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Courting the News
Author: BobR
Date: 10/23/2019 13:13:13
As the impeachment hearings for pResident tRump march on towards their inevitable conclusion, there are other orders of government business occurring that may not be getting the attention they deserve. These involve the courts, an area that doesn't get a lot of attention unless the Supreme Court changes something drastically. Let's take a look.
Still tRump-related, the ongoing fight in the NY-based investigation into tRump's dodgy tax returns keeps getting appealed up to higher courts. Now, it seems, tRump's lawyers are poised to push for a SCOTUS decision if they lose:
This is the deal struck without the current 2nd Court of Appeals even having rendered a decision yet. One would hope the SCOTUS wouldn't bother with it. The fight isn't whether tRump committed a crime, but whether the DA has the right to see the evidence. This seems like a slam-dunk, but I'm not a lawyer, so we'll see.
In a bit of aggravating news, the SCOTUS decided that the federal courts have no jurisdiction to decide gerrymandering cases:
In essence - the state court is as far as a gerrymandering case can go. This seems like a dereliction of duty, but unless there's a constitutional mandate, re: voting, we are stuck.
Finally, in the "you've-got-to-be-fucking-kidding" category, Sheriff Joe Arpaio - who was pardoned by tRump - wants his conviction erased:
That a former judge - who should know how this works - is trying to do this is galling. Even laymen like me know that if you accept a pardon, you are tacitly admitting your guilt and accepting the court's decision as such. He should know better, but then he's also a child-molesting Republican hack, so there you go.
Anyway - back to your regularly scheduled impeachment watch.
Still tRump-related, the ongoing fight in the NY-based investigation into tRump's dodgy tax returns keeps getting appealed up to higher courts. Now, it seems, tRump's lawyers are poised to push for a SCOTUS decision if they lose:
The fight over access to President Donald Trump’s tax returns could be fast-tracked to the Supreme Court in time for a decision before next fall’s election, under an agreement struck Monday between Trump’s attorneys and a local prosecutor in New York.
Trump’s lawyers agreed that if they lose a court battle scheduled for argument at the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, they will take no more than 10 days to petition the Supreme Court to hear the case.
In exchange for Trump’s agreement to keep the legal fight moving at a brisk pace, lawyers from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.'s office agreed to hold off trying to enforce a grand jury subpoena issued to one of Trump’s accounting firms in August.
This is the deal struck without the current 2nd Court of Appeals even having rendered a decision yet. One would hope the SCOTUS wouldn't bother with it. The fight isn't whether tRump committed a crime, but whether the DA has the right to see the evidence. This seems like a slam-dunk, but I'm not a lawyer, so we'll see.
In a bit of aggravating news, the SCOTUS decided that the federal courts have no jurisdiction to decide gerrymandering cases:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday threw out a challenge to Republican-drawn electoral districts in Michigan that Democrats said were illegally configured to dilute their voting power, an action taken in the aftermath of major rulings by the justices in June prohibiting federal courts from hearing such claims.
[...]
The justices had put the panel’s decision on hold before they issued their rulings in the two major gerrymandering cases from Maryland and North Carolina. In a blow to election reformers, the justices found that federal courts have no role to play in reining in electoral map manipulation by politicians aimed at entrenching one party in power.
The Supreme Court on Oct. 7 threw out a similar case from Ohio in which a lower court had invalidated 16 Republican-drawn U.S. House districts that Democrats had said were drawn to unlawfully diminish their political clout.
In essence - the state court is as far as a gerrymandering case can go. This seems like a dereliction of duty, but unless there's a constitutional mandate, re: voting, we are stuck.
Finally, in the "you've-got-to-be-fucking-kidding" category, Sheriff Joe Arpaio - who was pardoned by tRump - wants his conviction erased:
An appeals court in San Francisco will hear arguments Wednesday in former Sheriff Joe Arpaio's bid to erase his contempt of court conviction from his record after he was pardoned by President Donald Trump.
The former six-term sheriff of metro Phoenix had appealed a lower-court ruling that refused to expunge his conviction for disobeying a 2011 court order barring his traffic patrols that targeted immigrants.
The judge who made the ruling explained pardons don't erase convictions or the facts of cases and that Arpaio's clemency only mooted his possible punishments.
Arpaio's lawyers had previously told the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the lawman was deprived of his opportunity to appeal his conviction because the pardon came before he was sentenced and final judgment was entered, so the conviction must be erased.
Special prosecutor Christopher Caldwell argues Arpaio gave up his right to appeal the conviction when he accepted the August 2017 pardon — and that if the former sheriff wanted to challenge the conviction, he should have rejected the clemency and taken his chances in the appeals court.
That a former judge - who should know how this works - is trying to do this is galling. Even laymen like me know that if you accept a pardon, you are tacitly admitting your guilt and accepting the court's decision as such. He should know better, but then he's also a child-molesting Republican hack, so there you go.
Anyway - back to your regularly scheduled impeachment watch.
