Damage Done by the Supremes - Big Business Benefits

The Supreme Court Justices are now a Conservative Body and their rulings show it. They've overturned some long standing rulings and the new rulings are definately for Big Business, against women and for segregation. Lets hope our next President is a Democrat and can change the direction of this court.

Here from the New York Times are the rulings so far:

Equal Protection

By a vote of 5 to 4, the court invalidated voluntary integration plans in the school districts of Seattle and metropolitan Louisville, Ky., ruling that using a student’s race to govern the availability of a place at a desired school, even for the purpose of preventing resegregation, violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, No. 05-908. But Justice Kennedy, a member of the majority, refused to sign the more far-reaching parts of the chief justice’s opinion that would have barred even more general considerations of race. His position in the middle of the court gave small comfort to the four dissenters, Justices Stevens, Breyer, Souter and Ginsburg.

Business

A pair of decisions made it more difficult for investors to sue companies, executives and underwriters when they suspect securities fraud or unlawful manipulation. In Tellabs Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights Ltd., No. 06-484, the court ruled 8 to 1 that shareholders must show “cogent and compelling evidence” of intent to defraud in order to withstand dismissal of their lawsuit. Justice Ginsburg wrote the opinion, and Justice Stevens dissented.

In the second case, the court voted 7 to 1 to dismiss a shareholders’ antitrust suit that accused 10 leading investment banks of conspiring to fix the prices and terms for initial public offerings. The court held that the challenged behavior fell within the regulatory domain of the Securities and Exchange Commission, making the banks generally immune from antitrust liability. Justice Breyer wrote the opinion in the case, Credit Suisse Securities v. Billing, No. 05-1157, and Justice Thomas dissented. Justice Kennedy did not participate.

In its most important patent ruling in years, the court tilted away from patent owners and made it easier to find that a patent had been improperly issued for an invention that was “obvious” and therefore undeserving of patent protection. Justice Kennedy wrote the unanimous opinion in the case, KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., No. 04-1350.

In an important antitrust ruling, the court voted 5 to 4 to overturn a 96-year-old precedent under which it was always illegal for a manufacturer and retailer to agree on minimum resale prices. The legality of price maintenance will now be judged case by case for its impact on competition. Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion in Leegin Creative Leather Products Inc. v. PSKS Inc., No. 06-480. The dissenters were Justices Breyer, Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg.

The justices continued to curb punitive damages in a 5-to-4 decision that overturned a $79.5 million award against Philip Morris. Justice Breyer’s majority opinion in Philip Morris USA v. Williams, No. 05-1256, held that the Oregon jury that gave the award to the widow of a lifelong smoker might have improperly calculated the figure to punish the cigarette maker for harm to other smokers as well.

The dissenters were Justices Scalia, Thomas, Ginsburg and Stevens.

Criminal Law

In Rita v. United States, No. 06-5754, the court held by a vote of 8 to 1 that even though the federal sentencing guidelines are no longer mandatory, a sentence within the guidelines range can be presumed on appeal to be “reasonable.” In federal circuits that adopt such a presumption, it will be more difficult for defendants to challenge sentences that follow the guidelines. Justice Breyer wrote the majority opinion, and Justice Souter dissented.

The court continued to interpret and apply the law Congress passed in 1996, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, to restrict the jurisdiction of the federal courts to rule on habeas corpus petitions from state prison inmates. The justices ruled, 9 to 0, that the federal appeals court in California had overstepped those limits when it granted a new trial to a convicted murderer on the ground that the jury had been prejudiced against him by seeing the victim’s relatives in the courtroom wearing buttons with the victim’s picture on them.

Without deciding whether the buttons had, in fact, caused prejudice, Justice Thomas wrote for the court that under the 1996 law, a federal court could not base a grant of habeas corpus on a legal principle that the Supreme Court itself had not adopted. The case was Carey v. Musladin, No. 05-785.

The court ruled, 8 to 1, that the police did not violate a speeding driver’s rights by ramming his car and causing a devastating accident. The police officers’ decision to force the driver off the road after a high-speech chase was reasonable, Justice Scalia said in the majority opinion. Justice Stevens dissented, noting that the 19-year-old driver was suspected of nothing more serious than speeding. The case was Scott v. Harris, No. 05-1631.

A unanimous ruling extended to automobile passengers the same right that drivers have to challenge the validity of a decision by the police to stop the car. Passengers in a car stopped by the police do not feel free to walk away, the court held in an opinion by Justice Souter, and thus are “seized” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable seizure. The case was Brendlin v. California, No. 06-8120.

The court made it easier for prosecutors in death penalty cases to remove potential jurors who express ambivalence about the death penalty. Writing for the 5-to-4 majority, Justice Kennedy said appeals courts must defer to a trial judge’s decision on whether a potential juror would be able to overcome qualms about capital punishment and be open to voting to impose a death sentence. The dissenters, in an opinion by Justice Stevens that Justices Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer also joined, said this set the disqualification bar too low and would skew juries toward those most likely to vote for death. The case was Uttecht v. Brown, No. 06-413.

The court ruled 5 to 4 that a mentally ill convicted murderer who was delusional and lacked a “rational understanding” of why the state had sentenced him to death could not be executed. Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion in Panetti v. Quarterman, No. 06-6407. The dissenters were Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito.

Abortion

The court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in a 5-to-4 decision that was a reversal of course and a reframing of the abortion issue. The decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, No. 05-380, was the first time the court had upheld a prohibition on a specific method of abortion. The law, enacted in 2003, subjects doctors to fines and prison terms.

In 2000, with Justice O’Connor in the majority, the court had voted 5 to 4 to strike down a nearly identical state ban, from Nebraska. Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion emphasized abortion’s “ethical and moral concerns” and said the law protected women who might otherwise have an abortion by the prohibited method from “regret,” “grief” and “sorrow.”

Justices Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter and Breyer dissented.

Access to Court

A deadline for filing a federal appeal could not be excused by the fact that a federal judge had given an inmate’s lawyer the wrong date, the court held in a 5 to 4 opinion by Justice Thomas. The decision, Bowles v. Russell, No. 06-5306, overturned two precedents from the 1960s that had endorsed a “unique circumstances” excuse for missed deadlines. Justices Souter, Stevens, Ginsburg and Breyer dissented.

The court rejected a longstanding position of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which the Bush administration had repudiated months earlier, on the deadline for filing a pay discrimination case. The federal statute against employment discrimination requires an employee, as a condition of being able to proceed with a lawsuit, to file a formal complaint within 180 days of the discriminatory act.

Under the commission’s doctrine of “paycheck accrual,” that 180-day clock resets every time the employee receives a paycheck with pay lower than it would have been in the absence of discrimination. But the court’s 5-to-4 decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, No. 05-1074, requires the employee to have filed within 180 days of the act of discrimination, an interpretation that will keep many such cases out of court. Justices Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter, and Breyer dissented.

The court ruled 5 to 4 that taxpayers did not have standing to challenge the Bush administration’s expenditure of federal money to support its Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The dissenters in the decision, Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, No. 06-157, were Justices Souter, Stevens, Ginsburg and Breyer.

In an important disability case, the court ruled that parents of children with disabilities could go to court without a lawyer to challenge a public school district’s plan for their child’s education. Justice Kennedy’s 7-to-2 opinion said that a federal statute, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees a “free, appropriate public education” to all children, gives rights to parents as well. Justices Scalia and Thomas dissented from the decision, Winkelman v. Parma City School District, No. 05-983.

Speech

The court ruled 5 to 4 that the restriction on corporate- and union-sponsored television advertising, contained in the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, threatened to curb core political speech. The provision could be constitutional, Chief Justice Roberts said, only if interpreted narrowly to apply only to advertisements that are “susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.”

The dissenters, Justices Souter, Stevens, Ginsburg and Breyer, said the ruling would open the door to a flood of corporate and union money in the guise of the “sham” issue advertisements that the law was designed to stop. They said the opinion, Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, No. 06-969, effectively overruled a major part of the law as well as the 2003 Supreme Court decision that had upheld it, a view with which many election law experts agreed.

School officials can censor and punish student speech that can be interpreted as advocating or celebrating the use of illegal drugs, the court held in ruling that a principal did not violate a student’s First Amendment rights by suspending him for his display of a banner proclaiming “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” Five justices, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, found no constitutional violation; a sixth, Justice Breyer, said the principal was entitled to immunity from damages no matter how the First Amendment question should be answered. Justices Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg dissented on First Amendment grounds. The case was Morse v. Frederick, No. 06-278.

Federal Authority

In its first encounter with global climate change, the court ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that the Environmental Protection Agency had the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases in automobile emissions. The agency had maintained that it had no such authority and that it would not use it if it did. But the court said the agency could refuse to act only if it provided a scientific basis for its refusal.

To reach that conclusion, the court first had to find that Massachusetts, which along with other states had brought the lawsuit against the E.P.A., was suffering the type of injury from the agency’s antiregulatory stance that gave the state standing to sue. Writing for the majority, Justice Stevens said states were due special deference in their claims to standing. The case, Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 05-1120, marked a rare expansion by the court of the doctrine of standing. Chief Justice Roberts dissented, along with Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito.

Here's something that flew under the radar!!

The Conservative 5-4 Supreme Court saw fit to eliminate our price protection. Retailers can set prices, now, without violating the anti-trust law. This means that we will be paying more for our things.

From Findlaw:

High Court Eases Ban on Minimum Prices
CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER AP Business Writer

(AP) - WASHINGTON-Manufacturers will have greater leeway to set minimum prices at the retail level without violating antitrust laws under a Thursday Supreme Court ruling that could hurt consumers and small merchants.

By allowing minimum price agreements, the court's 5-4 decision could lead to higher prices, dissenting justices said, as it becomes more difficult for smaller stores and Internet retailers to offer lower-priced goods.

The court said agreements on minimum prices are legal if they promote competition, meaning accusations of antitrust violations will be evaluated case by case.

In a 1991 decision, the Supreme Court had declared that minimum pricing agreements always violate federal antitrust law. But Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that the principle that past decisions should be left alone "does not compel our continued adherence" in this instance.

Minimum price agreements can benefit consumers, Kennedy wrote, by enabling retailers to invest in greater customer service without fear of being undercut by discount rivals. The agreements also could make it easier for new products to compete, he added, because a retailer could recoup the costs of marketing a new good by charging a higher price.

Dissenting from that view, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote: "The only safe predictions to make about today's decision are that it will likely raise the price of goods at retail."

The Consumer Federation of America said in court filings that the ban on minimum price agreements allowed "innovative retailers to continually enter the market, offering new and lower priced alternatives to consumers."

But Roy Englert, an antitrust attorney at Robbins Russell, said the court's decision does have boundaries that will protect entrepreneurs. The ruling only allows minimum price agreements between manufacturers of a single brand of a product and retailers, Englert said, while other brands of the same product can still compete on price.

Moreover, if only one brand is available, retailers and consumers can still sue manufacturers for anticompetitive conduct, Englert said. The courts will now evaluate such suits on the merits, rather than automatically finding them illegal.

Englert helped prepare a brief in support of Leegin.

Some antitrust experts say consumers shopping on the Internet will be hurt by abandoning the 96-year-old rule.

This Supreme Court seems to be overturning all the past rulings. They have to be stopped. And they, just as Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, can be impeached.

Again, I am pleading, Wake up America!!!

Supreme Court to Review Guantanamo Cases

A step in the right direction and a set back for Bushco!

From the AP:

Jun 29, 10:12 AM (ET)

By PETE YOST

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court, reversing course, agreed Friday to review whether Guantanamo Bay detainees may go to federal court to challenge their indefinite confinement.

The action, announced without comment along with other end-of-term orders, is a setback for the Bush administration. It had argued that a new law strips courts of their jurisdiction to hear detainee cases.

In April, the court turned down an identical request, although several justices indicated they could be persuaded otherwise.

The move is highly unusual.

The court did not indicate what changed the justices' minds about considering the issue. But last week, lawyers for the detainees filed a statement from a military lawyer in which he desribed the inadequacy of the process the administration has put forward as an alternative to a full-blown review by civilian courts.

In February, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a key provision of a law the Bush administration pushed through Congress last year stripping federal courts of their ability to hear the detainees' challenges to their confinement.

On April 2, the Supreme denied the detainees' request to review the February appeals court ruling.

The detainees then petitioned the court to reconsider its denial.

Dismissing the petitions would be "a profound deprivation" of the prisoners' right to speedy court review, lawyers for the detainees said.

The administration asked that the detainees' Supreme Court petitions be thrown out.

So true!

H/T to Fernando

Lots of bad news for our Nation today

First of all, Bush refuses to supply subpoenaed documents.

From the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.

Bush's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor. Congressional panels want the documents for their investigations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' stewardship of the Justice Department, including complaints of undue political influence.

The Democratic chairmen of the two committees seeking the documents accused Bush of stonewalling and disdain for the law, and said they would press forward with enforcing the subpoenas.

"With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation," White House counsel Fred Fielding said in a letter to the chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees. "We had hoped this matter could conclude with your committees receiving information in lieu of having to invoke executive privilege. Instead, we are at this conclusion."

Thursday was the deadline for surrendering the documents. The White House also made clear that Miers and Taylor would not testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas, which were issued June 13. The stalemate could end up with House and Senate contempt citations and a battle in federal court over separation of powers.

"Increasingly, the president and vice president feel they are above the law," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. He portrayed the president's actions as "Nixonian stonewalling."

His House counterpart, Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said Bush's assertion of executive privilege was "unprecedented in its breadth and scope" and displayed "an appalling disregard for the right of the people to know what is going on in their government."

And from our Supremes, Court Limits Schools on Race

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected school assignment plans that take account of students' race in two major public school districts. The decisions could imperil similar plans nationwide. The Court also blocked the execution of a Texas killer whose lawyers argued that he should not be put to death because he is mentally ill.

Today is probably the Court's last session until October.

The school rulings in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle leave public school systems with a limited arsenal to maintain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissent that was joined by the court's other three liberals.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion in which he said race may be a component of school district plans designed to achieve diversity.

He agreed with Roberts that the plans in Louisville and Seattle went too far. He said, however, that to the extent that Roberts' opinion could be interpreted as foreclosing the use of race in any circumstance, "I disagree with that reasoning."

The two school systems in Thursday's decisions employ slightly different methods of taking students' race into account when determining which school they would attend.

Senate Blocks Immigration Bill. This is not all bad though. I think a better bill can be passed. And it is good news since the president doesn't get his way on this one.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate drove a stake Thursday through President Bush's plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008 elections.

The bill's supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the legislation, which critics assailed as offering amnesty to illegal immigrants. The vote was 46 to 53 in favor of limiting the debate.

Senators in both parties said the issue is so volatile that Congress is highly unlikely to revisit it this fall or next year, when the presidential election will increasingly dominate American politics.

A similar effort collapsed in the Congress last year, and the House has not bothered with an immigration bill this year, awaiting Senate action.

The vote was a stinging setback for Bush, who advocated the bill as an imperfect but necessary fix of current immigration practices in which many illegal immigrants use forged documents or lapsed visas to live and work in the United States.

It was a victory for Republican conservatives who strongly criticized the bill's provisions that would have established pathways to lawful status for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. They were aided by talk radio and TV hosts who repeatedly attacked the bill and urged listeners to flood Congress with calls, faxes and e-mails.

The bill would have toughened border security and instituted a new system for weeding out illegal immigrants from workplaces. It would have created a new guest worker program and allowed millions of illegal immigrants to obtain legal status if they briefly returned home.

And I guess the House members think they need a pay raise. I think they should wait until we get more of what the people they represent want done!

House Members Seek $4,400 Pay Raise

WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite low approval ratings and hard feelings from last year's elections, Democrats and Republicans in the House are reaching out for an approximately $4,400 pay raise that would increase their salaries to almost $170,000.

What bothers me most are the decisions that the conservative Supreme Court have passed. Their decisions will hurt our nation.

Our Conservative Supreme Court

The Supreme Court throws out $79.5 Million Tobacco Verdict. Throws out punative damages against Phillip Morris, according to CNN just now.

And what is worse is what they will be ruling on this year. Per Think Progress quoting the LA Times:

Justice Antonin Scalia is “poised to lead a new conservative majority” on the Supreme Court. “Between now and late June, the court is set to hand down decisions in four areas of law — race, religion, abortion regulation and campaign finance — where Scalia’s views may now represent the majority.”

The conservatives are loving this:

"I'm looking forward to the next 10 to 12 years," said Terry Eastland, the publisher of the conservative Weekly Standard.

Scalia's another arrogant, self important neocon:

"Justice Scalia has had a bigger impact off the court than on it," said law professor Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina. "In his speeches and his opinions, he is trying to reach a wider audience."

Scalia does not grant media interviews, but in recent years he has spoken regularly at colleges and law schools, and he rarely fails to make news with an off-the-cuff comment. When asked to explain his role in the Bush vs. Gore decision that halted Florida's recount in the 2000 presidential race, his standard rejoinder is: "Get over it."

The original retort from the winger..."Get over it"! I will never get over a stolen election. The Supreme court has usurped my right of voting. This , I will never get over. This type of things happens in countries with Dictators, not the United States of America.

Update on Court Rulings today. Of course this one has not been aired yet by the MSM.

U.S. appeals court backs Bush, denies Gitmo detainees
POSTED: 10:58 a.m. EST, February 20, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Guantanamo Bay detainees may not challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in a ruling upholding a key provision in President Bush's anti-terrorism law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding foreigners.

Barring detainees from the U.S. court system was a key provision in the Military Commissions Act, which Bush pushed through Congress last year to set up a system to prosecute terrorism suspects.

The ruling is all but certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court, which last year struck down the Bush administration's original plan for trying detainees before military commissions.

The Military Commissions Act was crafted in response to that decision and the president hailed it as a necessary tool for bringing terror suspects to justice.