After 49 years of legal arguments, protests and political battles over the composition of the Supreme Court, the court has finally overturned Roe v. Wade.

No matter how you feel about abortion, this should be welcomed as a healthy development for American democracy and for the rule of written law made by the people’s representatives. Roe was a legal mistake that played a large role in driving our national politics crazy. Now the democratic process gets to decide what happens to abortion. //

The Supreme Court’s job is to read the law, not write it. Nothing in the Constitution mentions abortion even indirectly, and nobody before the 1970s thought the Constitution made abortion legal. At the time, even pro-abortion legal scholars thought Roe was shoddy. Its trimester framework reads more like a piece of legislation than like judicial reasoning, yet it foreclosed the democratic process from the kinds of compromises and changes over time that usually go into popularly enacted laws. //

The undemocratic nature of Roe produced a backlash that left the pro-life movement in politics much stronger than it had been in 1973. It revolutionized how political conservatives thought about constitutional law. It mobilized opposing factions in national elections, polarized along religious and cultural lines. It turned Supreme Court nominations into a circus. It occasionally triggered violence.

thidwick markvol
3 years ago edited
" the Bill of Rights was enacted primarily to entice the following territories to join the Union. In other words, Of Course the eighth is incorporated!"
Not actually. Prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights was not considered to apply to state action. The Bill of Rights was in fact demanded by most of the states for agreeing to the Constitution as a limit on federal power, because while they recognized the need for a more vigorous and cohesive central government than under the Articles of Confederation, they also wanted to make sure the federal government would be constrained in various critical ways - those they could then enumerate (the first 8) and those they could not just yet (9 and 10). The Fourteenth Amendment imposed equal protection and due process limits on the states. After a few decades, the courts began interpreting the right to due process under the Fourtheenth Amendment as including various parts of the Bill of Rights. That is what 'incorporation' means in this context. Generally, states have not recognized that an amendment applies to them until the federal courts say so. Often they have parallel provisions in their constitutions, so it did not come up all that often. My recollection is that 'excessive fines' had been incorporated, but in the contexts of direct criminal penalties and punitive damages, not asset forfeiture.

But in looking through the Bill of Rights to make this reply, I noticed something I have not heard discussed before. Only the First Amendment says "Congress shall not..." The rest just say the rights of the people as to various things (be armed, not house soldiers, have jury trials for amounts over $20, etc.) shall not be infringed. It seems to me the difference reflects that only the First may have been intended to apply only to the federal government, allowing the states to have their established religions (as several did at the time), or make their own provisions as to press and speech. In any case, Marbury v. Madison (which said it was the courts' job to declare whether an Act was constitutional) was not issued until 1803, a generation after the Bill of Rights was ratified, and the legal establishment of the time may have simply forgotten that only the First was so limited to Congress's acts, and so when issues about state action arose, everyone just accepted that the Bill of Rights did not apply to them. This paragraph is largely speculative.

One of the evils of the criminal justice system that we at RedState have editorialized against over the years is civil asset forfeiture. This Orwellian process involves law enforcement confiscating property they allege to be the product of a crime without the inconvenience of either specifying the crime, charging a criminal, or even showing that a crime happened. This is from Heritage Foundation’s Civil Asset Forfeiture: 7 Things You Should Know:

https://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/03/civil-asset-forfeiture-7-things-you-should-know

https://dailycaller.com/2015/01/30/the-7-most-egregious-examples-of-civil-asset-forfeiture/

//

A trial court judge ordered the Land Rover returned as it was clearly bought with proceeds from a life insurance policy and it was excessive. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that that silly old Eighth Amendment had never been incorporated, that is, made applicable to the states and because of that, the Indiana cops could do as they damned well pleased.

At the Supreme Court arguments, it was pretty clear that Indiana was on very unsteady ground with five justices very skeptical about the state’s arguments. No one knew just how skeptical the Supreme Court was until earlier this morning:

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that states may not impose excessive fines, extending a bedrock constitutional protection but potentially jeopardizing asset-forfeiture programs that help fund police operations with property seized from criminal suspects. //

The court also held that the Eighth Amendment did, indeed, apply to the states. This is the decision.

What the court ruled was that violating the Fifth Amendment is a constitutional violation that will get you into court with a “§1983” claim, but the Miranda warning is not the Fifth Amendment. Furthermore, two separate trial judges admitted Tekoh’s voluntary statement into evidence knowing there was no Miranda warning. That, right there, should tell you that this case is really about expanding the scope of §1983 for litigation and has nothing to do with the Fifth Amendment.

Miranda rests on a pragmatic judgment about what is needed to stop the violation at trial of the Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination. That prophylactic purpose is served by the suppression at trial of statements obtained in violation of Miranda and by the application of that decision in other recognized contexts. Allowingthe victim of a Miranda violation to sue a police officer for damages under §1983 would have little additional deterrent value, and permitting such claims would cause many problems.

So the courts reduced it to simplicity itself: Miranda became only required in situations of “custodial interrogation”. That meant the suspect had to PHYSICALLY be in custody when the interrogation occurred for the courts to feel the overwhelming presence of the state was inherently coercive. There could still be questions involved regarding whether or not a person was considered physically in custody, and to a great extent they relied on ‘reasonable man’…. i.e. would a reasonable man observing the circumstance objectively think the suspect was in custody? If not, police were free to ask anything they wanted-to. Spontaneous statements were also admissible.

Clearly ‘custody’ obtained if the officer said the magic words, “You’re under arrest”. It would also obtain if the officer physically restrained the person before asking questions, and it may even obtain if the person was in a police station when being questioned. For this reason, any time I questioned someone at the police station, I had them sign a document that said they were in the police station of their own volition and were free to leave at any time and say nothing to me at all. It also said if that situation changed, they would be further advised of their rights at the time it did. This is a common practice in police investigations and is known as a Behelor admonishment. //

The idea that police can be sued for failing to Mirandize when there is no requirement they do so is ridiculous. If you don’t want to have police be able to do their jobs… just defund them. We’ve all seen where that leads.

In a win for religious freedom and education choice, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a Maine government program that only granted tuition aid to parents who sent their children to a pre-approved private school without any religious affiliation is unconstitutional.

In a 6-3 decision that reversed a lower court ruling, the Supreme Court found that the Maine Department of Education’s decision to exclude religious schools from the government’s tuition assistance program violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

A California court sharply rebuked soft-on-crime LA County District Attorney George Gascon Thursday, ruling that he must comply with the law instead of just making his own.

“The district attorney overstates his authority,” the ruling said. “He (Gascon) is an elected official who must comply with the law, not a sovereign with absolute, unreviewable discretion.”

Their legalese might be a little better than mine, but basically what the judges are saying is, “Who the heck do you think you are?!”

The three-justice panel of the Appeals Court said in its ruling that Gascon cannot order prosecutors to refuse to charge three-strikes cases and cannot order prosecutors to drop or withdraw special circumstance allegations. The ruling upheld an earlier decision from a lower court that came to the same conclusion. //

George Gascón
@GeorgeGascon
Eliminated 8,127 years of unnecessary, excessive and expensive exposure to prison time.

Stopped seeking the death penalty in 17 cases.

Withdrew 77 pending motions to transfer kids to adult court.

Saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

All during my first 100 days.
3:17 PM · Mar 19, 2021 //

FOX 11 Los Angeles
@FOXLA
Since Gascón took office in 2020, data shows Los Angeles has seen a 34% increase in homicide, 15.5% increase in violent crimes, 6.7% increase in property crimes and 67% increase in shooting victims.
foxla.com
LA sheriff says George Gascón recall election on pace to happen: 'The country has had enough'
9:45 PM · May 5, 2022

(((DeanObeidallah))) @DeanObeidallah
There is NO constitutional right to own a gun. That was literally made up by 5 GOP Justices in 2008 decision of DC v Heller. We need to make overturning Heller a cause like the right made overturning Roe v Wade. My @MSNBC
msnbc.com
Opinion | We need more than new gun laws. We need a new Supreme Court.
12:55 PM · May 28, 2022

Barrington Martin II @_BarringtonII
·
May 28, 2022
Replying to @DeanObeidallah and @MSNBC
“…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” - Second Amendment, US Constitution.
(((DeanObeidallah))) @DeanObeidallah
“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
9:33 PM · May 28, 2022

((DeanObeidallah))) @DeanObeidallah
Reminder: Between 1789 and 2008 NO federal court found 2nd Amendment created a PERSONAL constitutional right apart from being in a militia to own a gun. In 2008, five supreme court justices INVENTED that in DC v. Heller. We must OVERTURN Heller so we can pass gun safety laws! //

The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, which specifically denotes the enumerated rights of the individual, protected from the overreach of government. That alone is enough to defeat Obeidallah’s argument. The idea that the Second is somehow the only right in the Bill of Rights that grants power to the government makes no sense at all, nor is such a position backed up by any historical writings.

Further, even if you dismiss that fact, also note that there is actually a militia clause in the Constitution. If the Second was meant to only apply to the formation of government-led militias, that’s where it would have been placed. Instead, it was put in the section denoting individual rights because the Second exists to protect the individual right to form a well-regulated (a word in this context that means organized and trained) militia.

The mention of the “right to keep and bear arms” is there because a militia can’t be formed without individual firearm ownership. That’s backed by how militias operated at the time of the drafting of the Second. Individuals showed up with their own firearms, which at the time were “weapons of war,” and organized and trained. There is not a single historically-backed interpretation of the Second that somehow comes to the conclusion that it’s a right meant to apply to the government and not the individual ownership of firearms.

Lastly, when dealing with the ridiculous assertion that Heller “made up” an individual right to keep and bear arms, it’s important to remember that courts interpret the law, but they do not make it. The reason it wasn’t until 2008 that such a right was affirmed is that up until that point, it was an absolute given throughout all of American history that individual firearm ownership was a right.

Heller was necessary because of clearly unconstitutional gun laws forcing a ruling on the Second. No time before it was the individual right to own a gun in question, and anyone asserting such is being incredibly dishonest. You used to be able to own fully-automatic weapons in this country. Guns in schools used to be common. That’s not because the right to keep and bear arms didn’t arrive until 2008.

If Baker, the man to whom Sussmann lied, adopts such a disinterested approach to justice, and Priestap, an assistant director at the FBI, shows disdain for the special counsel’s case, surely a jury of Sussmann’s peers will too.

The men and women of the jury live and work in D.C., with men and women like Sussmann, Baker, and Priestap. Their kids go to school together—literally in the case of one juror—and they likely can envision a friend or neighbor in Sussmann’s position.

While Sussmann’s lie was “material” in the legal sense, jurors seem likely to shrug the lie off as harmless, mentally parroting the woman several jurors acknowledged they donated money to when she ran for president in 2016: “What difference at this point does it make?”

I may be wrong. But I don’t think so.

What the NYT Cancel Culture Editorial Got Wrong, And What It Got Right //

The New York Times’ Editorial Board did not offer such a thoughtful conversation in its piece “America Has a Free Speech Problem,” which discusses oft-invoked “cancel culture.” It’s vexingly unserious.

The legislation’s central idea is that a company that controls a marketplace shouldn’t be able to set special rules for itself within that marketplace, because competitors who object don’t have any realistic place to go. No business can afford to be left out of Google’s search index, and few online retailers can make a living if they’re not listed on Amazon. So the Klobuchar-Grassley bill, broadly speaking, prohibits self-preferencing by platforms that hit certain size thresholds, like monthly active users or annual revenue. To take a simple example, it would mean Amazon can’t give its in-house branded products a leg up over other brands when someone is shopping on its site, and Google can’t choose to give YouTube links when someone does a video search unless those links are objectively the most relevant. //

If Google and the other tech giants are right that their dominance stems purely from the superiority of their products, then perhaps they shouldn’t be too worried about the Klobuchar-Grassley bill. After all, in an open competition, the best offering should win. Perhaps Big Tech really is the best at everything. This law would just make them prove it.

On November 5, 2021, Kyle Carruth fatally shot Chad Read in the chest in a child custody-associated dispute taking place outside Carruth’s Texas home.

On March 31, 2022, news media announced that a special grand jury convened in this case returned a “no true bill,” meaning they declined to indict Carruth on any criminal charges for his having killed Read. Accordingly, it appears that Carruth will face no criminal liability over this event (although he continues to sued civilly over his killing of Read). //

At the moment that Kyle Carruth shot Chad Read in the chest with a rifle, Read was standing entirely still some dozen feet away, not presenting as an imminent deadly force threat to anybody nor as an imminent threat to any property. A killing cannot be justified in the apparent absence of any such imminent threat, and therefore the killing of Read by Carruth in the absence of such an apparent imminent force threat cannot be legally justified. //

(If you’re wondering why I’m suggesting this looks like manslaughter, and don’t go all the way to full-blown murder, it’s because the immediately preceding heated physical confrontation between the men strikes me as the kind of “adequate provocation” and “hot blood” that would typically mitigate what would otherwise have been murder to voluntary manslaughter.) //

MajorWood | April 8, 2022 at 10:52 pm
My takeaway has always been that the mom orchestrated a situation to get her ex killed. she provoked the ex by not having the child where he was supposed to be and at the new “highly aggitated” boyfriends house. I just feel bad that the victim took the bait in the heat of the moment. //

when the deceased stepped onto the porch and committed an assault, that was burglary under TPC 30.02. This is the key to this case. (Again, other states’ definition of burglary may be different, but here you have to address Texas law as it exists.)

Ergo, the deadly force analysis is be under TPC 9.42(2)(A) — was deadly force reasonably necessary to prevent / stop the commission of burglary (which, because the deceased was still on the porch when shot, will boil down to whether the shooter reasonably believed that the deceased was going to continue to commit assault).

Just as Texas law allows deadly force to prevent/stop “theft at nighttime,” it also allows deadly force to stop the commission of burglary as defined in the TPC. This doesn’t require an imminent threat to the person — which makes it different than most other states.

The Clinton campaign, the DNC, Perkins Coie, and Fusion GPS withheld or redacted numerous documents from the special counsel.

Late Wednesday, Special Counsel John Durham filed a motion to compel the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, Fusion GPS, and Perkins Coie to provide the judge presiding over the Michael Sussmann criminal case copies of unredacted documents previously withheld from the government. The Clinton campaign and DNC have claimed the withheld or redacted documents are protected by attorney-client privilege. //

While Durham argues in Wednesday’s motion to compel that the redacted documents are not protected by attorney-client privilege, he acknowledges that without reviewing the content of the material, that assessment cannot be fully made. Thus, at this point, the government first seeks a court order compelling the third parties to provide the unredacted documents to the court for an “in camera” review, meaning a confidential review by the court.

To the contrary, Durham argues that Fusion GPS’s “primary, if not sole, function” appears to be “to generate opposition research materials that the firm then shared widely with members of the media, the U.S. State Department, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and members of Congress.” The government adds that while Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS purportedly to “support” Perkins Coie’s legal advice to its clients on “defamation, libel and similar laws in which accuracy is an essential legal element,” Fusion GPS’s actions were unrelated to any such advice.

Rather, as the motion notes, the “evidence makes clear that the primary purpose” “was to assemble and publicize allegations that would aid the campaign’s public relations goals.” And, as Durham adds, the D.C. Circuit has previously held that advice from “a medial, journalistic [or] political’ consultant that is not used in providing legal advice is not privileged.” //

Yesterday’s motion highlighted many of those public relation outreaches, arguing that Fusion GPS’ “role in promoting the wide dissemination of its own and others’ research would appear to contravene any notion that the primary purpose of their work was to aid confidential legal advice from [Perkins Coie] about potential libel and defamation litigation. “If anything,” the motion continued, Fusion GPS’s push for reporters to “hurry” to publish the Alfa Bank tale before resolving questions about its “authenticity” “would itself arguably create significant libel and defamation litigation risk,” the special counsel’s office quipped.

The Emmett Till Antilynching Act may become a key piece in the arsenal for U.S. intelligence agencies’ war on free speech. //

Touted as an overdue (if duplicative) law that no one could disagree with, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act signed by President Biden last week includes a subtle provision that could boost the Biden administration’s war on wrongthink.

The bill sailed through the U.S. Senate and the House with ease. The tactful naming made the bill radioactive to oppose, which is why 422 congressmen voted in favor while only three opposed.

Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the three who voted against the bill, expressed a handful of concerns, including that there are a limited number of constitutionally specified federal crimes, that lynching is already criminalized, and that “Adding enhanced penalties for ‘hate’ [on top of existing criminal punishments] tends to endanger other liberties such as freedom of speech.”

He also highlighted another potential pitfall of the legislation: “The bill creates another federal crime of ‘conspiracy,’ which I’m concerned could be enforced overbroadly on people who are not perpetrators of a crime.” //

The bill amends the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, passed in 2009, which defines and criminalizes hate crimes. The minimum qualification is an attempt “to cause bodily injury” due to the victim’s race, sexual orientation, nationality, gender, religion, or disability.

Bodily injury can be defined as “physical pain” or “any other injury to the body, no matter how temporary.” Sensibly, the 2009 law requires an attempt at violence to be made, which is a crime itself regardless of prejudiced motives. The new “antilynching” law takes this a step further by criminalizing “conspiracy” to commit certain hate crimes. //

So as of last Tuesday, it is illegal to simply “agree” to participate in an act if it falls under the categories highlighted above. One can imagine dark political humor venturing into these categories (a comment such as “I hate so-and-so so much I could kill him,” for example) being interpreted as “conspiring to lynch.”

The key issue here is that intent should not be the sole subject of a court case. The purpose of courts is for a neutral arbiter to determine whether someone’s rights were violated during an encounter between two parties. Conspiracy, if no action is taken in pursuit of it, involves only one party: the conspirators. Therefore, it alone constitutes no crime as it couldn’t have possibly violated someone else’s rights.

With this new law, the U.S. government has further expanded into the realm of policing thought crimes.

Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson doled out a lenient sentence to a child rapist for violating probation — and he allegedly struck again during the time when prosecutors wanted him locked up, The Post has learned.

The Biden nominee’s handling of sex offender Leo Weekes’ case emerged in a tranche of court filings and transcripts sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday — just days before the panel is set to vote on whether to report her nomination to the full Senate. //

During Jackson’s confirmation hearing, the Biden administration gave the Judiciary Committee information on seven cases in which she had sentenced defendants to terms below what prosecutors and probation officers had requested.

The Weekes case — which was revealed just days before the Senate is expected to confirm Jackson to the highest court in the land — was not among them.

“At [Jackson’s confirmation] hearing, senators rightly raised concerns about the consequences of light sentences for sex offenders,” the Republican Judiciary Committee aide said. “As this case sadly illustrates, those concerns aren’t theoretical.

“Had the judge imposed the sentence recommended by the government, this child rapist would have been behind bars when he sexually assaulted another family member. Judge Jackson’s personal policy preferences steered her judgement.”

“Judge Jackson is endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, over 60 sheriffs and police chiefs leading many of the largest and busiest departments in our nation, and 83 former state attorneys general from both parties – as well as a coalition of anti-sexual violence advocates and survivors,” a White House official told The Post Sunday evening. “She has answered the most questions for the record of any Supreme Court nominee in history and has provided thousands of pages of documents to the Committee, including about her decisions – all of which are public record.” //

Defenders of Jackson have argued her sentencing record is irrelevant, since criminal cases rarely come before the Supreme Court. Republicans and conservatives have countered by noting that such cases make up the bulk of Jackson’s record, since she has served just 10 months on the DC appeals court.

During her confirmation hearing, Jackson responded to criticism of her sentencing record by insisting that federal guidelines needed to be reformed by Congress, which did not sit well with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“It was not reassuring to hear Judge Jackson say that if senators want her to be tough on crime, we need to change the law, take away her discretion and force her to do it,” he said March 24 in announcing his opposition to her nomination.

“That response seems to confirm deeply held personal policy views seep into her jurisprudence, and that is exactly what the record suggests.”

“The Gibson family appreciates the Court of Appeals’ thorough and thoughtful analysis which rightly rejected all of Oberlin College’s and Dean Raimondo’s challenges on appeal.”

The Ohio 9th District Court of Appeals has just issued a decision in the Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College case.

For those of you new to the case, Gibson’s Bakery was a 5th generation family business in Oberlin, Ohio, near the Oberlin College campus. It served baked goods to the public and also to the student dining service, as well as operating a general convenience store. As with many other small businesses, student shoplifting was epidemic, as we covered, Student journalist: Shoplifting at Gibson’s Bakery was part of Oberlin College’s “Culture of Theft”

A store clerk, a member of the Gibson family, caught an Oberlin black student shoplifting, a scuffle ensued that was joined by two other Oberlin black students. When the police arrived, they arrested the students who eventually pleaded guilty. But before that, the college officials and students accused the bakery of racial profiling, called a boycott, suspended Gibson’s business with the college, and organized protests outside the bakery.

At the protests, a flyer was handed out, according to witnesses who testified at trial, by Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo, who also handed out stacks of flyers for others to distribute. The flyers accused the Gibsons of a long history of racial profiling, including in the incident with these shoplifters. The Gibsons disputed that allegation and that they did anything wrong in this incident, and requested a public apology from the college in order to repair the reputational damage, but the college refused. (To this day it never has apologized.) //

Based on the actions of college officials in conveying and promoting the defamatory accusations, a lawsuit was filed, resulting in massive verdicts for the owners of the bakery, David Gibson and his father, Allyn Gibson. Legal Insurrection was the only national media outlet to have someone in the courtroom reporting, including when the verdicts came down:
Closing Argument: “When a powerful institution says you are racist, you are doomed”
VERDICT: Jury awards Gibson’s Bakery $11 million against Oberlin College
Oberlin College hit with maximum PUNITIVE DAMAGES (capped at $22 million by law) in Gibson’s Bakery case
Punitive damage verdict against Oberlin College “was like a seismic wave moving quickly through the courtroom”

redfish
5 hours ago
Fake news. He's not suing me or my mother. //

houdini1984 David B
4 hours ago
I believe that it is fairly well settled law that there is an implied exception to the statute of limitations when bad actors fraudulently conceal their misdeeds. In this case, the defendants, federal law enforcement, and other bad actors all did their utmost to prevent any discovery of the truth.

Given that many of these facts have only recently been confirmed by Durham, I would think that the statute of limitations would have been tolled during that cover-up period. //

PubliusCryptus
4 hours ago
Why not sue? The criminal part of our justice system is now thoroughly criminal, it isn't going to help. It is run by criminals to protect certain criminals instead of protecting common people from criminals. //

Rockhound267
4 hours ago
Yes, there is a strong likelihood that Trump will lose this case. (I hope he doesn’t. I hope he wins and takes all of these people to the cleaners.). However, even if he does lose, he is still extracting a measure of justice from these charlatans. He is forcing them all to hire lawyers to defend themselves. That’s going to cost them a lot of money. So, even if Trump loses the suit, he is still getting some justice. //

Taylor Lake
3 hours ago
I have studied RICO law, including its private cause of action provisions. I think The Donald has a decent shot at winning.

The key to a successful RICO case is to establish the existence of a criminal enterprise. For a private cause of action, the plaintiff needs to show quantifiable harm as a result of the enterprise activity.

A criminal enterprise could be something like Person A authorizing the payment to Person B to pay Person C to offer false information to the FBI about an American citizen and a political opponent, with the purpose of causing a criminal investigation of that person. That's a federal crime right there. It can involve others who knowingly act in furtherance of the enterprise, including the "foot soldiers" who run the sham criminal investigations, get surveillance warrants based on lies, and leak their existence to the media.

You know, people like Evita Clinton, and Mark Elias, and Steele, and Comey, and the FBI adulterers... the list goes on.

If you are ever going to get the Clintons - and the Bidens, for that matter - you have to be able to punch through their veil of "plausible deniability" in getting their minions to do their dirty work for them. RICO was the antidote to Mafia crime family leaders like Al Capone who could run massive criminal enterprises but never themselves do anything chargeable.

In a RICO cause of action, all Trump needs to do is to tie Evita to the criminal enterprise that acted on her behalf. Once that's done, the beauty of RICO is that everyone in the organization becomes collectively liable for every criminal act committed by every other member, even ones they personally had nothing to do with.

When Al Capone was told of the Valentine's Day Massacre, he said, "I'll send flowers." When Evita Clinton was confronted with questions about wiping computer drives that likely contained evidence against her and her enterprise, she said, "What, with a cloth?" Both of these people let their arrogance and hubris shine through in moments like these. The difference is, RICO didn't exist in Capone's day.

Missouri lawmakers want to stop their residents from having abortions — even if they take place in another state.

The first-of-its-kind proposal would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident have an abortion — from the out-of-state physician who performs the procedure to whoever helps transport a person across state lines to a clinic, a major escalation in the national conservative push to restrict access to the procedure. //

I have no problem with laws forbidding taking minors across state lines for an abortion without parental consent (this, to me, means both parents). I favor states cracking down on the virtual consultations and mail order delivery of abortion pills. I’m 100% in favor of long prison terms for anyone participating in an abortion if the state has outlawed it. But, at some point, we need to realize that a lot of the country does not think abortion is wrong, and the way to move them is by education, not by the coercive power of the state. The last thing we need is ill-conceived laws that will have the effect of making heroes and martyrs of women who travel out of state for an abortion. The idea that any state government can compel you to follow its laws once you cross state lines should be abhorrent both in principle and where it is obviously going to lead us in the way of individual rights. //

Here is the problem as I see it. Can a state make it illegal for you to take part in an activity that is legal in another state? For instance, if New York passed a law making it a felony to enter a restaurant without having your proof of COVID vaccination, could you be prosecuted for dining out in Florida without such proof? Can you be arrested for possessing pot in a state where “medicinal” marijuana is legal if your home state still outlaws it? As you can see, if this idea is adopted to try to prevent women from traveling to an abortion-friendly state, the potential for mischief is meaningless. Already California is trying to use the enforcement mechanism in the Texas heartbeat law to attack gun sales.

Roe should be overruled. Almost no one believes it was rightly decided. Instead, the parties defending the case rely almost entirely on stare decisis, the judicial doctrine holding that judicial constancy is better than judicial correctness.

Yet Roe and later abortion cases are not just wrong, but egregiously so. Roe has thwarted the democratic process and made blood sport of judicial confirmations. It has proven hopelessly unworkable. Fifty years of legal and factual development have further demonstrated how wrong Roe is. Stare decisis should be no barrier to overruling Roe. //

Rather than deferring to the “bank and capital” of prior judicial reasoning, Burke identified five criteria needed for precedent “to have the qualities fit to render them of full authority in law”: [1] numerous; [2] concurrent and not contradictory and mutually destructive; [3] made in good and constitutional times; [4] not made to serve an occasion; and [5] agreeable to the general tenor of legal principles. //

Roe flunks at least three of Burke’s five-part test. First, American abortion law is contradictory. Roe relied on a trimester framework. Casey overruled this framework (along with several other of the Supreme Court’s abortion cases) and substituted the novel undue burden standard. Then, the Supreme Court came to opposite results in two nearly identical partial-birth abortion cases. Today, the lower courts cannot agree on what the undue burden standard even is.

Second, Roe was not decided in “good and constitutional times.” For 50 years, the Supreme Court has flitted from one constitutional rationale to another, unable to find the right to an abortion anywhere in the Constitution. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision “difficult to justify” and Justice Elena Kagan describes such former judicial endeavors as “policy-oriented” with judges “pretending to be congressmen.”

Third, Roe is not “agreeable to the general tenor of legal principles,” but departs from those principles at every turn. It is flatly inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s substantive due process precedents. It arrogates the judicial over the legislative. And it makes a mess of every area of law it touches.

The Supreme Court has limited its ability to discover extra-constitutional rights since the days of Roe. For a liberty interest to be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, it must be “deeply rooted” in our nation’s “history and tradition.” No such right to abortion exists.

A federal judge Friday blocked an effort to keep U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn off North Carolina ballot this year, saying the state’s election board can’t proceed with an inquiry that would have delved his role leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Chief District Court Judge Richard Myers said he couldn’t allow the challenge, filed by attorneys looking to label the first-term Republican as an insurrectionist who should be legally barred from the ballot, to move forward. The courts, Myers said, must protect the soapbox, the ballot box and the jury box.

“When those fail, that’s when people proceed to the ammunition box,” said Myers, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump.