Category: Law

British police who launched an offensive to crack down on seasonal crime have been pressured into renaming their operation. After protests from a pagan group, the name Operation Pagan was scrapped:

"It had seemed a good idea for Kent police to name the six-week campaign Operation Pagan because it coincided with Hallowe’en. However, the force had not reckoned with the Pagan Federation, which said the name of the operation, to tackle vandalism and violence linked to longer autumn nights, was offensive.

"Brian Botham, a spokesman for the federation, said: ‘They wouldn’t have called it Operation Christian, Operation Jew or Operation Muslim. So why Operation Pagan?’"

Perhaps because the word pagan has traditionally had a wider usage as a synonym for hedonist before it was constricted by the resurgence of people who consider the term a badge of honor. In any event, the police have rolled their eyes, made the change, and could not resist poking a bit of fun at the hyper-sensitive climate of contemporary society:

"A police spokesman said: ‘We’re sorry if the name caused distress.’ The operation has been renamed Excalibur. ‘We’re waiting for some Arthurian society to complain that we’re besmirching Camelot,’ said one officer."

GET THE STORY.

Have you ever seen commercials for birth control devices? A series of commercials that particularly annoys me is the one that run for a contraceptive patch that a woman wears on her skin to prevent conception. The commercials that I’ve seen usually feature some hip young female doctor sagely counseling a young woman about the wonders of the patch. Of particular annoyance is the montage of shots of happy women who are delighted with life, presumably because they are customers of the patch. One shot in the montage is of two young girls who can’t be older than twelve.

All is not well in Contraceptive Wonderland, though. The maker of the Ortho Evra patch, Johnson & Johnson, is being sued by a woman who suffered a pulmonary embolism that she asserts was caused by using the patch for seven months.

"Johnson and Johnson’s Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc. unit is being sued on behalf of a woman who had been using the company’s Ortho Evra contraceptive patch.

"The suit, filed by Parker & Waichman LLP, alleges the woman suffered a pulmonary embolism after using the patch for seven months.

"The law firm said Monday, after the financial markets had closed, that recent reports have indicated that the risk of developing blood clots, pulmonary embolism, heart attack and stroke may be significantly higher with the Ortho Evra patch than with oral-contraceptive use.

"The firm alleges that Ortho-McNeill was aware of the increased medical risk and failed to adequately warn patients.

"Ortho Evra was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in April 2002."

GET THE STORY.

Isn’t it interesting how the physical consequences of morally-problematic actions seem to "mirror" the morally-problematic action?

Well . . . THAT’S WHAT BERKELEY LAW PROFESSION JOHN YOO SAYS.

It’s not clear what he means.

His piece offers a good summary of Rehnquist’s time on the Court and the impact he made, as well as the Court’s recent spate of stupid decisions (Kelo, Raich, McCreary), in which Rehnquist dissented.

But the central theme of his analysis–that Rehnquist’s "revolution" is over–is unclear. It’s true that Rehnquist was a pivotal figure in the reorientation of the Court from the horrendous Warren and Burger days, when judicial activism undertook a massive, anti-democratic social engineering project on American society that is still underway, but Rehnquist was not the ideological leader of the return to originalism. Scalia and especially Thomas are much more pure in their originalism than Rehnquist was.

It’s hard to say in what sense the attempt to shift the Court back to orginalism (which Yoo barely touches on) is a revolution that can be called Rehnquist’s, except in the sense that he was on the Court early, was a substantial supporter of the effort, and happened to be chief justice for much of the time. But he wasn’t its ideological leader (Scalia), its strongest advocate (Thomas), or the man who put new originalists on the Court (Reagan and Bush 41).

If there was a Rehnquist revolution, it could be said to be over in the sense that Rehnquist himself is no longer with us, but Yoo’s list of recent stupid decisions is far from evidence that the judicial philosophy of originalism is receding into the background.

The recent stupid decisions were 5-4’s, which means that with the replacement of Rehnquist and O’Connor (who often capriciously voted with the anti-originalist side), these decisions and many others like them might flip to 5-4 decisions in favor of the originalist position.

They would have come out on the originalist side to begin with if Clinton hadn’t had the chance to appoint two anti-originalists to the Court.

With Bush 43 now getting to put two on the Court, we may not be facing the end of the Rehnquist revolution so much as the end of the Clinton hiatus.

You may remember the not-so-long-ago Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas, in which Darth Kennedy, leading a gang of fellow Sith lords, struck down a Texas anti-sodomy statue.

Lawrence v. Texas [is] the Supreme Court’s decision in 2003 that the Constitution protects the freedom of Americans to engage in ”the most private human conduct, sexual behavior," when it is part of a willing relationship between adults.

”The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in striking down the Texas law under which John Lawrence and Tyron Garner had been convicted of homosexual sodomy. ”The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government."

All of that is complete horse manure, of course. The Constitution does no such thing. Darth Kennedy and his co-conspirators are simply agenda-driven evilfolk out to impose their will on the American people by subverting the democratic process required to enact the laws that they’d like enacted.

At the time Lawrence was issued, people pointed out that its logic would allow all kinds of immoral sexual relationships.

And now the chickens are coming home to roost.

GET THE STORY. (Which is not actually about chickens.)

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

You may remember the not-so-long-ago Supreme Court decision Lawrence v. Texas, in which Darth Kennedy, leading a gang of fellow Sith lords, struck down a Texas anti-sodomy statue.

Lawrence v. Texas [is] the Supreme Court’s decision in 2003 that the Constitution protects the freedom of Americans to engage in ”the most private human conduct, sexual behavior," when it is part of a willing relationship between adults.

”The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in striking down the Texas law under which John Lawrence and Tyron Garner had been convicted of homosexual sodomy. ”The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government."

All of that is complete horse manure, of course. The Constitution does no such thing. Darth Kennedy and his co-conspirators are simply agenda-driven evilfolk out to impose their will on the American people by subverting the democratic process required to enact the laws that they’d like enacted.

At the time Lawrence was issued, people pointed out that its logic would allow all kinds of immoral sexual relationships.

And now the chickens are coming home to roost.

GET THE STORY. (Which is not actually about chickens.)

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

It has been often commented upon recently that Supreme Court justices who don’t have a firm commitment to originalism tend to slide leftward in their time on the Court.

There have been those who have challenged whether this is really so, but in the case of one justice, it seems undeniable.

Harry S. Blackmun, the author of the majority decision in the infamous case Roe v. Wade, which doomed millions of children to be murdered.

HERE’S HOW THAT HAPPENED.

An interesting thing about this article, for me, was its unintentional comparison to Citizen Kane. I have long regarded Citizen Kane as the classic cinematic portrait of the doomed soul who is so desperate for human love that he will do absolutely anything–no matter how immoral–to obtain it.

In the author’s words:

Roe vs. Wade is the "law of the land" or, as scholar Mark Levin says, the methodical seduction of a chronically insecure man [Harry S. Blackmun] by flattery, of a man who desperately wanted to be loved by all those who adore the New York Times.

In Blackmun’s case, he was terminally afraid of being lost in the shadow of his patron, Chief Justice Warren Burger, who got him his position on the Supreme Court.

Blackmun began voting more and more liberal in order to distinguish himself from Warren, lest they be referred to any longer as "the Minnesota twins" (based on the fact that they were from that state, which was home to a sports team of that name).

He felt compelled to prove himself, to prove that he was his own man, and to receive the adulation of others in his own right.

In the end, Blackmun didn’t even attend Warrent’s funeral.

How black is that?

Yesterday on Today, the senior senator from Massachusetts was holding forth on the subject of Pres. Bush’s new nominee to the Supreme Court and he (i.e., Kennedy) said the following:

    What these hearings are about are really the question and the challenge to make sure that we’re going have someone who stands on the side of working families, the middle class, of ordinary people, when you get right down to it.

    The American people during this process want to know is he [Roberts] going to be on the side of the major corporate interests or is he going to be on the (side of the) consumers’ interest? Will he be on the side of the polluters or will he be on the side of those that believe that the Congress had the right to pass important legislation on the environment? And will he be on the side of workers, or is he going to be on the side of the bosses? [SOURCE.]

Attention Sen. Kennedy! Judges are not supposed to be on the "side" of anybody! They are supposed to be impartial. That is why Justice is supposed to be "blind." If you don’t understand that, you are not qualified to assist the Senate in its "advise and consent" role in the nomination process! You are advocating the idea of judges who dispense justice in a biased manner. That is contrary to the virtue of justice itself.

The fact that Kennedy could say such things in public and expect them to be helpful to him and his Party is a sad commentary on how poorly educated in civics the American public is.

A reader writes:

I need a Roberts SCOTUS thread . . .

. . . or I’m going to die!

Well! We wouldn’t want that to happen!

Okay, one Roberts SCOTUS thread coming up!

FIRST, SOME BACKGROUND ON ROBERTS.

SECOND, SOME COMMENTARY FROM SOUTHERN APPEAL.

THIRD, A WARNING: NO TRASHING THE GUY PERSONALLY! COMMENTS THAT BELONG ON DAILY KOS BELONG ON DAILY KOS, NOT HERE. HARSH PERSONAL INVECTIVE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.

Now for the combox. Here ya go . . .

Two stories floated side by side at CNN:

Senators Urge [Sandra Day] O’Connor To Reconsider Retirement

[William] Rehnquist Silences Retirement Speculation

In the first story, four notoriously pro-abortion senators (although Mary Landrieu of Louisiana has a "mixed record" despite her EMILY List recommendation) have urged Justice O’Connor not to retire, piously asserting that "You possess moderation, dignity and integrity, and have demonstrated the highest standards of legal excellence" and urging that President Bush name her as Chief Justice Rehnquist’s replacement:

"In a copy of the letter obtained by CNN, Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-California, Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, urged the 75-year-old jurist to return to the court as the chief justice of the United States to avoid what could be a messy confirmation fight over her successor.

"’As United States senators with the constitutional responsibility of "advice and consent," we would strongly recommend to President Bush that he nominate you as chief justice,’ the letter said."

Uh huh.  And had John Kerry won election in 2004 would these senators still recommend that O’Connor be named Chief Justice or would they be clamoring for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

In any event, Chief Justice Rehnquist has apparently tired of the Retirement Watch surrounding him lately and has stated that, despite health difficulties, he intends to continue in office as long as he can:

"’I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement,’ Rehnquist said in a statement released through his family. ‘I am not about to announce my retirement. I will continue to perform my duties as chief justice as long as my health permits.’"

Point of protocol:  As a side note, and to sound off on a pet peeve of mine, the Chief Justice’s title is not "Chief Justice of the Supreme Court."  It is Chief Justice of the United States.

<Commercial>Get Catholic Answers’ booklet Supreme Injustice: The Looming Disaster in America’s Highest Court written by your gracious blog host, Jimmy Akin.</commercial>

Two stories floated side by side at CNN:

Senators Urge [Sandra Day] O’Connor To Reconsider Retirement

[William] Rehnquist Silences Retirement Speculation

In the first story, four notoriously pro-abortion senators (although Mary Landrieu of Louisiana has a "mixed record" despite her EMILY List recommendation) have urged Justice O’Connor not to retire, piously asserting that "You possess moderation, dignity and integrity, and have demonstrated the highest standards of legal excellence" and urging that President Bush name her as Chief Justice Rehnquist’s replacement:

"In a copy of the letter obtained by CNN, Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-California, Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, urged the 75-year-old jurist to return to the court as the chief justice of the United States to avoid what could be a messy confirmation fight over her successor.

"’As United States senators with the constitutional responsibility of "advice and consent," we would strongly recommend to President Bush that he nominate you as chief justice,’ the letter said."

Uh huh.  And had John Kerry won election in 2004 would these senators still recommend that O’Connor be named Chief Justice or would they be clamoring for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

In any event, Chief Justice Rehnquist has apparently tired of the Retirement Watch surrounding him lately and has stated that, despite health difficulties, he intends to continue in office as long as he can:

"’I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement,’ Rehnquist said in a statement released through his family. ‘I am not about to announce my retirement. I will continue to perform my duties as chief justice as long as my health permits.’"

Point of protocol:  As a side note, and to sound off on a pet peeve of mine, the Chief Justice’s title is not "Chief Justice of the Supreme Court."  It is Chief Justice of the United States.

<Commercial>Get Catholic Answers’ booklet Supreme Injustice: The Looming Disaster in America’s Highest Court written by your gracious blog host, Jimmy Akin.</commercial>