us of his philosophy in reaching decisions. He then proceeded to answer our questions.
Hugo Black was known as a liberal but his philosophy was decidedly conservative. He was strongly opposed to big government and his decisions, if read with that in mind, reflected his dislike of big government.
Black was a former KKK, FDR Democrat. Very much against the usual pattern by judging as a conservative after having been appointed as a liberal.
But indeed he was an originalist, and thus a strong defender or our enumerated rights, as well as for limiting the judiciary strictly to the powers granted it—while giving great deference to the legislative branch.
It is not supposed to be the role of a USSC Justice to decide on some government principle he likes and the rule by that rather than by the Constitution and the laws presented before him—and indeed that’s not what Black did. I don’t see how this judgment fits with his record. (Though I will fess up to having only read the headlines on it yesterday.)
1) He went on supervised release in 2012, which was to expire in 2017
2) He committed more crimes.
3) He was arrested and tried in 2015 and 2016 and jailed on the new charges in 2016.
The justices made the common sense decision that what mattered was his committing crimes during the period of his supervised release, not whether his sentencing occurred after the expiration of the supervised release.
Seriously, can I vent for a second. The SC is debating the hunting rights of some American Indian last week and now some scum bag drug dealer, yet every important case regarding abortion, teaching faggotry to school children, etc. etc. the SC refuses to take the case. “Well they get 10,000 requests a year” bla bla bla bla,
Just wish Trump would 1) Pick the right people to listen to. and 2) listen to the right people. Thomas and Alito are the ONLY trustworthy ones on the court. Clerking for Kennedy is a disqualification, not a resume enhancer. Let Thomas pick the SC replacements. And DONT say they can’t, don’t, that is not the process bla bla bla, you know what I mean. Conservatives, Christians, whatever we call ourselves kill ourselves with our own virtue. You have to fight fire with fire. The other side puts people who they know are 110% committed to evil on the courts, and we bother with “highly qualified” and “recommended” and all that garbage. We shouldn’t care if a judge has a high school diploma if we know how he/she will vote for life. this is a matter of life and death, the existence of our nation and these fools on the SC are pissing around with stupid cases involving scum bag druggies. sorry to rant.
Many said he would do just what he is doing when he was nominated.
He was not a good pick. One of Trump’s few mistakes
Thank you for your very concise analysis! I understand it now!
- Megan
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