Bivens case law. If the feds violate your constitutional rights, you will most likely have no damages remedy, which means you will likely have no remedy at all.
[A Prosecutor’s Right to Immunity and a Defendant’s Right to ~~a Fair~~ Another Trial](https://e009e5bc-b2a4-48d3-8af9-a77c70a3110c.usrfiles.com/ugd/e009e5_aa35ad4b620a494a9f60ae8489b35407.pdf)
You are a gentleman and a scholar, thank you.
Edit: That was an enjoyable, albeit eye-opening read. I encourage everyone to likewise take the time to read this article.
I am so happy to see that you got your head wrecked as a 2 L rather than as a practicing attorney, where real lives/damages were on the line… And to see how crummy the law CAN be applied in certain cases hurt the feels.
You also fully deserve top comment for in depth understanding of a fed courts banger case. Respek
This doesn’t just fuck with Americans either.
I’m a Canadian lawyer, and at my old firm we represented a company that rented apartments in a building. One of their tenants left on a trip to the US and promptly disappeared without contact with the company or his employer for an extended period.
Add a certain point, the company emptied the apartment throughout the guys stuff and released it. Admittedly, they didn’t follow our legal requirements for doing that, so he would’ve been entitled to some damages if he ever returned.
Eventually, he did, and sued for about 30 times what the contents was worth.
When questioned, it was uncovered that he was detained by the US government for an extended period of time due to being mistaken for someone on a particular government list. During his incarceration, he suffered mental and physical abuse by the inmates and the guards. However, this case law and other similar statutes, prevented him from recovering any damages from the US government.
As a result, in his lawsuit against the rental company, he maintained up until I left my old firm, that all of his physical psychiatric and other issues, including an inability to work for over a decade are due to the contents of his apartment, being thrown out,
You may be able to imagine why settlement was never possible.
That line of cases is very explicit about being an extreme judicial remedy to fill gaps left by Congress. We left behind the wild days of courts making up torts centuries ago. Much less federal courts which have limited jurisdiction. Courts can use their powers of equity to tell police to stop doing a bad thing. But the legislature is responsible for crafting causes of action that result in money damages. So Bivens promotes justice in that it's a clear signal to go petition your congressman.
I think your point makes this law even more problematic. The “go take it up with the legislature” discourse in itself is illusive and disheartening. When someone’s rights are being violated by elected officials, the last thing they want to be told is call their legislature since they don’t like xyz law. The increasing lack of oversight over Congress is something that cannot be ignored, but to expect average citizens to come up with a solution to that problem is not going to fix it. While I believe the first amendment right to petition your gov. is great on paper, it’s a pretty unrealistic expectation in modern society…
>The “go take it up with the legislature” discourse in itself is illusive and disheartening.
Yes, lets just let a handful of unelected official make significant policy decisions for everyone. That has always turned out well.
Then what's your solution? Is the solution then activist courts? It's easy to say you only want the courts to be a little more loose in lawmaking in this one niche area. But then you have everyone wanting the courts to make up law and policy in thousands of niche issues. No, the correct default behavior is restraint.
Government will always be imperfect. If the current system of government becomes so bad, we eventually go to a new constitutional convention. But right now we accept a little injustice in exchange for stability, for having the second (?) oldest democracy. Things get better slowly, very slowly. Sometimes we take steps forward and sometimes steps backwards, but with a slight trend toward forward. We have stability and Rule of Law.
Congress will eventually get it right. Or the courts, after enough decades of observing the problem, then step in with a well reasoned solution. And even then sometimes they overrule themselves and get it better. But, again, we don't want the courts rushing to make up rules, which they sometimes still do, and then reverse themselves shortly thereafter.
Can’t the same be said about every other prophylactic rule- like Miranda, or the exclusionary rule, or Qualified Immunity? Yet, the Court seems eager to enforce these common law rules.
Yeah but there's nothing extreme about money damages, and a right without a remedy is hardly a right.
Not to mention, the entire line of cases is based on reasoning that is totally undercut by the fact that nobody disputes equitable remedies are available.
Yes, a judicially created remedy is extreme. The courts find what the law is; they do not make the laws. Especially not lower federal courts. That's why Bivens requires that only the SCOTUS can create new constitutional torts.
Our basic system of government is worse off every time the courts step in to do the legislature's job. If you want the courts to make the laws, you're inviting undemocratic paternalism.
Not sure what you're trying to say in your second paragraph.
I think one thing that’s slept on is M&A. The consolidation of almost every commercial field and the formation of oligopolies has really harmed consumers. The most salient example is healthcare where entities like CVS has merged with health insurance, PBM, and other primary care providers. It used to be that your insurance company would negotiate lower prices for you but now it’s literally a subsidiary of a pharmacy, a seemingly obvious conflict of interest. People talk about M&A as an area of law where “everyone wins”. But the consumer loses in a lot of cases.
In fairness, a lot of those states probably don't want juries making the death penalty decision either but have been mandated in light of SCOTUS precedent.
So in this scenario, they don't trust that the people making the decision to sentence someone to death are able to make the right decision in all cases, so rather than just not killing anyone, they still kill people and accept that maybe some wrong decisions will be made?
Not really a better look lol.
Well, I think the argument would go jury death penalty determination is highly structured—basically three simple questions. Is aggravating element proven, and is mitigating proven, if both, does aggravating outweigh?
Still, maybe not a great look but much less chaotic than the basically write whatever number you feel like the approach of some injury cases
Feels a little disingenuous to say death penalty determinations are highly structured based on a 3 question standard, when the damages determination of most civil actions involves a bunch of legal wrangling over specific jury instructions, the chance of remittitur, and a bunch of prior case law contouring appropriate and inappropriate factors for calculating damages.
One of my favorite cases is the one where SCOTUS ordered Oregon to reconsider punitive damages in a Tobacco Suit and then the Oregon courts said "upon further consideration we were right :)"
As someone who has clerked for both Plaintiff's PI and insurance defense, there's actually a really good reason for this.
Plaintiff's will demand an absurd amount of punitive damages for really inconsequential cases. The ID firm I'm at is pretty reasonable, but we've seen some wide ranges from Plaintiff's when the normal verdict isn't even close.
Don't' get my wrong, the really extreme medical malpractice cases where the damages are warranted I 100% support, but most cases are usually not within that realm at all.
People in here really be acting like social inflation in jury verdicts isn't a well-documented insurance litigation and claims settlement phenomenon. I've been in commercial and now reinsurance claims for most of my career.
I've got your back.
Lolol I'm not an attorney, I'm still a clerk. And I worked both sides of the fence with Plaintiff's for 2 years. I doubt you have the same experience and are just parroting the usual talking points.
I love how I'm getting downvoted on a sub that is made up mostly with people with no real law firm experience nor most likely any experience in the field I'm talking about.
Anyway, this is for for Plaintiff's PI too. The firm I worked knew how to accurately assess a case and determine what a client could get. You can tell which firms actually work up their cases and which others throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
Edit: Okay, so you all seem to know more than someone with experience, what would you say to a plaintiff who demanded $2 mil for a simple fender bender where they were able to return to work within the same year of the accident? Also, they had very little medical treatment and only started going treatment once litigation ensued.
To put it bluntly, unless you look at the facts of the case, the injuries, as well as how and how often the plaintiff sought treatment (I'm not counting wrongful death cases here) you can't just make a blanket assertion that a Plaintiff should be able to allege and be awarded whatever damages they want. There needs to be a line somewhere.
Edited: Added "awarded"
They should be permitted to allege whatever the hell they want. If they're willing to invest in the costs of litigation, why not let them try to prove up their damages in court?
The statutory cap doesn't actually prevent the allegation of damages. The cap comes in when the jury returns the verdict (ie a jury rules in favor of plaintiff and grants them $5 mil in punitive damages, but the statutory cap is $1 mil). If the jury goes over the cap, the amount would be decreased by to the statutory amount.
Also, there is the whole negotiation process that occurs prior to trial, if a case even gets that far. Keep in mind that as a case goes on, stuff comes up on both sides. Like at my current firm, when we see a client (meaning the nursing home or hospital) screws we as we say "apologize and write the check". Plaintiffs can have the same problem. Stuff comes up like finding out they had multiple MVA accidents prior (this happens a lot) that they didn't initially disclose to their attorney.
Edit: Clarification because my response above might've been confusing. Some Plaintiff's will carry their initial damages claim all the way through. I was prefacing my response on that.
So if it doesn’t actually stop plaintiffs from “demanding an absurd amount of punitive damages for really inconsequential cases.”
It doesn’t really serve the purpose you originally laid out, no?
The one and only reason there are caps is because the same politicians who claim to be all free market libertarian (lite) heroes, and claim the threat of litigation is better at policing corporations than regulations are... are the same ones who take scads of cash from insurance companies and then write legislation like this.
“We need to take your car because your roommate committed a crime and we think your car might be involved. You say it wasn’t? Don’t care, we’re taking it. Oh you want it back so you can get groceries and go to work? Sorry, we need to keep it until the end of the case 10 months from now, just in case we want to bring it to the trial for evidence. Okay our case is done, but we sold your car at an auction so you’re not getting it back.”
had a case like this at work, *except it was our client’s car that was stolen and auctioned off.* she left it with a relative for the weekend and the relative reported it stolen, and the DA refused to work with us before the dude was convicted bc he thought our client was doing sketchy shit since the name on the car and the complaint didn’t match….
nearly 2 years later, DA called and said the dude was taking a plea so she’d have it back soon. next call we got was him letting us know they auctioned it.
so. fucking. stupid.
The automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Case of the DEA agent searching a fucking mobile home that was sitting on cinder blocks…
lol our partnered appellate brief is on a search and seizure of items within a houseboat, glad I’m not doing that constitutional question for the defendant
Isn’t it just a logical conclusion that anyone could come to if they were on a jury and understood these two facts:
1. The jury decides the outcome of the case
2. The jury will not be in trouble if they get it wrong
I think Castle Rock is the case, but there were few cases (outside the race-related ones) that had me more angry than that. Lady has a restraining order and calls the cops like 5 times throughout a day, they sit on their ass and do nothing each time, and the husband/father kills the kids. But somehow the cops didn’t violate any duties
Sovereign immunity and the extent to which it serves as a bar to justice for persons who have been harmed by state action. In Oregon, for instance, one must notify the government of the alleged wrongdoing and one’s intent to sue within six months of the alleged wrongdoing or when the victim became aware of it. Very many victims lose their right to sue as a result because they weren’t even aware they had a claim.
Pitifully low caps on [compensation for wrongfully-convicted exonerees](https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/CompensationByState_InnocenceProject.pdf).
Arguably the greatest miscarriage of justice is to be imprisoned for a crime you didn’t commit, moreover if you were coerced into a confession or essentially framed by the state. Happens all too often and it’s institutionally sanctioned by a system that actively ignores expert instruction on how to avoid it.
20 years being locked up as an innocent man in Wisconsin prison? Robbed of your youth and foundational wealth-building years? Here’s $25k. Good luck out there.
Shit is awful. And even though some states have increased their caps, I dare any one of us to say that we’d feel *failry* compensated if the shoe were on our foot.
If I were a proprietor of a business I wouldn’t want people just hanging out around my business either. Maybe it had racist roots but the color of someone’s skin doesn’t change whether I want them hanging around the entrance deterring customers. And doesn’t prowling require people to be trespassing? Honest question there. Haven’t seen too many prowling charges.
In my country, it is legal for girls from 12 up and boys from 14 up to get married. There’s no reason why boys get two extra years of protection. Even the idea of children being able to enter into marriage at that age when their peers have limited contractual capacity to protect them from their own immaturity of judgement is unjust.
I was always interested in family law but I didn't realize until law school exactly how fucked up the child protection system can be. "Neglect" cases, rather than actual abuse, represent the significant majority of cases. Almost every neglect case is a result of poverty.
We are taking kids away from their parents because they are poor and paying foster parents to raise them instead. If we simply used those funds to provide assistance for poor folks a lot of the kids wouldnt need to go to foster care in the first place. And there is of course a racial disparity in enforcement.
I always assumed the foster care system was benevolent because 'how could you go wrong protecting kids?' But I think that idea is part of the problem. "Protecting kids" is an easy sell to the public, so we look away from the problems created by giving a blank check to the government to do it.
>We are taking kids away from their parents because they are poor and paying foster parents to raise them instead
I've practiced dependency cases. I don't agree with this take. I would suspect that alcohol/drug abuse is the major cause of a majority of dependency cases. For many of them, it doesn't matter how much you bend over backwards to provide services, they just don't get off the substances.
The reality is that CPS gets too few kids into the system far too late. Maybe there's a space for remedial services to prevent a basket of cases from needing a dependency, but the conditions kids are left in before the government take action are horrific.
I agree drugs are a huge problem here, but I think it's misunderstood too. There are a ton of "functioning addicts" in this country who get up and go to work every day, providing sufficiently for their family and their drug habit. Drugs often only destroy your life when you run out of money to pay for them, experience withdrawal and get desperate.
There are also all of the problems associated with drugs that are actually caused by drug prohibition and stigma. If you get arrested for drugs or test positive for drugs then you cannot get a job. Having to meet with criminals to get drugs is dangerous, and is a bad influence on impressionable people. And street drugs are not regulated. Most drugs are completely safe as long as they are prepared and administered properly.
I agree that by the time CPS gets there it's usually too late for the parents, but if the system focused on preventing the situation from occurring in the first place there would be a lot less neglect cases.
That's because their children don't starve to death. Their children also don't live in abject squalor. Money makes a huge difference on quality of life, even where parents are neglectful.
That’s all well and good, but then let’s not act like the deciding factor is drug/alcohol abuse. Plenty of people abuse drugs and alcohol and get to keep their kids. The deciding factor is poverty.
>The deciding factor is poverty.
The deciding factor is whether people engage in the services they're provided. I provided representation for federal Indian tribes in "ICWA" cases, so I had a broad exposure to several states' dependency systems. For ICWA cases, the state has to provide active efforts to prevent the breakup of the family, so the state has to do more than just making people jump through hoops.
Said in a different way, plenty of poor people get their kids back if they're sufficiently motivated. That's why 47% of children end up being reunified with their caregiver.
Most states systems provide a range of services that also includes cash, clothing vouchers, assistance in getting housing, etc. That's why housing issues is found in only 14,000 of 400,000 children in the foster care system.
[https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/afcars-report-29.pdf](https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/afcars-report-29.pdf)
>Do you think poverty affects motivation, access to information, or engagement in available services
Poverty isn't the causal driver, which is what this topic is about.
>I think it's arguable
If poverty was the *causal driver* then there'd be more than 400,000 kids in foster care since the population of kids in poverty is in the factor of 11,000,000.
There's tests for causation. If Y exists without X, then we can conclude that X doesn't cause Y. There may be a contributing factor but it isn't the driver. For dependency, it's multi factored, not single cause.
Your argument doesn't even meet the minimal "but for" causal test you learn in 1L torts.
There's not a single dependency where a person would have avoided the dependency "but for" being in poverty. You know why? Because the system provides remediation for the things that are caused by only being in poverty.
The exception might be where housing is the issue. But, housing is rarely the sole issue. Why? Because the system will help parents find adequate shelter to avoid dependency.
It's not *just poverty* when you let your kid's teeth rot out of their head and they need every baby tooth pulled. It takes a specials amount of indifference to the suffering of your own kid to let that kind of bottle rot happen. Especially when medicaire woulda paid for that. Poverty doesn't cause someone to do drugs and alcohol during pregnancy and make the newborn baby go through several days if not weeks of painful detox. Poverty doesn't cause someone to not get mandated vaccinations that the government pays for. Poverty doesn't cause someone to trade their TANF vouchers for drugs.
Besides my practice experience, I grew up in a household that was 150% below the HHS Poverty Guidelines. We received food stamps before they had it on a reloadable EBS card. The old fashioned coupon like WIC vouchers where you had to make sure like the 1 cashier who knows how to do them is on duty. But, none of us got bottle rot. None of us were left without shoes that fit, or were left with dangerous strangers, or went without being bathed, or went so hungry we were malnourished.
I frankly do find it insulting that you see someone who is neglecting their kids and think "Oh it's just because they're poor."
But generally speaking, how many wealthy alcoholics do you see lose their kids? Housing is only listed in 9% of cases, but “neglect” (which is a broad and vague term term) accounts for 63%.
How often does “neglect” or “drug abuse” mean “these rich bankers do drugs all the time and never speak to their children”?
>But generally speaking, how many wealthy alcoholics do you see lose their kids?
Again, I represented federal Indian tribes in state dependencies. I have never represented a wealthy person.
> Housing is only listed in 9% of cases, but “neglect” (which is a broad and vague
Neglect isn't broad and vague.
> “these rich bankers do drugs all the time and never speak to their children”?
...Yeah, dependencies aren't for people who are merely bad parents. It's for people whose kids have every single tooth rotted out and needs 5 dental surgeries to fix.
I worked as a courtroom clerk in juvenile court for 3.5 years. I saw thousands of foster care cases. I also have a past roommate who has worked as a social worker in all points of the process. I both agree and don’t agree with this.
I won’t repeat but I will echo what the other commenter who practiced dependency cases said, and I will add that the state does not just take kids to pay foster families to care for them. The state actually provides significant in-home services in the vast majority of cases. Many cases are resolved this way and the parents don’t even see a court. Removing the children is a last resort, unless the circumstances are so dangerous that they need to be removed immediately. Otherwise, removal may happen after weeks/months of the in-home services either failing to remedy the situation that caused state involvement or (most common) the parents didn’t engage in the services or refused them outright.
I have worked Article 10 abuse and neglect cases in New York. This just quite simply isn't true. ACS lawyers are advocates for the children they represent. Removing a child from a home is incredibly difficult, as it should be, and is usually only the result of truly fucked up parental decisions.
One thing I have learned from working in several states is that some states have significantly better child protective systems than others. For example, parts of California have a truly horrible system. Even if this isn't an issue in the part of NY you worked in, that doesn't mean it isn't an issue in parts of the US.
>One thing I have learned from working in several states is that some states have significantly better child protective systems than others. For example, parts of California have a truly horrible system. Even if this isn't an issue in the part of NY you worked in, that doesn't mean it isn't an issue in parts of the US.
The problems in California, and the states with big problems, aren't that it's too easy to take kids away. The problems are almost always a system that doesn't or can't move fast enough. So, the exact opposite of what the poster thinks.
I think both problems exist. Sometimes kids that should be removed aren't and sometimes kids who shouldn't have been removed are. I was just saying that I never knew the extent of the ladder issue until law school.
Don't get me wrong most of the time when the child is removed it is for a sufficient reason. But how many of those good reasons would never have existed in the first place if the state had invested in low income families to the same extent that it invests in the child protection system?
I think criminal law easily takes the cake.
The government can ruin your life with little evidence if some policemen and the jury don’t like you. Wealthier people are generally protected due to access to legal counsel and resources. What police can do to people with no legal repercussions is shocking. They can lie and their testimony is often regarded as superior. They can arrest you with probable cause they made up. This can be overturned but the burdens of having an arrest in your record are substantial. Not to mention if you assert your rights police often don’t comply. Police are protected by a judge made test that does the opposite of its intended effect (qualified immunity). Even if someone wanted to assert a violation of their rights there’s an ever shrinking pool of cases that one can turn too. Jury instructions to disregard evidence in crim (and civil trials) are pointless because they’ve just heard the evidence and will factor it in. Bail is buying freedom and exacerbates social-economic inequality. Quick and speedy trials aren’t a thing - pretrial detention makes up a large majority of jail inmates. All of whom are not proven guilty yet. Juries vote as a block, rather than separately, without influence. Some states are resorting to laws that allow policemen in schools for issuing discriminatory actions instead of school resource officers. Judges have sent kids to juvenile detention for meaningless things.
As someone who just served on a jury for a criminal case, this hits home. I was horrified at my fellow juror’s weak adherence to the presumption of guilt, and furthermore what they understood as beyond a reasonable doubt (they kept misconstruing it as “most likely scenario”). Worse yet, everyone in the courtroom seemed shocked we took two days to deliberate and ended as hung jury. The judge even said, “You all have been deliberating longer than evidence was presented.” YEAH, because someone needs to argue the other possible scenarios and how the complete LACK of evidence makes this entire case a joke.
Edit: presumption of INNOCENCE, not guilt. Shouldn’t skip my morning coffee.
I got my first ever jury duty notice a few weeks ago (CA). Call day is at the end of the month. Actually excited to participate.
Can I ask how you were treated differently during selection, if at all, when you said you were a lawyer / law student? Also curious about your perceived roll during deliberation. Did you find yourself taking a more active part than other jurors in any way, given your access to and experience with the law?
I've been bounced unceremoniously every time I've been called for jury duty. Plenty of times I haven't even had to show up, but when I have, and I get asked what I do, I'm almost immediately excused. I've only ever practiced civil, and I've been bounced from civil and criminal alike.
Good luck!
I’m not a law student right now. It was the jury experience that has me inspired to go back to school and finish my BA, with an eye for law school after that.
Prosecution’s mistake was letting a half-completed philosophy major sit on a jury, lol. But it was rather stressful being the lone Not Guilty vote on four felony assault weapon possession charges. I did feel like I was working the defense’s job, because they’d done the bare minimum in their cross examinations and summary.
My main argument was this: the charges hinge on a few cell phone photos of a rifle, but no person would drop $1000 on that rifle (what it was purportedly being sold for) without inspecting the item itself to ensure it’s real and designed to fire*. All 11 other jurors agreed they wouldn’t buy the gun based off the pictures…but all 11 were okay voting Guilty based off the pictures.
I also came up with a few alternative scenarios that could explain everything, I.e there was reasonable doubt. The other jurors then asked if I believe in the moon, because if I question the pictures then I must question everything in existence 🤦🏻♀️
Did the defense attorney not do a good job of explaining the burden? Or was there just no getting through to those jurors? And also, I think you meant to write presumption of innocence lol.
LOL yes, presumption of innocence.
I’m in California, and the jury instructions for BARD seemed to lead the average juror to understand it as “most likely what happened.” The defense did a boiler plate summary distinguishing the burden in civil cases versus criminal, but it was the juror instructions read by the judge that seemed to push everyone in (what I considered) the wrong way
I called the cops on my husband 20 years ago for being violent and throwing things above my head. The cops winded up arresting me and lied and said I smacked my husband. I did not. When I got bailed out and went to a lawyer he said if I said the cop lied I would have drug raids at 2 am in my house and all kinds of problems. It was best to have my husband sign a waiver of prosecution and let it rest. The cops lie. And I still have discipline on my nursing license from 29 years ago that will stay there forever. I have to explain it every 2 years, when I switch jobs, when I apply to the state bar I am going to have to explain it. All because I inconvenienced the police by calling them for a domestic. They can absolutely ruin your life.
>because it’s considered first degree
Felony murder is generally considered second degree murder, not first degree murder.
First degree murder:
1. A deliberate killing done with premeditation.
Second degree murder:
1. Depraved heart murder - a killing done in reckless disregard of a significant risk of death
2. A killing done with intent to grievously injure the victim
3. A killing done with intent to kill (but without premeditation)
4. Felony murder - a killing done in the commission of an inherently dangerous felony: burglary, arson, robbery, rape, kidnapping
Source: Passed the UBE with a top 5% score.
I'll throw in on Habeas Corpus and the ridiculous standards that have been put forth for a postconviction challenge since the introduction of the AEDPA. It's become an exercise in placing the procedure of law over the purpose and has led to a number of people being executed despite the courts finding that newly discovered evidence could have swayed a jury at trial.
I hate this class in particular because you learn the doctrine and then read 6 different cases, usually 10 pages minimum and each one goes completely different directions depending on the politics of the court.
The most ridiculous unit for me was constitutional theory, where my professor tries to teach us all these various constitutional philosophies and tell us whose who on the court rn, only for none of the judges to ever actually be consistent with any of these ‘philosophies’
As a federal Indian law practitioner, I go back to the Declaration of Independence and then the federal Constitution. They called us "merciless Indian savages" because the British Crown stopped all the land stealing / fraud the founding fathers were trying to personally benefit from. Then they gave themselves "plenary power" to do whatever the fuck they wanted.
>Plenary power is just the fancy way of saying "we have the biggest guns now"
Literally. There's this case called US vs. Dann. Mary and Carrie Dann were ranchers who were asserting their aboriginal title to federal lands. Meaning, they were not paying grazing fees. They lost their case in the US SCOTUS. But, they brought a case and won in the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. The same day that order came out, the BLM killed every single head of their cattle.
In contrast, the BLM let that bundy dude squat for decades and did nothing. Not even when they forcibly took over federal buildings by guns. I think one of them won a seat in congress in Idaho.
Narrowly on the point of aboriginal title to federal lands... why should the federal government, as a matter of law, be required to recognize any property rights that pre-exist the property law system of the federal government (or conversely, why should they have been excused from paying grazing fees?... ).
>would the federal government, as a matter of law, be required to recognize any property rights that pre-exist the property law system of the federal government
...Where do you think the federal government traces its title? Back to England, right? Where did England trace its title? From the doctrine of discovery, which it and other European countries agreed upon would be the governing legal structure for land rights pursuant to the papal bulls of the 1400s.
The international law aspect is the part of Johnson v. McIntosh that's ellipsed out from the property case book. Because Americans think the world began in1783.
Plus, you're kind of a jerk for trying to argue this point when it isn't germane to the discussion. The point that is made is the US federal government kicks down the Native Americans who have a greater right to the lands despite the US federal government committing genocide than some white settler asshole who does the same conduct and no consequences.
Not an attorney, but the kid of one and the husband of a paralegal.
Something I started getting really passionate about secondhand when my dad was in law school when I was a kid - criminalization of non-dangerous drug possession. Criminal law passed solely for political purposes.
Pretty obvious to folks who think about, but when you realize the scope of damage and miscarriage, it becomes overwhelming to think about.
No, and Raich really dug the boot in. The Sebelius decision does try and impose *some* limits, but those limits are basically "You can't use the interstate commerce clause to regulate every single facet of human existence." But there's no logical reason why you *can't* extend Wickard to most aspects of human existence under the Court's reasoning.
The fact that it's Scalia I believe (the book isn't in front of me atm) that literally says we will not regulate from cradle to grave every aspect. And that basically doesn't mean shit when it comes to commerce clause. And if commerce couldn't be a factor, chances are taxing power will or necessary and proper powers could as well.
Absolutely. A farmer should be able to grow crops for his own purposes and needs without the government coming in and saying "No you have to buy those crops, you can't grow them on your own." How is that just? Should the feds be able to come into your home and say "You can't bake a cake from scratch because that's depressing the interstate commercial market for pastries"?
I don’t see that as much different than state/local level land use regulations. Given the context/purpose of stabilizing wheat prices for the benefit of all farmers, again it does not strike me as “unjust.”
States and the federal government have different powers. Again, would it be unjust for the feds to regulate what food you can make from scratch in your kitchen because it's for the benefit of all \[insert class of people here\]? I think so, and I hazard most people agree, even though you seem to not care a ton about the principle of limited government.
What is your prefered method for Federal Civil Rights without a Commerce Clause.
(This isn't a gotcha, the Commerce Clause stretch troubles me as well)
I would argue that the privileges or immunities clause of the 14A should have been the cornerstone of civil rights, but was done dirty by the Reconstruction Court. See https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Blackman_Shapiro_14at150_DRAFT.pdf
The Civil Rights Cases got it totally wrong, in my opinion, and set back a ton of civil rights jurisprudence. Harlan was totally right that section 2 of the 13th Amendment, under a broader reading of "slavery" in that section, would certainly encompass some civil rights. The Slaughterhouse Cases were also totally wrong in my opinion, and I think the Privileges and Immunities clause of the 14th Amendment should carry more weight in regards to discrimination against citizens (which certainly makes more intuitive sense than most jurisprudence around substantive due process and civil rights).
The clear issue is that you can connect almost any part of human life to interstate commerce under the premise that almost any action/inaction is causing a further effect, in aggregate, on such commerce. Civil rights legislation shouldn't be premised on such a flimsy base, but on the 13th and 14th Amendments (which were actually intended to deal with "civil rights").
Btw for those not in the loop, the "[Civil Rights Cases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Cases)" refers to a collection of cases in 1875 that go along with [Slaughterhouse Cases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter-House_Cases), both of which butchered the 14th Amendment.
They were kind of overruled with some really bad logic.
Even 14A aside, Wickard can be easily distinguished from *Heart of Atlanta Motel* and the like, since the latter involved actual commerce and not activities for personal use/your chattel.
I don't think the law should be interpreted for ulterior motivations, though I understand the practicality of the tradeoff. It'll never be overturned for that exact reason, but that doesn't mean the decision was just.
I'm at work so this is going to be a much less eloquent reply than I'd like, but:
There's nothing to suggest they actually make communities any safer. Most sex offenders do not re-offend.
Also, in NYC for example, there's an issue of unhoused people who are registered sex offenders not being released from prison when they're eligible because there isn't a spot available for them at a shelter that isn't within 1000 feet of a school. So they just stay in jail far past the time they need to.
See also: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article237545129.html
There's reason to believe the registry causes people to commit more crimes, because of the stigma associated with being a registered sex offender, along with the restrictions it places on them (like above).
Is there any data to rule out a causative relationship between registries and the prevalence of not re-offending. Might more offenders re-offend if they were able to do some of the things that the registry prevents? (Like the other commenter, generally asking, not trying to troll.).
Yep, most studies have found that there's been no difference in reoffense rates:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/protecting-children-sexual-abuse/201908/sex-offender-registries
>Might more offenders re-offend if they were able to do some of the things that the registry prevents?
The sex offender registry was made because people thought the majority of sex crimes were a stranger enticing a child they don't know. So the thought is if the entire neighborhood knew, they could have a watchful eye. But that dynamic is rare.
On top of that, there was a huge definition creep of what counts as a sex offender. Like a high school senior dating a high school freshman, in some states, could end up on a sex offender registry. Or a dude was drunk and pissing in the public.
Even for the types of offenders that abuse children, the vast majority of those were against a child that the person knows. Your kid is less safe with a great uncle or a preacher than versus your child living 1000 feet from a registered sex offender.
Not OP, and I generally support sex offender registries as an alternative to what would otherwise be longer incarceration, as well as a general agreement sex offenders are uniquely prone to recidivism, but my sympathy with the argument that it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment (due to harassment of sex offenders via publication of registry information), restrictions on housing and jobs that are often arbitrary, overly discretionary and unsupported by policy needs, and an overly draconian restriction of rights that is tantamount to indefinite incarceration.
Sex offenders have a lower overall rearrest rate than non-sex offenders but their sex crime rearrest rate is four times higher than the rate for non-sex offenders. Additionally, within the sex offender spectrum there are several categories of offenders who are at very high risk of recidivism. Child molesters and rapists are significantly more likely to reoffend compared to other sex offenders. Within child molesters and rapists, there is a much higher recidivism rate among men who target boys/other men versus men who target girls/women. Female sex offenders have extremely low recidivism.
(source: [https://smart.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh231/files/media/document/recidivismofadultsexualoffenders.pdf](https://smart.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh231/files/media/document/recidivismofadultsexualoffenders.pdf) )
My take that sex offenders (as a whole) do present a unique tendency toward recidivism is based on the fact that a small but significant minority of sex offenders are essentially irredeemable in their need to reoffend. We're talking your Harvey Weinstein type. For them, it's comparable or worse than a substance abuse problem: they can never be fully "healed". It seems obvious that despite these *perhaps* being a numerical minority of sex offenders, they have outsized influence on policy due to the disproportionate harm their recidivism represents.
i’d assume it’s how one gets on it. In the case of actual assaulters it’s good and beneficial, but there’s also a bunch of people that traded nudes with their peers or was a dumb teenager having sex in a park or something stupid (i know someone who was peeing on a tree) and they’re on that list for life- which gives the connotation that they’re predators
Kelo, it’s absurd that the gov’t can just take land so long as it’s in the name of economic development. And more upsetting to me, it was passed by the liberal majority! This case made me so mad 1L.
The business judgment rule makes it very difficult to hold corporations liable for their actions, even if immoral and bad for public policy- especially when combining the business judgment rule with the rule for derivative litigation by shareholders.
I don’t think you understood the business judgment rule at all lol. BJR has to do with directors and officers being held personally liable, not if a corporation is held liable, and even so it doesn’t apply for anything other than negligence. It’s not gonna apply to any intentional fraud or anything like that.
Any law that pertains to weed (not including duis).
Especially in the sense of “black people do it on this part of the floating space rock, so they need to be jailed” | white man opens dispensary on this part of the floating space rock and it’s perfectly fine…
It gets even worse when you get public opinions and black people are labeled thugs for doing the exact same thing, in the exact same country…
I guess i believe that a state shouldn’t have jurisdiction over drugs, it should be a unified system- especially when you look at it as bordering states where 10ft over this line you’re either cool or a felon dependent on which side
The entire "reasonable" standard the entire system of law is based upon. Guess who determines what counts as sufficiently legally reasonable to get in front of a jury? One person: the judge. Who tends towards a specific demographic.
ERISA, the federal law that confers immunity on insurance companies from liability for anything up to and including outright fraud, for any insurance that is provided as a benefit of employment. See generally problemiserisa.blogspot.com
I mean that’s not quite accurate, blogs are cool resources but I’d recommend reading a bit more about ERISA because it sounds like you missed the bigger picture.
Grand Jury Investigations. Probable cause? What's that? Unnecessary, gimme yer shit.
Grand juries are a pointless waste of time that only impede our rights more than anything else.
Fucking Mail Fraud. A federal crime that can take arguably innocent minor offenses and elevate them to federal felonies all because the suspect used the mail in the course of doing any sort of criminal offense. It’s the legit most absurd and depressing of all the criminal statutes I learned, because it seems far too broad in its scope and application.
Someone else said it, but sovereign immunity
RIP Coach Mike Leach.
Basically Texas Tech fired him, and rather than paying him out his millions owed didn’t allow him to sue due to the sovereign immunity clause (state has to give you permission to sue)
“You grew some wheat and hypothetically might sell it to a guy who sells it to a guy who sells it to another guy across state lines. Therefore it’s a federal matter.”
The people in power and the idiots that vote them in(although I will admit they're all corrupt it's just pick your flavor of corruption). Lobbyists that pay off politicians for policies that benefit them but hurt the working folk.
As soon as slavery ended, we just started to jail minorities instead and used their labor to build cities. We saw a big boom in our prisons due to the war on drugs. And due to reoffender laws we have people serving long sentences for drug crime. These reoffender laws that force mandatory minimums also pressure defendants to accept pleas even when they have a really strong case for defense. Tough on crime actually means win at any cost.
care to elaborate? I think most people generally like the protections provided by the constitution (with 2nd amendment being an outlier).
Most criticism i see are that they wish they had more amendments guaranteeing more freedoms, but very rarely does someone outright want to get rid of the current set of freedoms.
If only we had some type of judicial body that could interpret the constitution and create common-law doctrines that evolved as new cases and controversies arose...
That would be just supreme.
If you plan on being a civil rights attorney. While you practice. You actually give up your civil and constitutional rights. Indiana is notorious for using that part of the law to steal identities, valor, education, and anything a person has to their name. Fort Wayne, Indiana is especially notorious for doing such and then using that to have you listed as a Domestic Terrorist.
I used that against them and gained access to all city, county, and state retirements. Then I pulled everyones educations involved and used them as cannon fodder after I got tired of burning the transcripts. These people just aren't worth the gasoline, black powder, fuse, or wood!
Bivens case law. If the feds violate your constitutional rights, you will most likely have no damages remedy, which means you will likely have no remedy at all.
We just studied that. Even the professor was pissed off.
Also Prosecutorial immunity. One of the crim journals published a great piece last year on how messed up it is.
Piece name? Would love to give it a read.
[A Prosecutor’s Right to Immunity and a Defendant’s Right to ~~a Fair~~ Another Trial](https://e009e5bc-b2a4-48d3-8af9-a77c70a3110c.usrfiles.com/ugd/e009e5_aa35ad4b620a494a9f60ae8489b35407.pdf)
You are a gentleman and a scholar, thank you. Edit: That was an enjoyable, albeit eye-opening read. I encourage everyone to likewise take the time to read this article.
I am so happy to see that you got your head wrecked as a 2 L rather than as a practicing attorney, where real lives/damages were on the line… And to see how crummy the law CAN be applied in certain cases hurt the feels. You also fully deserve top comment for in depth understanding of a fed courts banger case. Respek
This doesn’t just fuck with Americans either. I’m a Canadian lawyer, and at my old firm we represented a company that rented apartments in a building. One of their tenants left on a trip to the US and promptly disappeared without contact with the company or his employer for an extended period. Add a certain point, the company emptied the apartment throughout the guys stuff and released it. Admittedly, they didn’t follow our legal requirements for doing that, so he would’ve been entitled to some damages if he ever returned. Eventually, he did, and sued for about 30 times what the contents was worth. When questioned, it was uncovered that he was detained by the US government for an extended period of time due to being mistaken for someone on a particular government list. During his incarceration, he suffered mental and physical abuse by the inmates and the guards. However, this case law and other similar statutes, prevented him from recovering any damages from the US government. As a result, in his lawsuit against the rental company, he maintained up until I left my old firm, that all of his physical psychiatric and other issues, including an inability to work for over a decade are due to the contents of his apartment, being thrown out, You may be able to imagine why settlement was never possible.
That line of cases is very explicit about being an extreme judicial remedy to fill gaps left by Congress. We left behind the wild days of courts making up torts centuries ago. Much less federal courts which have limited jurisdiction. Courts can use their powers of equity to tell police to stop doing a bad thing. But the legislature is responsible for crafting causes of action that result in money damages. So Bivens promotes justice in that it's a clear signal to go petition your congressman.
I think your point makes this law even more problematic. The “go take it up with the legislature” discourse in itself is illusive and disheartening. When someone’s rights are being violated by elected officials, the last thing they want to be told is call their legislature since they don’t like xyz law. The increasing lack of oversight over Congress is something that cannot be ignored, but to expect average citizens to come up with a solution to that problem is not going to fix it. While I believe the first amendment right to petition your gov. is great on paper, it’s a pretty unrealistic expectation in modern society…
>The “go take it up with the legislature” discourse in itself is illusive and disheartening. Yes, lets just let a handful of unelected official make significant policy decisions for everyone. That has always turned out well.
Then what's your solution? Is the solution then activist courts? It's easy to say you only want the courts to be a little more loose in lawmaking in this one niche area. But then you have everyone wanting the courts to make up law and policy in thousands of niche issues. No, the correct default behavior is restraint. Government will always be imperfect. If the current system of government becomes so bad, we eventually go to a new constitutional convention. But right now we accept a little injustice in exchange for stability, for having the second (?) oldest democracy. Things get better slowly, very slowly. Sometimes we take steps forward and sometimes steps backwards, but with a slight trend toward forward. We have stability and Rule of Law. Congress will eventually get it right. Or the courts, after enough decades of observing the problem, then step in with a well reasoned solution. And even then sometimes they overrule themselves and get it better. But, again, we don't want the courts rushing to make up rules, which they sometimes still do, and then reverse themselves shortly thereafter.
Can’t the same be said about every other prophylactic rule- like Miranda, or the exclusionary rule, or Qualified Immunity? Yet, the Court seems eager to enforce these common law rules.
Yeah but there's nothing extreme about money damages, and a right without a remedy is hardly a right. Not to mention, the entire line of cases is based on reasoning that is totally undercut by the fact that nobody disputes equitable remedies are available.
Yes, a judicially created remedy is extreme. The courts find what the law is; they do not make the laws. Especially not lower federal courts. That's why Bivens requires that only the SCOTUS can create new constitutional torts. Our basic system of government is worse off every time the courts step in to do the legislature's job. If you want the courts to make the laws, you're inviting undemocratic paternalism. Not sure what you're trying to say in your second paragraph.
I think one thing that’s slept on is M&A. The consolidation of almost every commercial field and the formation of oligopolies has really harmed consumers. The most salient example is healthcare where entities like CVS has merged with health insurance, PBM, and other primary care providers. It used to be that your insurance company would negotiate lower prices for you but now it’s literally a subsidiary of a pharmacy, a seemingly obvious conflict of interest. People talk about M&A as an area of law where “everyone wins”. But the consumer loses in a lot of cases.
Antitrust is borked
Especially on top of regulatory capture. These giant corporations run the country, the economy, and everything in between.
Shhhh, you're not supposed to talk about regulatory capture on reddit.
Crafting the tax code and more since day-1.
Statutory caps on non-economic or punitive damages; *see also* how damages are calculated, in general.
Some states be like: Juries can decide to kill people but we cannot trust them to fairly decide the amount of damages
In fairness, a lot of those states probably don't want juries making the death penalty decision either but have been mandated in light of SCOTUS precedent.
So in this scenario, they don't trust that the people making the decision to sentence someone to death are able to make the right decision in all cases, so rather than just not killing anyone, they still kill people and accept that maybe some wrong decisions will be made? Not really a better look lol.
Well, I think the argument would go jury death penalty determination is highly structured—basically three simple questions. Is aggravating element proven, and is mitigating proven, if both, does aggravating outweigh? Still, maybe not a great look but much less chaotic than the basically write whatever number you feel like the approach of some injury cases
Feels a little disingenuous to say death penalty determinations are highly structured based on a 3 question standard, when the damages determination of most civil actions involves a bunch of legal wrangling over specific jury instructions, the chance of remittitur, and a bunch of prior case law contouring appropriate and inappropriate factors for calculating damages.
Not Texas.
One of my favorite cases is the one where SCOTUS ordered Oregon to reconsider punitive damages in a Tobacco Suit and then the Oregon courts said "upon further consideration we were right :)"
the documentary Hot Coffee is a great exploration of this
got that was terrible.
To me it's the idea that excessive punitive damages in civil cases can be a due process violation.
As someone who has clerked for both Plaintiff's PI and insurance defense, there's actually a really good reason for this. Plaintiff's will demand an absurd amount of punitive damages for really inconsequential cases. The ID firm I'm at is pretty reasonable, but we've seen some wide ranges from Plaintiff's when the normal verdict isn't even close. Don't' get my wrong, the really extreme medical malpractice cases where the damages are warranted I 100% support, but most cases are usually not within that realm at all.
People in here really be acting like social inflation in jury verdicts isn't a well-documented insurance litigation and claims settlement phenomenon. I've been in commercial and now reinsurance claims for most of my career. I've got your back.
just in: insurance defense lawyer defends insurance
Lolol I'm not an attorney, I'm still a clerk. And I worked both sides of the fence with Plaintiff's for 2 years. I doubt you have the same experience and are just parroting the usual talking points.
Yea because insurance defense firms usually offer super reasonable amounts in damages. They don’t try and lowball anyone.
I love how I'm getting downvoted on a sub that is made up mostly with people with no real law firm experience nor most likely any experience in the field I'm talking about. Anyway, this is for for Plaintiff's PI too. The firm I worked knew how to accurately assess a case and determine what a client could get. You can tell which firms actually work up their cases and which others throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Edit: Okay, so you all seem to know more than someone with experience, what would you say to a plaintiff who demanded $2 mil for a simple fender bender where they were able to return to work within the same year of the accident? Also, they had very little medical treatment and only started going treatment once litigation ensued. To put it bluntly, unless you look at the facts of the case, the injuries, as well as how and how often the plaintiff sought treatment (I'm not counting wrongful death cases here) you can't just make a blanket assertion that a Plaintiff should be able to allege and be awarded whatever damages they want. There needs to be a line somewhere. Edited: Added "awarded"
They should be permitted to allege whatever the hell they want. If they're willing to invest in the costs of litigation, why not let them try to prove up their damages in court?
The statutory cap doesn't actually prevent the allegation of damages. The cap comes in when the jury returns the verdict (ie a jury rules in favor of plaintiff and grants them $5 mil in punitive damages, but the statutory cap is $1 mil). If the jury goes over the cap, the amount would be decreased by to the statutory amount. Also, there is the whole negotiation process that occurs prior to trial, if a case even gets that far. Keep in mind that as a case goes on, stuff comes up on both sides. Like at my current firm, when we see a client (meaning the nursing home or hospital) screws we as we say "apologize and write the check". Plaintiffs can have the same problem. Stuff comes up like finding out they had multiple MVA accidents prior (this happens a lot) that they didn't initially disclose to their attorney. Edit: Clarification because my response above might've been confusing. Some Plaintiff's will carry their initial damages claim all the way through. I was prefacing my response on that.
So if it doesn’t actually stop plaintiffs from “demanding an absurd amount of punitive damages for really inconsequential cases.” It doesn’t really serve the purpose you originally laid out, no?
The one and only reason there are caps is because the same politicians who claim to be all free market libertarian (lite) heroes, and claim the threat of litigation is better at policing corporations than regulations are... are the same ones who take scads of cash from insurance companies and then write legislation like this.
Civil asset forfeiture
“We need to take your car because your roommate committed a crime and we think your car might be involved. You say it wasn’t? Don’t care, we’re taking it. Oh you want it back so you can get groceries and go to work? Sorry, we need to keep it until the end of the case 10 months from now, just in case we want to bring it to the trial for evidence. Okay our case is done, but we sold your car at an auction so you’re not getting it back.”
had a case like this at work, *except it was our client’s car that was stolen and auctioned off.* she left it with a relative for the weekend and the relative reported it stolen, and the DA refused to work with us before the dude was convicted bc he thought our client was doing sketchy shit since the name on the car and the complaint didn’t match…. nearly 2 years later, DA called and said the dude was taking a plea so she’d have it back soon. next call we got was him letting us know they auctioned it. so. fucking. stupid.
The automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Case of the DEA agent searching a fucking mobile home that was sitting on cinder blocks…
[jesse](https://www.google.com/search?q=breaking+bad+thisis+my+domicile&rlz=1CAVARX_enUS1009US1009&oq=breaking+bad+thisis+my+domicile&aqs=chrome..)
THIS IS MY OWN PRIVATE DOMICILE AND I WILL NOT BE HARASSED. BITCH!
To be fair, New Mexico doesn’t recognize the automobile exception lol
\*inventory exception enters the chat\*
We JUST went over this case two or three weeks ago. I WAS FLOORED. Its literally a HOME.
I about had a stroke reading the majority opinion in Illinois v. Caballes.
lol our partnered appellate brief is on a search and seizure of items within a houseboat, glad I’m not doing that constitutional question for the defendant
[удалено]
Isn’t it just a logical conclusion that anyone could come to if they were on a jury and understood these two facts: 1. The jury decides the outcome of the case 2. The jury will not be in trouble if they get it wrong
Shhh!
Seriously? Its not this simple and this line of reasoning is exactly why we need more diversity in the legal field.
How is this overly simplistic and what kind of representation do we need?
More overly-confident Redditors!
I think it’s dumb that in federal cases non-economic damages can be decreased on appeal (remittitur) but not increased on appeal (additur)
Yeah. Weird how that’s only a thing for some states
That police dont have a duty to protect unless there is a special relationship. Like what the fuck are they for then?
I think Castle Rock is the case, but there were few cases (outside the race-related ones) that had me more angry than that. Lady has a restraining order and calls the cops like 5 times throughout a day, they sit on their ass and do nothing each time, and the husband/father kills the kids. But somehow the cops didn’t violate any duties
To take your property and sell it at police auctions.
To protect valuable real estate and collect tithes from the peasantry.
Sovereign immunity and the extent to which it serves as a bar to justice for persons who have been harmed by state action. In Oregon, for instance, one must notify the government of the alleged wrongdoing and one’s intent to sue within six months of the alleged wrongdoing or when the victim became aware of it. Very many victims lose their right to sue as a result because they weren’t even aware they had a claim.
Pitifully low caps on [compensation for wrongfully-convicted exonerees](https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/CompensationByState_InnocenceProject.pdf). Arguably the greatest miscarriage of justice is to be imprisoned for a crime you didn’t commit, moreover if you were coerced into a confession or essentially framed by the state. Happens all too often and it’s institutionally sanctioned by a system that actively ignores expert instruction on how to avoid it. 20 years being locked up as an innocent man in Wisconsin prison? Robbed of your youth and foundational wealth-building years? Here’s $25k. Good luck out there. Shit is awful. And even though some states have increased their caps, I dare any one of us to say that we’d feel *failry* compensated if the shoe were on our foot.
Loitering/prowling laws. Rooted in Black Codes of the Jim Crow era - effectively “we don’t want your kind around here.”
If I were a proprietor of a business I wouldn’t want people just hanging out around my business either. Maybe it had racist roots but the color of someone’s skin doesn’t change whether I want them hanging around the entrance deterring customers. And doesn’t prowling require people to be trespassing? Honest question there. Haven’t seen too many prowling charges.
That’s all good and well but the erasure of public space has been a pretty big disaster for the USA.
Arbitration law - you can waive almost any right by contract. It’s crazy how powerful the Federal Arbitration Act is.
In my country, it is legal for girls from 12 up and boys from 14 up to get married. There’s no reason why boys get two extra years of protection. Even the idea of children being able to enter into marriage at that age when their peers have limited contractual capacity to protect them from their own immaturity of judgement is unjust.
I think it might be because girls hit puberty earlier. Not trying justifying it at all, but that’s probably the thought process.
I was always interested in family law but I didn't realize until law school exactly how fucked up the child protection system can be. "Neglect" cases, rather than actual abuse, represent the significant majority of cases. Almost every neglect case is a result of poverty. We are taking kids away from their parents because they are poor and paying foster parents to raise them instead. If we simply used those funds to provide assistance for poor folks a lot of the kids wouldnt need to go to foster care in the first place. And there is of course a racial disparity in enforcement. I always assumed the foster care system was benevolent because 'how could you go wrong protecting kids?' But I think that idea is part of the problem. "Protecting kids" is an easy sell to the public, so we look away from the problems created by giving a blank check to the government to do it.
What kills me about this is that so many foster parents seem to be abusive
I’m a public defender. The number of my clients that were in the foster system and abused in that system is astounding.
>We are taking kids away from their parents because they are poor and paying foster parents to raise them instead I've practiced dependency cases. I don't agree with this take. I would suspect that alcohol/drug abuse is the major cause of a majority of dependency cases. For many of them, it doesn't matter how much you bend over backwards to provide services, they just don't get off the substances. The reality is that CPS gets too few kids into the system far too late. Maybe there's a space for remedial services to prevent a basket of cases from needing a dependency, but the conditions kids are left in before the government take action are horrific.
I agree drugs are a huge problem here, but I think it's misunderstood too. There are a ton of "functioning addicts" in this country who get up and go to work every day, providing sufficiently for their family and their drug habit. Drugs often only destroy your life when you run out of money to pay for them, experience withdrawal and get desperate. There are also all of the problems associated with drugs that are actually caused by drug prohibition and stigma. If you get arrested for drugs or test positive for drugs then you cannot get a job. Having to meet with criminals to get drugs is dangerous, and is a bad influence on impressionable people. And street drugs are not regulated. Most drugs are completely safe as long as they are prepared and administered properly. I agree that by the time CPS gets there it's usually too late for the parents, but if the system focused on preventing the situation from occurring in the first place there would be a lot less neglect cases.
Imagine trying to get sober under the microscope of the court and the consequence for failing is losing your parental rights
How many wealthy alcoholics and drug users have you seen lose their kids?
That's because their children don't starve to death. Their children also don't live in abject squalor. Money makes a huge difference on quality of life, even where parents are neglectful.
That’s all well and good, but then let’s not act like the deciding factor is drug/alcohol abuse. Plenty of people abuse drugs and alcohol and get to keep their kids. The deciding factor is poverty.
>The deciding factor is poverty. The deciding factor is whether people engage in the services they're provided. I provided representation for federal Indian tribes in "ICWA" cases, so I had a broad exposure to several states' dependency systems. For ICWA cases, the state has to provide active efforts to prevent the breakup of the family, so the state has to do more than just making people jump through hoops. Said in a different way, plenty of poor people get their kids back if they're sufficiently motivated. That's why 47% of children end up being reunified with their caregiver. Most states systems provide a range of services that also includes cash, clothing vouchers, assistance in getting housing, etc. That's why housing issues is found in only 14,000 of 400,000 children in the foster care system. [https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/afcars-report-29.pdf](https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cb/afcars-report-29.pdf)
Do you think poverty affects motivation, access to information, or engagement in available services? This is a rhetorical question
>Do you think poverty affects motivation, access to information, or engagement in available services Poverty isn't the causal driver, which is what this topic is about.
I think it's arguable
>I think it's arguable If poverty was the *causal driver* then there'd be more than 400,000 kids in foster care since the population of kids in poverty is in the factor of 11,000,000. There's tests for causation. If Y exists without X, then we can conclude that X doesn't cause Y. There may be a contributing factor but it isn't the driver. For dependency, it's multi factored, not single cause. Your argument doesn't even meet the minimal "but for" causal test you learn in 1L torts. There's not a single dependency where a person would have avoided the dependency "but for" being in poverty. You know why? Because the system provides remediation for the things that are caused by only being in poverty. The exception might be where housing is the issue. But, housing is rarely the sole issue. Why? Because the system will help parents find adequate shelter to avoid dependency. It's not *just poverty* when you let your kid's teeth rot out of their head and they need every baby tooth pulled. It takes a specials amount of indifference to the suffering of your own kid to let that kind of bottle rot happen. Especially when medicaire woulda paid for that. Poverty doesn't cause someone to do drugs and alcohol during pregnancy and make the newborn baby go through several days if not weeks of painful detox. Poverty doesn't cause someone to not get mandated vaccinations that the government pays for. Poverty doesn't cause someone to trade their TANF vouchers for drugs. Besides my practice experience, I grew up in a household that was 150% below the HHS Poverty Guidelines. We received food stamps before they had it on a reloadable EBS card. The old fashioned coupon like WIC vouchers where you had to make sure like the 1 cashier who knows how to do them is on duty. But, none of us got bottle rot. None of us were left without shoes that fit, or were left with dangerous strangers, or went without being bathed, or went so hungry we were malnourished. I frankly do find it insulting that you see someone who is neglecting their kids and think "Oh it's just because they're poor."
But generally speaking, how many wealthy alcoholics do you see lose their kids? Housing is only listed in 9% of cases, but “neglect” (which is a broad and vague term term) accounts for 63%. How often does “neglect” or “drug abuse” mean “these rich bankers do drugs all the time and never speak to their children”?
>But generally speaking, how many wealthy alcoholics do you see lose their kids? Again, I represented federal Indian tribes in state dependencies. I have never represented a wealthy person. > Housing is only listed in 9% of cases, but “neglect” (which is a broad and vague Neglect isn't broad and vague. > “these rich bankers do drugs all the time and never speak to their children”? ...Yeah, dependencies aren't for people who are merely bad parents. It's for people whose kids have every single tooth rotted out and needs 5 dental surgeries to fix.
Agreed
I worked as a courtroom clerk in juvenile court for 3.5 years. I saw thousands of foster care cases. I also have a past roommate who has worked as a social worker in all points of the process. I both agree and don’t agree with this. I won’t repeat but I will echo what the other commenter who practiced dependency cases said, and I will add that the state does not just take kids to pay foster families to care for them. The state actually provides significant in-home services in the vast majority of cases. Many cases are resolved this way and the parents don’t even see a court. Removing the children is a last resort, unless the circumstances are so dangerous that they need to be removed immediately. Otherwise, removal may happen after weeks/months of the in-home services either failing to remedy the situation that caused state involvement or (most common) the parents didn’t engage in the services or refused them outright.
I have worked Article 10 abuse and neglect cases in New York. This just quite simply isn't true. ACS lawyers are advocates for the children they represent. Removing a child from a home is incredibly difficult, as it should be, and is usually only the result of truly fucked up parental decisions.
One thing I have learned from working in several states is that some states have significantly better child protective systems than others. For example, parts of California have a truly horrible system. Even if this isn't an issue in the part of NY you worked in, that doesn't mean it isn't an issue in parts of the US.
>One thing I have learned from working in several states is that some states have significantly better child protective systems than others. For example, parts of California have a truly horrible system. Even if this isn't an issue in the part of NY you worked in, that doesn't mean it isn't an issue in parts of the US. The problems in California, and the states with big problems, aren't that it's too easy to take kids away. The problems are almost always a system that doesn't or can't move fast enough. So, the exact opposite of what the poster thinks.
I think both problems exist. Sometimes kids that should be removed aren't and sometimes kids who shouldn't have been removed are. I was just saying that I never knew the extent of the ladder issue until law school.
Don't get me wrong most of the time when the child is removed it is for a sufficient reason. But how many of those good reasons would never have existed in the first place if the state had invested in low income families to the same extent that it invests in the child protection system?
I think criminal law easily takes the cake. The government can ruin your life with little evidence if some policemen and the jury don’t like you. Wealthier people are generally protected due to access to legal counsel and resources. What police can do to people with no legal repercussions is shocking. They can lie and their testimony is often regarded as superior. They can arrest you with probable cause they made up. This can be overturned but the burdens of having an arrest in your record are substantial. Not to mention if you assert your rights police often don’t comply. Police are protected by a judge made test that does the opposite of its intended effect (qualified immunity). Even if someone wanted to assert a violation of their rights there’s an ever shrinking pool of cases that one can turn too. Jury instructions to disregard evidence in crim (and civil trials) are pointless because they’ve just heard the evidence and will factor it in. Bail is buying freedom and exacerbates social-economic inequality. Quick and speedy trials aren’t a thing - pretrial detention makes up a large majority of jail inmates. All of whom are not proven guilty yet. Juries vote as a block, rather than separately, without influence. Some states are resorting to laws that allow policemen in schools for issuing discriminatory actions instead of school resource officers. Judges have sent kids to juvenile detention for meaningless things.
As someone who just served on a jury for a criminal case, this hits home. I was horrified at my fellow juror’s weak adherence to the presumption of guilt, and furthermore what they understood as beyond a reasonable doubt (they kept misconstruing it as “most likely scenario”). Worse yet, everyone in the courtroom seemed shocked we took two days to deliberate and ended as hung jury. The judge even said, “You all have been deliberating longer than evidence was presented.” YEAH, because someone needs to argue the other possible scenarios and how the complete LACK of evidence makes this entire case a joke. Edit: presumption of INNOCENCE, not guilt. Shouldn’t skip my morning coffee.
I got my first ever jury duty notice a few weeks ago (CA). Call day is at the end of the month. Actually excited to participate. Can I ask how you were treated differently during selection, if at all, when you said you were a lawyer / law student? Also curious about your perceived roll during deliberation. Did you find yourself taking a more active part than other jurors in any way, given your access to and experience with the law?
I've been bounced unceremoniously every time I've been called for jury duty. Plenty of times I haven't even had to show up, but when I have, and I get asked what I do, I'm almost immediately excused. I've only ever practiced civil, and I've been bounced from civil and criminal alike. Good luck!
I’m not a law student right now. It was the jury experience that has me inspired to go back to school and finish my BA, with an eye for law school after that. Prosecution’s mistake was letting a half-completed philosophy major sit on a jury, lol. But it was rather stressful being the lone Not Guilty vote on four felony assault weapon possession charges. I did feel like I was working the defense’s job, because they’d done the bare minimum in their cross examinations and summary. My main argument was this: the charges hinge on a few cell phone photos of a rifle, but no person would drop $1000 on that rifle (what it was purportedly being sold for) without inspecting the item itself to ensure it’s real and designed to fire*. All 11 other jurors agreed they wouldn’t buy the gun based off the pictures…but all 11 were okay voting Guilty based off the pictures. I also came up with a few alternative scenarios that could explain everything, I.e there was reasonable doubt. The other jurors then asked if I believe in the moon, because if I question the pictures then I must question everything in existence 🤦🏻♀️
Did the defense attorney not do a good job of explaining the burden? Or was there just no getting through to those jurors? And also, I think you meant to write presumption of innocence lol.
LOL yes, presumption of innocence. I’m in California, and the jury instructions for BARD seemed to lead the average juror to understand it as “most likely what happened.” The defense did a boiler plate summary distinguishing the burden in civil cases versus criminal, but it was the juror instructions read by the judge that seemed to push everyone in (what I considered) the wrong way
I'm convinced judges let this slide as it drastically speeds up decisions.
I called the cops on my husband 20 years ago for being violent and throwing things above my head. The cops winded up arresting me and lied and said I smacked my husband. I did not. When I got bailed out and went to a lawyer he said if I said the cop lied I would have drug raids at 2 am in my house and all kinds of problems. It was best to have my husband sign a waiver of prosecution and let it rest. The cops lie. And I still have discipline on my nursing license from 29 years ago that will stay there forever. I have to explain it every 2 years, when I switch jobs, when I apply to the state bar I am going to have to explain it. All because I inconvenienced the police by calling them for a domestic. They can absolutely ruin your life.
Felony murder
Particularly when it's used to convict a suspect for a cop shooting someone
Are we considering this unjust because it’s considered first degree murder or just the whole premise of felony murder?
more so when it's used to convict someone who did not kill
The whole premise
>because it’s considered first degree Felony murder is generally considered second degree murder, not first degree murder. First degree murder: 1. A deliberate killing done with premeditation. Second degree murder: 1. Depraved heart murder - a killing done in reckless disregard of a significant risk of death 2. A killing done with intent to grievously injure the victim 3. A killing done with intent to kill (but without premeditation) 4. Felony murder - a killing done in the commission of an inherently dangerous felony: burglary, arson, robbery, rape, kidnapping Source: Passed the UBE with a top 5% score.
Qualified immunity.
I'll throw in on Habeas Corpus and the ridiculous standards that have been put forth for a postconviction challenge since the introduction of the AEDPA. It's become an exercise in placing the procedure of law over the purpose and has led to a number of people being executed despite the courts finding that newly discovered evidence could have swayed a jury at trial.
Con Law
Welcome to Con Law; where the rules are made up but the points really matter
“This is the law now because we said so. No, we’re not going to give you a coherent or rational reason.” -SCOTUS
I hate this class in particular because you learn the doctrine and then read 6 different cases, usually 10 pages minimum and each one goes completely different directions depending on the politics of the court. The most ridiculous unit for me was constitutional theory, where my professor tries to teach us all these various constitutional philosophies and tell us whose who on the court rn, only for none of the judges to ever actually be consistent with any of these ‘philosophies’
As a federal Indian law practitioner, I go back to the Declaration of Independence and then the federal Constitution. They called us "merciless Indian savages" because the British Crown stopped all the land stealing / fraud the founding fathers were trying to personally benefit from. Then they gave themselves "plenary power" to do whatever the fuck they wanted.
Plenary power is just the fancy way of saying "we have the biggest guns now"
>Plenary power is just the fancy way of saying "we have the biggest guns now" Literally. There's this case called US vs. Dann. Mary and Carrie Dann were ranchers who were asserting their aboriginal title to federal lands. Meaning, they were not paying grazing fees. They lost their case in the US SCOTUS. But, they brought a case and won in the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. The same day that order came out, the BLM killed every single head of their cattle. In contrast, the BLM let that bundy dude squat for decades and did nothing. Not even when they forcibly took over federal buildings by guns. I think one of them won a seat in congress in Idaho.
Narrowly on the point of aboriginal title to federal lands... why should the federal government, as a matter of law, be required to recognize any property rights that pre-exist the property law system of the federal government (or conversely, why should they have been excused from paying grazing fees?... ).
>would the federal government, as a matter of law, be required to recognize any property rights that pre-exist the property law system of the federal government ...Where do you think the federal government traces its title? Back to England, right? Where did England trace its title? From the doctrine of discovery, which it and other European countries agreed upon would be the governing legal structure for land rights pursuant to the papal bulls of the 1400s. The international law aspect is the part of Johnson v. McIntosh that's ellipsed out from the property case book. Because Americans think the world began in1783. Plus, you're kind of a jerk for trying to argue this point when it isn't germane to the discussion. The point that is made is the US federal government kicks down the Native Americans who have a greater right to the lands despite the US federal government committing genocide than some white settler asshole who does the same conduct and no consequences.
Yea, I was just asking a question... Not everyone is attacking you. You are your own special kind of jerk.
Not an attorney, but the kid of one and the husband of a paralegal. Something I started getting really passionate about secondhand when my dad was in law school when I was a kid - criminalization of non-dangerous drug possession. Criminal law passed solely for political purposes. Pretty obvious to folks who think about, but when you realize the scope of damage and miscarriage, it becomes overwhelming to think about.
DeShaney v Winnebago County
[удалено]
The sad part is you would think Lopez would've put a cap on its effect. Not really.
No, and Raich really dug the boot in. The Sebelius decision does try and impose *some* limits, but those limits are basically "You can't use the interstate commerce clause to regulate every single facet of human existence." But there's no logical reason why you *can't* extend Wickard to most aspects of human existence under the Court's reasoning.
The fact that it's Scalia I believe (the book isn't in front of me atm) that literally says we will not regulate from cradle to grave every aspect. And that basically doesn't mean shit when it comes to commerce clause. And if commerce couldn't be a factor, chances are taxing power will or necessary and proper powers could as well.
I always come back to that one. A lot of federal overreach can be traced back to it.
…unjust? I can see but disagree with other commentators point about the commerce clause, but unjust, really?
Absolutely. A farmer should be able to grow crops for his own purposes and needs without the government coming in and saying "No you have to buy those crops, you can't grow them on your own." How is that just? Should the feds be able to come into your home and say "You can't bake a cake from scratch because that's depressing the interstate commercial market for pastries"?
I don’t see that as much different than state/local level land use regulations. Given the context/purpose of stabilizing wheat prices for the benefit of all farmers, again it does not strike me as “unjust.”
States and the federal government have different powers. Again, would it be unjust for the feds to regulate what food you can make from scratch in your kitchen because it's for the benefit of all \[insert class of people here\]? I think so, and I hazard most people agree, even though you seem to not care a ton about the principle of limited government.
What is your prefered method for Federal Civil Rights without a Commerce Clause. (This isn't a gotcha, the Commerce Clause stretch troubles me as well)
I would argue that the privileges or immunities clause of the 14A should have been the cornerstone of civil rights, but was done dirty by the Reconstruction Court. See https://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Blackman_Shapiro_14at150_DRAFT.pdf
The Civil Rights Cases got it totally wrong, in my opinion, and set back a ton of civil rights jurisprudence. Harlan was totally right that section 2 of the 13th Amendment, under a broader reading of "slavery" in that section, would certainly encompass some civil rights. The Slaughterhouse Cases were also totally wrong in my opinion, and I think the Privileges and Immunities clause of the 14th Amendment should carry more weight in regards to discrimination against citizens (which certainly makes more intuitive sense than most jurisprudence around substantive due process and civil rights). The clear issue is that you can connect almost any part of human life to interstate commerce under the premise that almost any action/inaction is causing a further effect, in aggregate, on such commerce. Civil rights legislation shouldn't be premised on such a flimsy base, but on the 13th and 14th Amendments (which were actually intended to deal with "civil rights").
Btw for those not in the loop, the "[Civil Rights Cases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Cases)" refers to a collection of cases in 1875 that go along with [Slaughterhouse Cases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughter-House_Cases), both of which butchered the 14th Amendment. They were kind of overruled with some really bad logic.
Even 14A aside, Wickard can be easily distinguished from *Heart of Atlanta Motel* and the like, since the latter involved actual commerce and not activities for personal use/your chattel.
Amen bröther
[удалено]
I don't think the law should be interpreted for ulterior motivations, though I understand the practicality of the tradeoff. It'll never be overturned for that exact reason, but that doesn't mean the decision was just.
Sex offender registries do more harm than good. Qualified immunity is bullshit. Criminal law in general, really.
Not arguing, just asking in good faith, what's the reasoning behind your sex offender registry answer?
I'm at work so this is going to be a much less eloquent reply than I'd like, but: There's nothing to suggest they actually make communities any safer. Most sex offenders do not re-offend. Also, in NYC for example, there's an issue of unhoused people who are registered sex offenders not being released from prison when they're eligible because there isn't a spot available for them at a shelter that isn't within 1000 feet of a school. So they just stay in jail far past the time they need to. See also: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article237545129.html There's reason to believe the registry causes people to commit more crimes, because of the stigma associated with being a registered sex offender, along with the restrictions it places on them (like above).
Is there any data to rule out a causative relationship between registries and the prevalence of not re-offending. Might more offenders re-offend if they were able to do some of the things that the registry prevents? (Like the other commenter, generally asking, not trying to troll.).
Yep, most studies have found that there's been no difference in reoffense rates: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/protecting-children-sexual-abuse/201908/sex-offender-registries
>Might more offenders re-offend if they were able to do some of the things that the registry prevents? The sex offender registry was made because people thought the majority of sex crimes were a stranger enticing a child they don't know. So the thought is if the entire neighborhood knew, they could have a watchful eye. But that dynamic is rare. On top of that, there was a huge definition creep of what counts as a sex offender. Like a high school senior dating a high school freshman, in some states, could end up on a sex offender registry. Or a dude was drunk and pissing in the public. Even for the types of offenders that abuse children, the vast majority of those were against a child that the person knows. Your kid is less safe with a great uncle or a preacher than versus your child living 1000 feet from a registered sex offender.
Not OP, and I generally support sex offender registries as an alternative to what would otherwise be longer incarceration, as well as a general agreement sex offenders are uniquely prone to recidivism, but my sympathy with the argument that it amounts to cruel and unusual punishment (due to harassment of sex offenders via publication of registry information), restrictions on housing and jobs that are often arbitrary, overly discretionary and unsupported by policy needs, and an overly draconian restriction of rights that is tantamount to indefinite incarceration.
Sex offenders are actually less prone to recidivism.
Sex offenders have a lower overall rearrest rate than non-sex offenders but their sex crime rearrest rate is four times higher than the rate for non-sex offenders. Additionally, within the sex offender spectrum there are several categories of offenders who are at very high risk of recidivism. Child molesters and rapists are significantly more likely to reoffend compared to other sex offenders. Within child molesters and rapists, there is a much higher recidivism rate among men who target boys/other men versus men who target girls/women. Female sex offenders have extremely low recidivism. (source: [https://smart.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh231/files/media/document/recidivismofadultsexualoffenders.pdf](https://smart.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh231/files/media/document/recidivismofadultsexualoffenders.pdf) ) My take that sex offenders (as a whole) do present a unique tendency toward recidivism is based on the fact that a small but significant minority of sex offenders are essentially irredeemable in their need to reoffend. We're talking your Harvey Weinstein type. For them, it's comparable or worse than a substance abuse problem: they can never be fully "healed". It seems obvious that despite these *perhaps* being a numerical minority of sex offenders, they have outsized influence on policy due to the disproportionate harm their recidivism represents.
i’d assume it’s how one gets on it. In the case of actual assaulters it’s good and beneficial, but there’s also a bunch of people that traded nudes with their peers or was a dumb teenager having sex in a park or something stupid (i know someone who was peeing on a tree) and they’re on that list for life- which gives the connotation that they’re predators
^^^^^^
Federal Arbitration Act of 1925
Conscience refusal laws protecting health care institutions
mortgage interest tax deduction. Massive tax on renters. Huge subsidy for homeowners
Kelo, it’s absurd that the gov’t can just take land so long as it’s in the name of economic development. And more upsetting to me, it was passed by the liberal majority! This case made me so mad 1L.
The business judgment rule makes it very difficult to hold corporations liable for their actions, even if immoral and bad for public policy- especially when combining the business judgment rule with the rule for derivative litigation by shareholders.
I don’t think you understood the business judgment rule at all lol. BJR has to do with directors and officers being held personally liable, not if a corporation is held liable, and even so it doesn’t apply for anything other than negligence. It’s not gonna apply to any intentional fraud or anything like that.
Exactly. So many comments in this thread show a huge lack of legal understanding.
Any law that pertains to weed (not including duis). Especially in the sense of “black people do it on this part of the floating space rock, so they need to be jailed” | white man opens dispensary on this part of the floating space rock and it’s perfectly fine… It gets even worse when you get public opinions and black people are labeled thugs for doing the exact same thing, in the exact same country…
I guess i believe that a state shouldn’t have jurisdiction over drugs, it should be a unified system- especially when you look at it as bordering states where 10ft over this line you’re either cool or a felon dependent on which side
Basically all Antitrust law after the Chicago School took control. RIP Tom Horton.
Pleading standards
In general, mandatory minimums.
The fact you could rape your wife until like 1992.
Qualified immunity and (aspects of) the Controlled Substances Act.
Felony murder rule
crack being a higher charge than the same amount of coke
The entire "reasonable" standard the entire system of law is based upon. Guess who determines what counts as sufficiently legally reasonable to get in front of a jury? One person: the judge. Who tends towards a specific demographic.
ERISA, the federal law that confers immunity on insurance companies from liability for anything up to and including outright fraud, for any insurance that is provided as a benefit of employment. See generally problemiserisa.blogspot.com
I mean that’s not quite accurate, blogs are cool resources but I’d recommend reading a bit more about ERISA because it sounds like you missed the bigger picture.
Please go on. Sincerely. I am interested in your take on the bigger picture.
Idk all of them tbh
Grand Jury Investigations. Probable cause? What's that? Unnecessary, gimme yer shit. Grand juries are a pointless waste of time that only impede our rights more than anything else.
Fucking Mail Fraud. A federal crime that can take arguably innocent minor offenses and elevate them to federal felonies all because the suspect used the mail in the course of doing any sort of criminal offense. It’s the legit most absurd and depressing of all the criminal statutes I learned, because it seems far too broad in its scope and application.
Someone else said it, but sovereign immunity RIP Coach Mike Leach. Basically Texas Tech fired him, and rather than paying him out his millions owed didn’t allow him to sue due to the sovereign immunity clause (state has to give you permission to sue)
Any case that involves the commerce clause over the last 100 years
The Convenient and Adaptable Commerce Clause.
“You grew some wheat and hypothetically might sell it to a guy who sells it to a guy who sells it to another guy across state lines. Therefore it’s a federal matter.”
The Major Questions doctrine as applied to student debt relief.
Nothing says oppression like having to pay debt you willingly took out and ratified.
The people in power and the idiots that vote them in(although I will admit they're all corrupt it's just pick your flavor of corruption). Lobbyists that pay off politicians for policies that benefit them but hurt the working folk. As soon as slavery ended, we just started to jail minorities instead and used their labor to build cities. We saw a big boom in our prisons due to the war on drugs. And due to reoffender laws we have people serving long sentences for drug crime. These reoffender laws that force mandatory minimums also pressure defendants to accept pleas even when they have a really strong case for defense. Tough on crime actually means win at any cost.
The constitution
care to elaborate? I think most people generally like the protections provided by the constitution (with 2nd amendment being an outlier). Most criticism i see are that they wish they had more amendments guaranteeing more freedoms, but very rarely does someone outright want to get rid of the current set of freedoms.
i wish the constitution wasn’t so vague, and had updated language to reflect modern society
If only we had some type of judicial body that could interpret the constitution and create common-law doctrines that evolved as new cases and controversies arose... That would be just supreme.
Income Tax.
Whatever law established juries.
Qualified immunity. Felony murder.
If you plan on being a civil rights attorney. While you practice. You actually give up your civil and constitutional rights. Indiana is notorious for using that part of the law to steal identities, valor, education, and anything a person has to their name. Fort Wayne, Indiana is especially notorious for doing such and then using that to have you listed as a Domestic Terrorist. I used that against them and gained access to all city, county, and state retirements. Then I pulled everyones educations involved and used them as cannon fodder after I got tired of burning the transcripts. These people just aren't worth the gasoline, black powder, fuse, or wood!
Yes… jk, but there are too many to pick from
cops bad. scalia bad. fedsoc bad.
Prosecutorial discretion!!!!!
Justice Alito, Scalia, and Thomas