#Judicial Process / Court Cases / Court Decisions

[astroninaaa]

wtf is going on with cellbit - by a brazilian law major student

hey besties ever since the day cellbit released that PDF i’ve been keeping up with his shit bc as a law student (only two years to go!!!!) in brazil it’s kinda really interesting to see how it goes, specially since i don’t think we’ve ever had this sort of judicial action taken by an internet celebrity, like, ever. so i’ve decided to kinda explain what’s going on. if anyone has any questions after this i’d be really up to talk about it i love talking about law 🫶 xoxo let’s start. also sorry if anything reads weird english is not my native language okay

for those who don’t know, very recently, a judicial action taken by cellbit has made public. in this action, he’s suing over 200 people for the crime of defamation.

the action was taken to court in january, but it was under what we call “secret of justice”, which means only cellbit himself and twitter’s lawyers had access to it. now that there have been decisions by the judge and everything, the process’s been made public.

basically, cellbit started an action against twitter (NOT THE PEOPLE WHO COMMITTED THE CRIME YET), citing a little over 200 tweets that accused him of crimes like SA, psychological abuse, pedophilia, and others. all of those are real crimes in brazil — and accusing someone of committing crimes (specially as awful crimes as those) without proof is a crime in itself (defamation). he claimed that the tweets were harmful to his honor, mental health, and reputation, besides categorizing as defamation, since there’s no investigation going on against him for all these infractions he’s being accused of.

with that, he asked twitter to delete all the tweets, and to provide him with the personal information of said twitter accounts so he can sue them directly for defamation. he did these requests through something called “tutela cautelar”, which means the judge gets to decide whether or not twitter has to do these things before proof production and proper investigation, since, if twitter doesn’t do those things, the damage to his honor and reputation will be ongoing + he won’t be able to sue the proper people in time.

the judge conceded to his requests, and twitter has already deleted all the tweets. the main discussion going right now is wtf do they do about the international accounts — does our law apply to them? what’s gonna happen? we don’t know yet. that’s being discussed in court for the moment and, considering brazilian courts, it might take quite a while.

so, yeah, all those people aren’t being sued YET. but they will, probably somewhat soon.

it’s also important to mention that this lawsuit is from january and was only now released to the public. there’s probably a lot more coming after the whole fiasco that led him to releasing his statement, including a lawsuit against his ex herself.

now, other topics — could he sue other twitter accounts for cyber bullying or death threats? probably, but my personal opinion is that suing for defamation and focusing on accounts that were accusing him of having committed crimes was a much better move because it’s a much stronger case.

there’s very little room for discussion when a person has outright said “cellbit committed this crime”. death threats have more room for discussion: “oh, but they’re hundreds of miles away, it wasn’t a serious threat”, “they didn’t mean it”, “it was a joke”. same thing goes for cyberbullying: it can get too subjective.

defamation isn’t subjective. you accuse someone of a crime they didn’t commit? boom, defamation, at least according to our laws. so, to me, personally, it makes a LOT of sense for his lawyers to focus on that: he’s a LOT more likely to win than if he was suing for cyberbullying, threatening, insult, or any of that. also, he’s a lot more likely to win FASTER.

when he gets to sue the actual people who committed the crime, that is. for now, he’s only requested twitter to give him the necessary information to get to these people, which i think they’ll very likely be obligated to do. there are digital data protection laws in brazil, but a crime is a crime. digital data protection isn’t gonna protect you from the court.

another thing: LGPD (brazil’s general law of personal data protection) forces all social media companies to keep records of all the content posted by their users for AT LEAST six months. many companies keep it for way longer. that’s a law created for judicial purposes, in case something published to twitter, facebook, or instagram needs to be analysed by a court. that’s why even tho twitter has deleted the tweets, they still have them, and why it doesn’t matter if the people responsible are deleting the tweets, the accounts, the fucking app itself. the records are still there, and they will be used judicially.

i think that’s the overall for the situation, but i’m willing to answer any questions and to discuss it if anyone wants to! i’m a big law enjoyer. also personally i think cellbit is so fucking right for this like YEAH people don’t get to commit fucking crimes on twitter and get away with it. really interested in how this is gonna go law-wise, but in general also really glad to see someone take action like this.

[waitmyturtles]

This is INCREDIBLY EXCITING news, as South Korea lags behind many other Asian countries on public viewpoints about LGBTQ+ rights. Well done, South Korea’s Supreme Court, on equal public healthcare rights! Also note, at the end of the article, how fast attitudes are changing about same-sex marriage in South Korea over the last 24 years. Keep the upward trend going! (I’m calling for more South Korean BLs, obviously.)

Paywall-free paste below:

In a landmark ruling for gay rights in South Korea on Thursday, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples qualify for the national health insurance’s dependent coverage, a decision that rights activists hoped could pave the way for legalizing same-sex marriage in the country.

The decision would allow same-sex couples in the country to register their partners as dependents in national health insurance coverage, as married couples or couples in a common-law marriage can. Numerous other benefits are denied to same-sex and other couples living outside the traditional norms of family in South Korea.

In its ruling on Thursday, the country’s highest court ruled that denying a same-sex couple national health insurance dependent coverage “just because they are of the same sex” constitutes a serious discrimination that infringed upon citizens’ “dignity and values, their rights to pursue happiness, their freedom of privacy and their rights to be equally treated by the law.”

The plaintiff, So Seong-wook, filed the legal complaint in 2021. Mr. So wanted to register in the national health insurance program as a dependent of his partner, Kim Yong-min, arguing that their union should be treated as a common-law marriage. But South Korea’s health insurance service rejected his request and told him to pay a separate monthly insurance premium — a decision later affirmed by a district court.

But in February last year, an appeals court overturned the lower-court ruling. It said that although Mr. Kim and Mr. So’s union could not be considered a common-law marriage under South Korean laws, they should still qualify for the national health insurance’s dependent coverage.

In its final say on the case on Thursday, the Supreme Court endorsed the appeals court ruling. It said that same-sex couples formed an “economic cohabitation tantamount to” married and common-law couples.

“I hope today’s ruling will serve as a steppingstone toward enabling sexual minorities to gain equality in the system of marriage,” Mr. So said in a news conference on Thursday.

Mr. Kim said while he describes himself as Mr. So’s “husband” and “companion,” he has never been able to enjoy those titles legally in South Korea.

“I am so happy that the court recognized some of that today,” he said.

Borang Jang, an East Asia researcher at Amnesty International, the rights group, described the ruling as historic.

“The court has taken a significant step towards dismantling systemic discrimination and ensuring inclusivity for all,” she said in a statement. “The case itself is a sobering reminder of the lengthy judicial processes that same-sex couples must endure to secure basic rights that should be universally guaranteed.”

There is no official data on how many people live together in same-sex unions in the country. But between 2016 and 2022, the number of people who live together in “non-kin households” — people living together outside legal marriage — doubled to 1 million, according to government data.

Conservative Christians in South Korea have long campaigned against legalizing same-sex marriage or introducing an anti-discrimination law that protects people of any gender, age, sexual identity or physical ability. But attitudes are changing. At the turn of the century, only 17 percent of South Koreans were in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage, according to Gallup Korea, a survey company. By May of last year, that figure had grown to 40 percent.

By Choe Sang-Hun

[wilwheaton]

In knocking down President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, the right-wing Supreme Court majority does more than keep millions of American saddled with debt — it continues to shift enormous power away from Congress and the executive branch to itself. The majority — “as is becoming the norm,” Justice Elena Kagan narrates in her dissent — relies heavily on the major questions “doctrine,” a theory in vogue in right-wing legal circles. It dictates that when executive branch agencies take action of major “economic and political significance,” they lose the usual judicial deference they enjoy. That standard of significance is wholly in the eye of the beholder — an amorphousness the majority has continually taken advantage of. That has usually translated, in the hands of this conservative Court, into various Biden administration actions meeting their doom. While the Court often protests that it’s really shifting power back to Congress when it knocks down agency actions, it does so knowing that Congress is usually stalemated by various factors (split party control, the Senate filibuster) that make it extremely difficult for the legislature to pass many major laws. It also disrupts the usual separation of powers balance: Congress writes broad laws authorizing agencies to deal with issues (letting the Environmental Protection Agency regulate air pollution or the Education Department deal with federal student debt), passing on the responsibility of crafting the specifics to the expert-staffed agencies. But this Court continues to impose itself on that process, deciding that Congress didn’t meet some vague standard of specificity in its delegation and knocking down agency actions it doesn’t like. “This Court objects to Congress’s permitting the Secretary (and other agency officials) to answer so-called major questions,” Kagan writes, referring, in this case, to the Secretary of Education. “Or at least it objects when the answers given are not to the Court’s satisfaction. So the Court puts its own heavyweight thumb on the scales.”

Kagan Decries Use Of Right-Wing ‘Doctrine’ In Student Loan Decision As ‘Danger To A Democratic Order’

Expand SCOTUS. Impeach and remove the corrupt Trump justices, as well as Alito and the PROFOUNDLY corrupt Thomas. Unless and until this happens, SCOTUS is a existential and direct threat to human rights and equality under the law in America.

[ridenwithbiden]

A group of Democratic senators introduced a bill Thursday that would radically change the makeup of the Supreme Court, amid ongoing concerns over court ethics and its increasingly conservative makeup.

The legislation would appoint a new Supreme Court justice every two years, with that justice hearing every case for 18 years before stepping back from the bench and only hearing a “small number of constitutionally required cases.”

“The Supreme Court is facing a crisis of legitimacy that is exacerbated by radical decisions at odds with established legal precedent, ethical lapses of sitting justices, and politicization of the confirmation process,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said in a statement.

“This crisis has eroded faith and confidence in our nation’s highest court. Fundamental reform is necessary to address this crisis and restore trust in the institution.”

Only the nine most recently appointed justices would hear appellate cases, which make up a bulk of the court’s work. All living justices would participate in a smaller subset of cases under the court’s “original jurisdiction,” such as disputes between states or with foreign officials.

The bill was introduced by Sens. Booker, Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and it was co-sponsored by Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).

Calls for Supreme Court reform grew louder this year after ProPublica revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of perks from conservative political donors. Further investigations have uncovered multiple significant and undisclosed gifts from politically connected friends over his time as a federal judge.

Justice Samuel Alito also took a luxury vacation paid for by an influential conservative donor while in the judiciary, another investigation found earlier this year.

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced a bill earlier this year along party lines that would require the Supreme Court to create and abide by a code of ethics. Unlike lower courts, Supreme Court judges are not beholden to an official ethics code.

“An organized scheme by right-wing special interests to capture and control the Supreme Court, aided by gobs of billionaire dark money flowing through the confirmation process and judicial lobbying, has resulted in an unaccountable Court out of step with the American people,” Whitehouse said in a statement.

“Term limits and biennial appointments would make the Court more representative of the public and lower the stakes of each justice’s appointment, while preserving constitutional protections for judicial independence.

“As Congress considers multiple options to restore the integrity of this scandal-plagued Court, our term limits bill should be front and center as a potential solution,” he added.

Attempts to reform the Supreme Court have been denounced by both Republicans in Congress and by some members of the court, namely Thomas and Alito.

Alito argued earlier this year that Congress does not have the authority to force any reform on the court without a constitutional amendment.

“I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it,” Alito told The Wall Street Journal. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”

But Whitehouse’s office argued in Wednesday’s statement that the Constitution allows Congress to regulate how the court handles appellate cases from lower courts. That’s why all justices would still weigh in on “original jurisdiction” cases, avoiding the constitutional hang-up.

Trust in the Supreme Court remains near all-time lows, according to national opinion polling. A Gallup poll last month found that just 41 percent of Americans approve of how the Supreme Court is doing its job, with 58 percent disapproving.

[simply-ivanka]

Harris and Schumer Target the Supreme Court

Democrats make clear that if they win, they’ll push measures to destroy the judiciary’s independence.

By 

David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew M. Grossman -- Wall Street Journal

Democrats have made clear that if they win the presidency and Congress in November, they will attempt to take over the Supreme Court as well. Shortly after ending his re-election campaign, President Biden put forth a package of high-court “reforms,” including term limits and a “binding” ethics code designed to infringe on judicial authority. Kamala Harris quickly signed on, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has made clear that bringing the justices to heel is a top priority.

Democrats proclaim their devotion to democratic institutions, but their plan for the court is an assault on America’s basic constitutional structure. The Framers envisioned a judiciary operating with independence from influences by the political branches. Democratic “reform” proposals are designed to change the composition of the court or, failing that, to influence the justices by turning up the political heat, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt achieved with his failed 1937 court-packing plan.

Now as then, the court stands between a Democratic administration and its ambitions. The reformers’ beef is precisely that the court is doing its job by enforcing constitutional and statutory constraints on the powers of Congress and the executive branch.

Roosevelt sought to shrug off limits on the federal government’s reach. What’s hamstrung the Obama and Biden administrations is the separation of powers among the branches. President Obama saw his signature climate initiative, the Clean Power Plan, stayed by the court, which later ruled that it usurped Congress’s lawmaking power. The Biden administration repeatedly skirted Congress to enact major policies by executive fiat, only for the courts to enjoin and strike them down. That includes the employer vaccine mandate, the eviction moratorium and the student-loan forgiveness plan.

That increasingly muscular exercises of executive power have accompanied the left’s ascendance in the Democratic Party coalition is no coincidence. The legislative process entails compromise and moderation, which typically cuts against radical goals. That was the lesson self-styled progressives took from ObamaCare, which they’ve never stopped faulting for failing to establish a government medical-insurance provider to compete directly with private ones. Similarly, Congress has always tailored student-loan relief to reward public service and account for genuine need.

Then there’s the progressive drive for hands-on administration of the national economy by “expert” agencies empowered to make, enforce and adjudicate the laws. The Supreme Court has stood as a bulwark against the combination of powers that James Madison pronounced “the very definition of tyranny.” Decisions from the 2023-24 term cut back on agencies’ power to make law through aggressive reinterpretation of their statutory authority, to serve as judge in their own cases, and to evade judicial review of regulations alleged to conflict with statute. By enforcing constitutional limits on the concentration of power in agencies, the Roberts court has fortified both democratic accountability and individual liberty.

That explains the Democratic Party’s attacks on the court. The New York Times’s Jamelle Bouie recently praised Mr. Biden for identifying the court as the “major obstacle to the party’s ability” to carry out its agenda and commended the president’s “willingness to challenge the Supreme Court as a political entity.” That explains the ginned-up “ethics” controversies: The aim is to discredit the court, as has become the norm in political warfare.

An even bigger lie is the refrain that the court is “out of control” and “undemocratic.” Consider the most controversial decisions of recent terms. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) returned the regulation of abortion to the democratic process. West Virginia v. EPA(2022) and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) constrained agencies’ power to say what the law is, without denying Congress’s power to pursue any end. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy (2024) elevated the Seventh Amendment right to a jury in fraud cases over the SEC’s preference to bring such cases in its own in-house tribunals. And Trump v. U.S. (2024), the presidential immunity ruling, extended the doctrine of Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982) to cover criminal charges as well as lawsuits, without altering the scope of presidential power one iota.

Meanwhile, the administrative state has scored wins in some of this year’s cases. In Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Association, the justices rejected a challenge to the CFPB’s open-ended funding mechanism. A ruling to the contrary could have spelled the agency’s end. In Moody v. NetChoice, it reversed a far-reaching injunction restricting agencies’ communications with social-media companies seeking to censor content. And in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, it reversed another injunction, against the FDA over its approval of an abortion pill. The last two decisions were notable as exercises of judicial restraint. In both cases, the court found the challengers lacked standing to sue.

What Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris, Mr. Schumer and their party are attempting to do is wrong and dangerous. They aim to destroy a branch of federal government. For faithfully carrying out its role, the court faces an unprecedented attack on its independence, beyond even Roosevelt’s threats. Unlike then, however, almost every Democratic lawmaker and official marches in lockstep, and the media, which were skeptical of Roosevelt’s plan, march with them.

As Alexander Hamilton observed, the “independence of the judges” is “requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals” from the actions of “designing men” set on “dangerous innovations in the government.” The political branches have forgone their own obligation to follow the Constitution, which makes the check of review by an independent judiciary all the more essential. Ms. Harris and Mr. Schumer would put it under threat.

Mr. Rivkin served at the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Mr. Grossman is a senior legal fellow at the Buckeye Institute. Both practice appellate and constitutional law in Washington.

[spunkykirby]

Uhm...I found another potential flaw mihoyo needs to confront about Neuvillette and his Archon Trials:

...how exactly is he playing both the Plaintiff and the Judge???

This "legal" case would present several significant flaws:

1. Conflict of Interest. Neuvillette would be responsible for both presenting their case and making decisions on the outcome, creating a clear conflict of interest. The archons don't even need to point this out, the jury would be questioning this from the get go (especially when Neuvi has never acted as both before, nor has anyone in all of fontaine's history).

2. Bias: It's likely that Neuvi would be biased in favor of his own interests (he's the one who enforced the "come to trial or there's Violence™ in the first place anyway), leading to potential unfair rulings and potentially denying the opposing party a fair trial.

3. Violation of Due Process: The principles of due process, which ensure fair treatment and impartiality in legal proceedings, would be compromised if one person held BOTH roles. I understand the PO did this but Neuvillette is not the PO and touts a lot about being impartial and true Fairness. He is not embodying that if he projects his grievances with only the PO onto the people who aren't the PO nor did they do the PO's exact crime.

4. Loss of Confidence in the Legal System. Such a setup would undermine public trust and confidence in the legal system, as it goes against fundamental principles of fairness and justice. Once again, highly doubt it has ever happened in all of Fontaine's history.

This scenario would likely be considered a severe violation of judicial ethics. It would be called a conflict of interest, where the individual holding both roles has a personal stake in the outcome of the case (Justice for Dragons™ but then again it's NOT against their actual Perpetrator™ which is THE PO), compromising the integrity of the legal process.

SOLUTION(S):

1. Get someone else to act as the Judge. Would be hilarious for it to be Furina. She'd be familiar with the court and no longer needs to speak in bias since she's not masquerading as the Archon. Additionally she has experience/understanding from both sides. Main issue of course being: topic of gods is an anxiety inducing thing for her...though this time it has nothing to do with her.

2. Someone else to act as the Plaintiff. This is iffy. It'd have to be a person with extensive knowledge on the old world and/or Teyvat's true history while being in agreement with Neuvillette. But this would also potentially spark the conflict of interest thing again, cause they could be said to be put there as an agent for Neuvillette/a slimy way for Neuvi to act in both positions.

They may be archons, but they're far from being fools. They have leagues of experience dealing with these situations; they're not walking into one that's obviously drenched in bias against them and they serve to gain nothing from it (well, nothing but harm/death and potentially affecting their denizens).

Two ways to dodge that would be to put either Furina or maybe some Natlantean on stand.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Why are U.S. courts afraid of the 14th Amendment? Because it’s radical.

"The 14th Amendment has once again proven too bold for the judges empowered to interpret it. Political forces are at play again, this time fearful of a backlash if Trump is removed from the ballot. As this case makes its way through the appellate process and, most likely, to the Supreme Court, it should be understood in the context of how the timidity and unwillingness of judges to acquiesce to the judgment of the 14th Amendment’s framers effectively derailed our democracy’s promise after Reconstruction and until the mid-20th century. We must ensure that it does not do the same in the 21st."

--Sherrilyn Ifill, visiting professor, Harvard Law School

This is an important article about why the 14th Amendment was written and why judges are afraid to use it to ban Trump from running for office. Consequently, this is a gift🎁link so people can read the entire article even if they don't subscribe to The Washington Post.

Below are some excerpts.

Judge Sarah B. Wallace’s decision that Trump engaged in insurrection but is nevertheless qualified to run for office is emblematic of the often outright resistance courts have shown to the 14th Amendment’s guarantees and protections. This instance applies to Section 3, which bars any participant in a rebellion against the government of the United States from holding public office. But almost from its inception, all the amendment’s radical provisions have inspired fear and timidity in jurists of every stripe. I use the word “radical” deliberately. The 14th Amendment was conceived of and pushed by the “Radical Republicans” in Congress after the Civil War. They were so named because of their commitment to eradicating slavery and its vestiges from American political life. A number had been abolitionists, and all had seen the threat that white supremacist ideology and the spirit of insurrection posed to the survival of the United States as a republic. Although the South had been soundly defeated on the battlefield, the belief among most Southerners that insurrection was a worthy and noble cause, and that Black people — even if no longer enslaved — were meant to be subjugated to the demands of Whites, was still firmly held. The 14th Amendment was meant to protect Black people against that belief, and the nation against insurrection, which was understood to constitute an ongoing threat to the future of our country. Frederick Douglass, the formerly enslaved abolitionist who rose to become one of the most prominent voices of the Reconstruction period, had no illusions about the persistence of the “malignant spirit” of the “traitors.” He predicted that it would be passed “from sire to son.” It “will not die out in a year,” he foretold, “it will not die out in an age.” [color emphasis added]

I encourage you to read the full article, which goes into detail about how the US judicial system has been afraid to actually adhere to both the spirit and letter of the 14th Amendment, and in so doing has done a major disservice to Black Americans for well over a century, and to our nation as a whole.

[odinsblog]

Musk reactivated the accounts of Brazilian far-right politicians Carla Zambelli, Gustavo Gayer, and Nikolas Ferreira. Ferreira, a Bolsonaro supporter, openly questioned the security of Brazil’s electronic voting machines, even though he won his local legislative race.

“All of these names have been problematic for years on social media,” says Flora Rebello Arduini, campaign director at the nonprofit advocacy organization Ekō. “They've been pushing for the far-right and election misinformation for ages.”

When Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, later renaming it X, many activists in Brazil worried that he would abuse the platform to push his own agenda, Arduini says. “He has unprecedented broadcasting abilities. He is bullying a supreme court justice of a democratic country, and he is showing he will use all the resources he has available to push for whatever favors his personal opinions or his professional ambitions.”

Under Musk, X has become a haven for the far right and disinformation. After taking over, Musk offered amnesty to users who had been banned from the platform, including right-wing influencer Andrew Tate, who, along with his brother, was indicted in Romania on several charges including with rape and human trafficking in June 2023 (he has denied the allegations). Last month, one of Tate's representatives told the BBC that "they categorically reject all charges."

A 2023 study found that hate speech has increased on the platform under Musk’s leadership. The situation in Brazil is just the latest instance of Musk aligning himself with and platforming dangerous, far-right movements around the world, experts tell WIRED. "It's not about Twitter or Brazil. It's about a strategy from the global far right to overcome democracies and democratic institutions around the world," says Nina Santos, a digital democracy researcher at the Brazilian National Institute of Science & Technology who researches the Brazilian far right. “An opinion from an American billionaire should not count more than a democratic institution.”

This also comes as Brazil has continued working to understand and investigate the lead-up to January 8, 2023, when election-denying insurrectionists who refused to accept right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat stormed Brazil’s legislature. The TSE, the country’s election court, is a special judicial body that investigates electoral crimes and is part of the mechanism for overseeing the country’s electoral processes overall. The court has been investigating the dissemination of fake news and disinformation that cast doubt on the country’s elections in the months and years leading up to the storming of the legislature on January 8, 2023. Both Arduini and Santos believe that the accounts Musk is refusing to remove are likely connected to the court’s inquiry.

“A life-and-death struggle recently took place in Brazil for the democratic rule of law and against a coup d'état, which is under investigation by this court in compliance with due legal process,” Luís Roberto Barroso, the president of the federal supreme court, said in a statement about Musk’s comments. “Nonconformity against the prevalence of democracy continues to manifest itself in the criminal exploitation of social networks.”

Santos also worries that Musk is setting a precedent that the far right will be protected and promoted on his platform, regardless of local laws or public opinion. “They are trying to use Brazil as a laboratory on how to interfere in local politics and local businesses,” she says. “They are making the case that their decision is more important than the national decision from a state democratic institution.”

Though Musk has claimed to be a free-speech advocate, and X’s public statement on the takedowns asserts that Brazilians are entitled to free speech, the platform’s application of these principles has been uneven at best. In February, on order of the Indian government, X blocked the accounts Hindutva Watch and the India Hate Lab in India, two US-based nonprofits that track incidents of religiously motivated violence perpetrated by supporters of the country’s right-wing government. A 2023 study from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard found that X complied with more government takedown requests under Musk’s leadership than it had previously.

In March, X blocked the accounts of several prominent researchers and journalists after they identified a well-known neo-Nazi cartoonist, later changing its own terms of service to justify the decision.

—Elon Musk Is Platforming Far-Right Activists in Brazil

[dailyanarchistposts]

F.6.3 But surely market forces will stop abuses by the rich?

Unlikely. The rise of corporations within America indicates exactly how a “general libertarian law code” would reflect the interests of the rich and powerful. The laws recognising corporations as “legal persons” were not primarily a product of “the state” but of private lawyers hired by the rich. As Howard Zinn notes:

“the American Bar Association, organised by lawyers accustomed to serving the wealthy, began a national campaign of education to reverse the [Supreme] Court decision [that companies could not be considered as a person]… . By 1886, they succeeded … the Supreme Court had accepted the argument that corporations were ‘persons’ and their money was property protected by the process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment … The justices of the Supreme Court were not simply interpreters of the Constitution. They were men of certain backgrounds, of certain [class] interests.” [A People’s History of the United States, p. 255]

Of course it will be argued that the Supreme Court is chosen by the government and is a state enforced monopoly and so our analysis is flawed. Yet this is not the case. As Rothbard made clear, the “general libertarian law code” would be created by lawyers and jurists and everyone would be expected to obey it. Why expect these lawyers and jurists to be any less class conscious then those in the 19th century? If the Supreme Court “was doing its bit for the ruling elite” then why would those creating the law system be any different? “How could it be neutral between rich and poor,” argues Zinn, “when its members were often former wealthy lawyers, and almost always came from the upper class?” [Op. Cit., p. 254] Moreover, the corporate laws came about because there was a demand for them. That demand would still have existed in “anarcho”-capitalism. Now, while there may nor be a Supreme Court, Rothbard does maintain that “the basic Law Code … would have to be agreed upon by all the judicial agencies” but he maintains that this “would imply no unified legal system”! Even though ”[a]ny agencies that transgressed the basic libertarian law code would be open outlaws” and soon crushed this is not, apparently, a monopoly. [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 234] So, you either agree to the law code or you go out of business. And that is not a monopoly! Therefore, we think, our comments on the Supreme Court are valid (see also section F.7.2).

If all the available defence firms enforce the same laws, then it can hardly be called “competitive”! And if this is the case (and it is) “when private wealth is uncontrolled, then a police-judicial complex enjoying a clientele of wealthy corporations whose motto is self-interest is hardly an innocuous social force controllable by the possibility of forming or affiliating with competing ‘companies.’” [Wieck, Op. Cit., p. 225] This is particularly true if these companies are themselves Big Business and so have a large impact on the laws they are enforcing. If the law code recognises and protects capitalist power, property and wealth as fundamental any attempt to change this is “initiation of force” and so the power of the rich is written into the system from the start!

(And, we must add, if there is a general libertarian law code to which all must subscribe, where does that put customer demand? If people demand a non-libertarian law code, will defence firms refuse to supply it? If so, will not new firms, looking for profit, spring up that will supply what is being demanded? And will that not put them in direct conflict with the existing, pro-general law code ones? And will a market in law codes not just reflect economic power and wealth? David Friedman, who is for a market in law codes, argues that ”[i]f almost everyone believes strongly that heroin addiction is so horrible that it should not be permitted anywhere under any circumstances anarcho-capitalist institutions will produce laws against heroin. Laws are being produced on the market, and that is what the market wants.” And he adds that “market demands are in dollars, not votes. The legality of heroin will be determined, not by how many are for or against but how high a cost each side is willing to bear in order to get its way.” [The Machinery of Freedom, p. 127] And, as the market is less than equal in terms of income and wealth, such a position will mean that the capitalist class will have a higher effective demand than the working class and more resources to pay for any conflicts that arise. Thus any law codes that develop will tend to reflect the interests of the wealthy.)

Which brings us nicely on to the next problem regarding market forces.

As well as the obvious influence of economic interests and differences in wealth, another problem faces the “free market” justice of “anarcho”-capitalism. This is the “general libertarian law code” itself. Even if we assume that the system actually works like it should in theory, the simple fact remains that these “defence companies” are enforcing laws which explicitly defend capitalist property (and so social relations). Capitalists own the means of production upon which they hire wage-labourers to work and this is an inequality established prior to any specific transaction in the labour market. This inequality reflects itself in terms of differences in power within (and outside) the company and in the “law code” of “anarcho”-capitalism which protects that power against the dispossessed.

In other words, the law code within which the defence companies work assumes that capitalist property is legitimate and that force can legitimately be used to defend it. This means that, in effect, “anarcho”-capitalism is based on a monopoly of law, a monopoly which explicitly exists to defend the power and capital of the wealthy. The major difference is that the agencies used to protect that wealth will be in a weaker position to act independently of their pay-masters. Unlike the state, the “defence” firm is not remotely accountable to the general population and cannot be used to equalise even slightly the power relationships between worker and capitalist (as the state has, on occasion done, due to public pressure and to preserve the system as a whole). And, needless to say, it is very likely that the private police forces will give preferential treatment to their wealthier customers (which business does not?) and that the law code will reflect the interests of the wealthier sectors of society (particularly if prosperous judges administer that code) in reality, even if not in theory. Since, in capitalist practice, “the customer is always right,” the best-paying customers will get their way in “anarcho”-capitalist society.

For example, in chapter 29 of The Machinery of Freedom, David Friedman presents an example of how a clash of different law codes could be resolved by a bargaining process (the law in question is the death penalty). This process would involve one defence firm giving a sum of money to the other for them accepting the appropriate (anti/pro capital punishment) court. Friedman claims that ”[a]s in any good trade, everyone gains” but this is obviously not true. Assuming the anti-capital punishment defence firm pays the pro one to accept an anti-capital punishment court, then, yes, both defence firms have made money and so are happy, so are the anti-capital punishment consumers but the pro-death penalty customers have only (perhaps) received a cut in their bills. Their desire to see criminals hanged (for whatever reason) has been ignored (if they were not in favour of the death penalty, they would not have subscribed to that company). Friedman claims that the deal, by allowing the anti-death penalty firm to cut its costs, will ensure that it “keep its customers and even get more” but this is just an assumption. It is just as likely to loose customers to a defence firm that refuses to compromise (and has the resources to back it up). Friedman’s assumption that lower costs will automatically win over people’s passions is unfounded as is the assumption that both firms have equal resources and bargaining power. If the pro-capital punishment firm demands more than the anti can provide and has larger weaponry and troops, then the anti defence firm may have to agree to let the pro one have its way. So, all in all, it is not clear that “everyone gains” — there may be a sizeable percentage of those involved who do not “gain” as their desire for capital punishment is traded away by those who claimed they would enforce it. This may, in turn, produce a demand for defence firms which do not compromise with obvious implications for public peace.

In other words, a system of competing law codes and privatised rights does not ensure that all individual interests are meet. Given unequal resources within society, it is clear that the “effective demand” of the parties involved to see their law codes enforced is drastically different. The wealthy head of a transnational corporation will have far more resources available to him to pay for his laws to be enforced than one of his employees on the assembly line. Moreover, as we noted in section F.3.1, the labour market is usually skewed in favour of capitalists. This means that workers have to compromise to get work and such compromises may involve agreeing to join a specific “defence” firm or not join one at all (just as workers are often forced to sign non-union contracts today in order to get work). In other words, a privatised law system is very likely to skew the enforcement of laws in line with the skewing of income and wealth in society. At the very least, unlike every other market, the customer is not guaranteed to get exactly what they demand simply because the product they “consume” is dependent on others within the same market to ensure its supply. The unique workings of the law/defence market are such as to deny customer choice (we will discuss other aspects of this unique market shortly). Wieck summed by pointing out the obvious:

“any judicial system is going to exist in the context of economic institutions. If there are gross inequalities of power in the economic and social domains, one has to imagine society as strangely compartmentalised in order to believe that those inequalities will fail to reflect themselves in the judicial and legal domain, and that the economically powerful will be unable to manipulate the legal and judicial system to their advantage. To abstract from such influences of context, and then consider the merits of an abstract judicial system.. . is to follow a method that is not likely to take us far. This, by the way, is a criticism that applies…to any theory that relies on a rule of law to override the tendencies inherent in a given social and economic system” [Op. Cit., p. 225]

There is another reason why “market forces” will not stop abuse by the rich, or indeed stop the system from turning from private to public statism. This is due to the nature of the “defence” market (for a similar analysis of the “defence” market see right-“libertarian” economist Tyler Cowen’s “Law as a Public Good: The Economics of Anarchy” [Economics and Philosophy, no. 8 (1992), pp. 249–267] and “Rejoinder to David Friedman on the Economics of Anarchy” [Economics and Philosophy, no. 10 (1994), pp. 329–332]). In “anarcho”-capitalist theory it is assumed that the competing “defence companies” have a vested interest in peacefully settling differences between themselves by means of arbitration. In order to be competitive on the market, companies will have to co-operate via contractual relations otherwise the higher price associated with conflict will make the company uncompetitive and it will go under. Those companies that ignore decisions made in arbitration would be outlawed by others, ostracised and their rulings ignored. By this process, it is argued, a system of competing “defence” companies will be stable and not turn into a civil war between agencies with each enforcing the interests of their clients against others by force.

However, there is a catch. Unlike every other market, the businesses in competition in the “defence” industry must co-operate with its fellows in order to provide its services for its customers. They need to be able to agree to courts and judges, agree to abide by decisions and law codes and so forth. In economics there are other, more accurate, terms to describe co-operative activity between companies: collusion and cartels. These are when companies in a specific market agree to work together (co-operate) to restrict competition and reap the benefits of monopoly power by working to achieve the same ends in partnership with each other. By stressing the co-operative nature of the “defence” market, “anarcho”-capitalists are implicitly acknowledging that collusion is built into the system. The necessary contractual relations between agencies in the “protection” market require that firms co-operate and, by so doing, to behave (effectively) as one large firm (and so resemble a normal state even more than they already do). Quoting Adam Smith seems appropriate here: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” [The Wealth of Nations, p. 117] Having a market based on people of the same trade co-operating seems, therefore, an unwise move.

For example, when buying food it does not matter whether the supermarkets visited have good relations with each other. The goods bought are independent of the relationships that exist between competing companies. However, in the case of private states this is not the case. If a specific “defence” company has bad relationships with other companies in the market then it is against a customer’s self-interest to subscribe to it. Why subscribe to a private state if its judgements are ignored by the others and it has to resort to violence to be heard? This, as well as being potentially dangerous, will also push up the prices that have to be paid. Arbitration is one of the most important services a defence firm can offer its customers and its market share is based upon being able to settle interagency disputes without risk of war or uncertainty that the final outcome will not be accepted by all parties. Lose that and a company will lose market share.

Therefore, the market set-up within the “anarcho”-capitalist “defence” market is such that private states have to co-operate with the others (or go out of business fast) and this means collusion can take place. In other words, a system of private states will have to agree to work together in order to provide the service of “law enforcement” to their customers and the result of such co-operation is to create a cartel. However, unlike cartels in other industries, the “defence” cartel will be a stable body simply because its members have to work with their competitors in order to survive.

Let us look at what would happen after such a cartel is formed in a specific area and a new “defence company” desired to enter the market. This new company will have to work with the members of the cartel in order to provide its services to its customers (note that “anarcho”-capitalists already assume that they “will have to” subscribe to the same law code). If the new defence firm tries to under-cut the cartel’s monopoly prices, the other companies would refuse to work with it. Having to face constant conflict or the possibility of conflict, seeing its decisions being ignored by other agencies and being uncertain what the results of a dispute would be, few would patronise the new “defence company.” The new company’s prices would go up and it would soon face either folding or joining the cartel. Unlike every other market, if a “defence company” does not have friendly, co-operative relations with other firms in the same industry then it will go out of business.

This means that the firms that are co-operating have simply to agree not to deal with new firms which are attempting to undermine the cartel in order for them to fail. A “cartel busting” firm goes out of business in the same way an outlaw one does — the higher costs associated with having to solve all its conflicts by force, not arbitration, increases its production costs much higher than the competitors and the firm faces insurmountable difficulties selling its products at a profit (ignoring any drop of demand due to fears of conflict by actual and potential customers). Even if we assume that many people will happily join the new firm in spite of the dangers to protect themselves against the cartel and its taxation (i.e. monopoly profits), enough will remain members of the cartel so that co-operation will still be needed and conflict unprofitable and dangerous (and as the cartel will have more resources than the new firm, it could usually hold out longer than the new firm could). In effect, breaking the cartel may take the form of an armed revolution — as it would with any state.

The forces that break up cartels and monopolies in other industries (such as free entry — although, of course the “defence” market will be subject to oligopolistic tendencies as any other and this will create barriers to entry) do not work here and so new firms have to co-operate or loose market share and/or profits. This means that “defence companies” will reap monopoly profits and, more importantly, have a monopoly of force over a given area.

It is also likely that a multitude of cartels would develop, with a given cartel operating in a given locality. This is because law enforcement would be localised in given areas as most crime occurs where the criminal lives (few criminals would live in Glasgow and commit crimes in Paris). However, as defence companies have to co-operate to provide their services, so would the cartels. Few people live all their lives in one area and so firms from different cartels would come into contact, so forming a cartel of cartels. This cartel of cartels may (perhaps) be less powerful than a local cartel, but it would still be required and for exactly the same reasons a local one is. Therefore “anarcho”-capitalism would, like “actually existing capitalism,” be marked by a series of public states covering given areas, co-ordinated by larger states at higher levels. Such a set up would parallel the United States in many ways except it would be run directly by wealthy shareholders without the sham of “democratic” elections. Moreover, as in the USA and other states there will still be a monopoly of rules and laws (the “general libertarian law code”).

Hence a monopoly of private states will develop in addition to the existing monopoly of law and this is a de facto monopoly of force over a given area (i.e. some kind of public state run by share holders). New companies attempting to enter the “defence” industry will have to work with the existing cartel in order to provide the services it offers to its customers. The cartel is in a dominant position and new entries into the market either become part of it or fail. This is exactly the position with the state, with “private agencies” free to operate as long as they work to the state’s guidelines. As with the monopolist “general libertarian law code”, if you do not toe the line, you go out of business fast.

“Anarcho”-capitalists claim that this will not occur, but that the co-operation needed to provide the service of law enforcement will somehow not turn into collusion between companies. However, they are quick to argue that renegade “agencies” (for example, the so-called “Mafia problem” or those who reject judgements) will go out of business because of the higher costs associated with conflict and not arbitration. Yet these higher costs are ensured because the firms in question do not co-operate with others. If other agencies boycott a firm but co-operate with all the others, then the boycotted firm will be at the same disadvantage — regardless of whether it is a cartel buster or a renegade. So the “anarcho”-capitalist is trying to have it both ways. If the punishment of non-conforming firms cannot occur, then “anarcho”-capitalism will turn into a war of all against all or, at the very least, the service of social peace and law enforcement cannot be provided. If firms cannot deter others from disrupting the social peace (one service the firm provides) then “anarcho”-capitalism is not stable and will not remain orderly as agencies develop which favour the interests of their own customers and enforce their own law codes at the expense of others. If collusion cannot occur (or is too costly) then neither can the punishment of non-conforming firms and “anarcho”-capitalism will prove to be unstable.

So, to sum up, the “defence” market of private states has powerful forces within it to turn it into a monopoly of force over a given area. From a privately chosen monopoly of force over a specific (privately owned) area, the market of private states will turn into a monopoly of force over a general area. This is due to the need for peaceful relations between companies, relations which are required for a firm to secure market share. The unique market forces that exist within this market ensure collusion and the system of private states will become a cartel and so a public state — unaccountable to all but its shareholders, a state of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy.

[darkmaga-retard]

Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris has expressed support for a radical new bill that targets the restructuring of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The legislation, introduced by Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), proposes significant changes to the court’s composition.

These changes include both adding and disabling justices based on ideological lines.

This move has ignited a firestorm of debate about the implications for judicial independence.

This legislation, known as S. 3096, envisages a Supreme Court that would predominantly include the most recently appointed nine justices in decision-making processes, sidelining senior conservative justices.

The bill mandates that the President appoint new justices during the first and third years of each term, aiming to increase the total number of justices to eighteen.

Critics argue that this is a transparent attempt to skew the court’s ideological balance in favor of current liberal policies and against conservative leanings.

Historical comparisons are being drawn with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attempt in the 1930s to add justices to the Supreme Court to secure favorable New Deal legislation.

However, unlike FDR’s plan which considered adding justices over the age of 70, the current proposal actively involves excluding long-serving justices from pivotal cases, with Justice Clarence Thomas being the first target in 2025.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kyle Cheney at Politico:

Donald Trump is on the cusp of emerging unscathed from his four criminal prosecutions — thanks almost entirely to the decisions of four judges he appointed. Trump’s three Supreme Court picks formed a decisive bloc to declare presidents immune from prosecution for official conduct — freezing the charges he faces in multiple jurisdictions for trying to subvert the 2020 election and putting his New York conviction in doubt. Then his nominee to the federal court in Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon, handed him another victory by dismissing the charges he faces for hoarding classified documents and concealing them from investigators.

Her decision earned a shout-out from Trump as he accepted the Republican nomination on Thursday. “A major ruling was handed down from a highly respected federal judge in Florida, Aileen Cannon,” he said. Trump’s string of victories reflects what experts say is extraordinary luck and timing. He’s the first president since Ronald Reagan to appoint three justices to the Supreme Court, and the first to ever face criminal charges that, soon thereafter, landed in front of the very judges he put on the bench. “This is a perfect example of serendipity, how the occurrence of events and trials and tribulations of the judicial process have all combined to work in favor of Donald Trump,” said Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor and civil litigator.

But it’s also a function, those experts say, of the fact that Trump rose to power in an era when conservatives — who had been burned in the past by judicial picks that later broke ranks — had begun perfecting a strategy of appointing judges who would more reliably rule in their favor. President Joe Biden, too, has appointed judges whose backgrounds appear more reliably liberal, though it’s not yet clear whether he will have the same impact on the judiciary as his predecessor. “Today, given that politics are so important in securing a judicial appointment, I can see how that sort of concern can spread,” said David Zaring, professor of legal studies from the Wharton School of Business. “[Trump] got so lucky — people don’t usually get a chance to appoint three justices to the Supreme Court in one term. Trump got it and then the Supreme Court gave him a very favorable ruling after that.”

Cannon’s ruling in the documents case had nothing to do with the substance of the charges — widely considered to be the most clear-cut case Trump faces. Cannon found that Attorney General Merrick Garland overstepped his authority when he named Smith special counsel, invalidating the entire prosecution. But the decision — which legal experts suggested would likely be reversed on appeal — nevertheless put Trump’s already-slim odds of facing trial this year effectively out of reach. [...] Cannon, in particular, represents a stark example. She was confirmed to the bench in November 2020, days after Trump lost reelection to Joe Biden. And she drew widespread criticism two years later after she slowed the investigation by granting a longshot push by the defense to require that an independent monitor review materials the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago.

[...] Not all of Trump’s appointees have ruled uniformly in his favor throughout his yearslong odyssey through the criminal justice system. In 2022, the Supreme Court rebuffed his effort to shield his White House papers from the Jan. 6 select committee, and it declined to consider his Cannon-backed effort to keep the documents investigation frozen.

This Politico article details the influence that the judges Donald Trump appointed are helping him evade legal trouble.

[schraubd]

Losing Your Chevrons

Somewhere, an environmentalist wished upon a star: "I hate big oil. It's a blight on the universe. If only Chevron would disappear forever!" and a monkey's paw curled once. I was steeling myself to write about Loper Bright and my official welcome on behalf of the Con Law professoriate to the Admin Law professors joining the "burn all your lecture notes and start from scratch club", and then Trump v. United States came down. Even though the latter is a more immediate big deal and is closer to my expertise wheelhouse (I've fielded far more inquiries from former students asking "what is going on!" with respect to the Trump decision than any ruling in my entire career, Dobbs included), I really don't have all that much to say at this moment. That may change -- in fact, it almost certainly will, as I try to work this blog post into an essay -- but for now I'm going to lay off and just write what I planned to write about the demise of Chevron. My short version take is this: in many, many cases, we'll see little difference between before and after. This prediction, however, should not be confused with sanguinity. Rather, it is a recognition that judges are human, with the normal assortment of human interests, talents, and vices.  In most deep-weeds administrative law cases, where judges neither know nor care about the difference between, say, nitrogen oxide and nitrous oxide, they aren't going to actually do a deep dive review of the law from scratch. These issues are hard enough for a team of subject-matter experts with Ph.Ds in the hard sciences grinding away for months. For a judge with a J.D. from Hofstra who last took a statistics class in 11th grade? Forget about it. In practice, no matter what the doctrine purports to demand or what they claim to be doing on the opinion pages, judges will end up deferring to reasonable agency interpretations of the law unless they're howlingly off-base -- which, of course, is why we ended up with Chevron in the first place. Any objective observer of courts sees this sort of thing from judges all the time -- there are all sorts of cases where nominal "de novo" review is the furthest thing from, because judges simply find the topic boring, repetitive, or impenetrable (you can usually spot these cases by their use of the phrase "after careful review ...."). This will be what happens for many if not most cases on obscure rules in unremarkable issue areas. What will change is in those administrative rules on hot button issues of high-salience. Here, Loper Bright doesn't make judges any smarter, but does give them a green light to start substituting their judgment for expert agencies who at least have some measure of accountability to the political process. In other words, Loper Bright won't universally result in the substitution of inexpert judicial policymaking for the judgments of administrative agencies; rather, it will result in that substitution on an ad hoc and arbitrary basis whenever the judge who happens to be draw the case has an idiosyncratic or ideological hobbyhorse to ride. The administrative state will be able to carry on, with a cutaway for partisan judges to meddle more openly whenever partisan proclivities instigate an urge. So there's your consolation about the end of Chevron. Feeling better? I thought so. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/ow8Pq4G

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Marcellus Williams

Marcellus Williams, whose murder conviction was questioned by a prosecutor in light of what he described as new evidence, will be executed this evening (24/09/24) after the US Supreme Court denied his request for a stay of execution.

The court offered no explanation for its decision, which is common for cases on its emergency docket. There were no noted dissents in two of Williiams’ appeals. In a third, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have granted the request to pause the execution.

The 55-year-old is set to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. CT at the state prison in Bonne Terre.

The US Supreme Court’s action came a day after Missouri’s supreme court and governor refused to grant a stay of execution. Williams’ attorneys filed a flurry of appeal efforts based on what they describe as new evidence – including alleged bias in jury selection and contamination of the murder weapon prior to trial. The victim’s family had asked the inmate be spared death.

“Tonight, Missouri will execute an innocent man, and they will do it even though the prosecutor doesn’t want him to be executed, the jurors who sentenced him to death don’t want him executed and the victims themselves don’t want him to be executed,” one of Williams’ attorneys, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “We have a system that values finality over fairness, and this is the result that we will get from that.”

The decision came just moments before Bushnell’s interview with Tapper.

“It is news to all of us, and I think that it should be a shame to all of us, that we have a system that will let a man be executed in spite of all of this, really is not a system of justice,” the attorney said, adding that members of Williams’ legal team, as well as his family, will be with him ahead of the execution.

Williams was convicted in 2001 of killing Felicia Gayle, a former newspaper reporter found stabbed to death in her home in 1998.

Recently, the top prosecutor in St. Louis County joined Williams’ attorneys in asking for the conviction to be overturned after new testimony from the 2001 trial prosecutor and recent DNA testing showing evidence contamination.

The case highlights the issue of potentially putting an innocent person to death – an inherent risk of capital punishment. At least 200 people sentenced to death since 1973 were later exonerated, including four in Missouri, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Attorneys “received a report indicating the DNA on the murder weapon belonged to an assistant prosecuting attorney and an investigator who had handled the murder weapon without gloves prior to trial,” the state’s judicial branch said.

But the Missouri Attorney General’s Office said the new DNA findings released last month don’t exonerate Williams.

“In this case, a new round of DNA testing proved the office was right all along; the knife in question has been handled by many actors, including law enforcement, since being found,” Attorney General Andrew Bailey said.

“In addition, one of the defense’s own experts previously testified he could not rule out the possibility that Williams’s DNA was also on the knife. He could only testify to the fact that enough actors had handled the knife throughout the legal process that others’ DNA was present.”

Other evidence that helped convict Williams “remains intact,” the attorney general said.

“The victim’s personal items were found in Williams’s car after the murder. A witness testified that Williams had sold the victim’s laptop to him. Williams confessed to his girlfriend and an inmate in the St. Louis City Jail, and William’s girlfriend saw him dispose of the bloody clothes worn during the murder,” the attorney general’s office said.

Williams’ attorneys had asked the US Supreme Court to stay the execution, citing “newly-discovered evidence from the trial prosecutor’s testimony” last month.

During a motion-to-vacate hearing August 28, a prosecutor from Williams’ 2001 trial “admitted that he had struck (a potential juror from the jury pool) because like Mr. Williams, (the potential juror) was Black,” Williams’ attorneys wrote in an emergency request for the US Supreme Court to intervene.

“There was a racial component to this,” attorney Jonathan Potts said at a Missouri Supreme Court hearing Monday. But the Missouri Attorney General’s Office disputed that interpretation of the trial prosecutor’s testimony.

“He said they look like brothers,” Assistant Attorney General Michael Spillane said at the hearing.

“What did he say when asked directly, ‘Did you strike someone … with part of the reason for striking someone because (you’re) Black?’ He said no, absolutely not,” Spillane said. “And he explained that that would be a violation.”

In the end, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously decided not to halt Williams’ execution because his team “failed to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence Williams’ actual innocence or constitutional error at the original criminal trial that undermines the confidence in the judgment of the original criminal trial,” the court’s opinion read.

And “because this Court rejects this appeal on the merits, the motion for stay of execution is overruled as moot.”

Republican Gov. Michael Parson, who also has the power to halt Williams’ execution, said he would not intervene.

“Mr. Williams has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over 15 hearings attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction,” Parson said after the state Supreme Court’s decision.

“No jury nor court, including at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams’ innocence claims. At the end of the day, his guilty verdict and sentence of capital punishment were upheld. Nothing from the real facts of this case have led me to believe in Mr. Williams’ innocence, as such, Mr. Williams’ punishment will be carried out as ordered by the Supreme Court.”

The St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said it reached an agreement with Williams last month. Under the consent judgment – approved by the court and Gayle’s family – Williams would enter an Alford plea of guilty to first-degree murder and be resentenced to life in prison.

But the state attorney general’s office opposed the deal and appealed to the state Supreme Court, which blocked the agreement.

The Williams case has pitted Bell – who became St. Louis County’s top prosecutor in 2018 and is now a Democratic candidate for Congress – against Republican state Attorney General Bailey, who is seeking reelection.

Bailey fought Bell’s efforts to get Williams’ conviction vacated, saying new DNA test results would not exonerate Williams.

Williams’ team filed a clemency petition to the US Supreme Court last week, noting Missouri’s previous governor had postponed Williams’ execution indefinitely amid questions about the integrity of Williams’ trial.

Former GOP Gov. Eric Greitens previously halted Williams’ execution and formed a board to investigate his case and determine whether he should be granted clemency.

“The Board investigated Williams’ case for the next six years — until Governor Michael Parson abruptly terminated the process,” Williams’ attorneys wrote.

After Parson took office, he dissolved the board and revoked Williams’ stay of execution, the inmate’s attorneys said. That decision deprived Williams of his right to due process, his lawyers argued.

“The Governor’s actions have violated Williams’ constitutional rights and created an exceptionally urgent need for the Court’s attention,” Williams’ attorneys said in court documents.

Parson defended his decision. “This Board was established nearly six years ago, and it is time to move forward,” Parson said last summer. “We could stall and delay for another six years, deferring justice, leaving a victim’s family in limbo, and solving nothing. This administration won’t do that.”

But allowing Williams to be executed without further investigation would undermine the criminal justice system, his attorneys said.

The US Supreme Court “must step in to prevent this irreparable injustice,” Bushnell said before Tuesday’s action by the high court.

“Missouri is poised to execute an innocent man, an outcome that calls into question the legitimacy of the entire criminal justice system.”

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Since we're heading into winter...

The Supreme Court of Texas narrowly decided Friday that sovereign immunity, which largely shields government agencies from civil lawsuits, also protects the operator of the Texas electric grid.

The 5-4 opinion will likely free the nonprofit corporation from lawsuits filed by thousands of Texans for deaths, injuries and damages following the deadly 2021 winter storm, unless lawyers find another way forward.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the power supply for most of Texas, qualifies for immunity because it “provides an essential governmental service,” Chief Justice Nathan Hecht wrote in the majority opinion. State law intended for ERCOT to have the power of an “arm of the State government,” Hecht wrote. If anyone is going to hold ERCOT accountable for its actions, Hecht wrote, it should be state regulators or the Legislature, not the courts.

Freezing temperatures gripped the state during the 2021 winter storm, straining the power supply so much that ERCOT called for cutting power to millions of homes and businesses to prevent the grid’s collapse. More than 200 people died. Experts estimated afterward that financial losses totaled between $80 billion and $130 billion, including physical damage and missed economic opportunity.

Thousands of residents accused ERCOT, power companies and distribution companies of failing to prepare for the freezing weather.

Lawyers expect the high court’s decision will allow ERCOT to be dismissed from the litigation, although it does not shield other defendants.

Attorney Mia Lorick, who represents some of those plaintiffs, said she sees only a slim possibility that lawyers could keep claims against ERCOT alive by arguing that their cases have differences that somehow skirt the sovereign immunity finding.

Majed Nachawati, whose firm is representing other plaintiffs in the related cases said, “The Texas Supreme Court’s decision is disappointing to say the least. People lost their lives and the only recourse to the citizens of Texas is to be able to go through the judicial process, and the judicial system, to try to remedy or right the wrong that occurred in this case. And if you can’t count on our judiciary to protect its citizens, I think we’re in a lot of trouble.”

Justices Jeff Boyd and John Devine, along with two others, disagreed that ERCOT has sovereign immunity. Purely private entities are clearly not sovereign, and making them so undermines the public trust, they wrote. The justices argued that “no statute designates ERCOT as a part of the government” and that courts should not be barred from hearing claims against it.

The ruling sprang from two cases filed against ERCOT. San Antonio’s municipally owned utility, CPS Energy, alleged that ERCOT mishandled the soaring price of power during the 2021 winter storm. And private equity investors at Panda Power Funds alleged that 10 years earlier ERCOT issued reports that misled them about how much power the grid needed.

ERCOT spokespersons issued a statement saying that the organization was pleased with the decision. CPS Energy said in a statement that it was disappointed but thankful that four justices agreed with the utility as it sought relief for customers. The utility said the litigation still led to “critical discussions at the highest levels that are necessary to improve our power grid and energy market.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The education of Aileen Cannon

July 16, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

Judge Aileen Cannon is not smart enough to come up with the idea of ignoring controlling precedent to hold that special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment violates the Constitution. Instead, she received not-so-subtle tutoring from six reactionary justices on the US Supreme Court who have signaled that judicial precedent has the binding force of fairy tales—“just so” stories to be invoked when convenient but otherwise irrelevant to the process of judicial decision-making. When precedent is meaningless, the law is rudderless, and we are reduced to judges running popularity contests or selecting random outcomes from a Bingo hopper. To state the obvious, that is not good for the rule of law.

On Monday, Judge Cannon gave Donald Trump a hostess gift for the Republican National Convention. She dismissed the federal indictment against him for unlawfully retaining defense secrets after the National Archive, DOJ, and FBI demanded the return of the documents. To achieve that lawless result, she ignored dozens of other decisions—including binding Supreme Court precedent, which previously held that appointing a special counsel is consistent with the Constitution.

Cannon dared to tell the Supreme Court that its prior acceptance of the validity of special counsel appointments was “dictum”—that is, unnecessary surplusage not relevant to the decision in a case. See Just Security, Judge Cannon Dismisses Trump’s Classified Docs Case: What’s Next?

As explained in Just Security, the Supreme Court upheld a subpoena by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski issued to then President Nixon. Although the Supreme Court did not rule on a challenge to the validity of Jaworski’s appointment in US v. Nixon, the Court did rule on the authority of Jaworski to issue a subpoena to the president. If the Supreme Court believed Jaworski had no authority to issue the subpoena because he was not validly appointed, it would have told him so. It did not. Rather, the Court ruled unanimously in US v. Nixon that the special prosecutor had the authority to issue subpoenas to the president—and that the president was required to comply with those subpoenas.

The justices on the Supreme Court who unanimously joined in the US v. Nixon opinion were Warren Berger, William O. Douglas, William J. Brennan, Potter Stewart, Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun and Lewis F. Powell. Several legal giants were included on that bench!

But Judge Cannon rejected the unanimous ruling of those legal giants in US v. Nixon and instead favorably cited the solo dissent of Clarence Thomas in Trump v. US—a case that involved the existence of a legal defense but not the validity of the special counsel’s appointment. None of the other reactionary justices joined in Clarence Thomas’s baseless dissent in Trump v. US in which Thomas claimed that appointment of the special counsel violated the Constitution.

Is Judge Cannon’s lawless decision good? Bad? Both? The answer is a qualified “Both.” Jack Smith has already announced he will appeal the ruling to the 11th Circuit. In a world where the 11th Circuit follows the law, it will overrule Judge Cannon and remove her from the case. That would be a good result.

But what will the Supreme Court do? In a just world where the Supreme Court respects the rule of law and its own precedent, the Court should affirm the reversal of Judge Cannon’s opinion. But after its gonzo ruling in Trump v. US, predicting outcomes in the Supreme Court is dangerous business. See, e.g., Robert Hubbell in this newsletter,

When precedent is meaningless, the law is rudderless, and we are reduced to judges running popularity contests or selecting random outcomes from a Bingo hopper.

 Moreover, Judge Cannon has ensured that the defense secrets case cannot be tried until after the 2024 presidential election. No matter. We are precisely where we were before Judge Cannon’s ruling: The courts will not save us. Trump will be held accountable only if Joe Biden wins the 2024 presidential election. We are not merely electing Biden; we are defending the rule of law.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[ukrfeminism]

Social media influencer Andrew Tate will be extradited to the UK after a British police force secured a European arrest warrant for allegations of rape and human trafficking.

Bedfordshire Police said they are working with authorities in Romania as part of an investigation into the 37-year-old and his 35-year-old brother Tristan.

The pair were detained on Tuesday and appeared at the court of appeal in Bucharest where it was ruled they would be extradited following the conclusion of legal proceedings in Romania.

The allegations, which the two brothers “unequivocally deny”, date back to 2012-2015.

Speaking to reporters outside court following the ruling, Andrew Tate told reporters he and his brother are “very innocent men”.

He said: “I want to give absolute credit to Romanian justice for making the correct decision today.

“Unfortunately I don’t think many people in Romania understand, but in the West, in the countries that are owned by the satanists, when you get to a certain level of fame you either put on a dress or you go to jail and I’m happy to make my choice which is jail every single time, my soul is not for sale neither are my principles.

“We’re very innocent men and in time everybody’s going to see that.

“We are excited to finish this judicial process and clear our names.”

The pair were released from police custody following the hearing, their representative said.

Lawyers representing four women who accuse Tate of rape and sexual assault said they wrote to UK police to request his detention over fears he would flee Romania.

In response to the claims made by law firm McCue Jury & Partners, Tate’s spokeswoman said: “We unequivocally deny any accusations that Andrew or Tristan Tate intends to abscond from Romania to evade the judicial proceedings.

“Our clients are fully committed to actively participating in the legal process and defending their reputation.

“We believe this rumour has originated from a popular online influencer who misconstrued a text message from our clients while streaming live. There is simply no truth to it.”

The law firm said the four British accusers were the subject of an investigation by Hertfordshire Constabulary.

The Hertfordshire investigation was closed in 2019.

In response to the court of appeal’s ruling on Tuesday, the Tate brothers’ lawyer Eugen Vidineac said: “We appreciate the Bucharest Court of Appeal’s decision to postpone the extradition of Andrew and Tristan Tate.

“This ruling provides an opportunity for the brothers to participate fully in their defence and for the legal process to proceed in a transparent manner.”

Commenting on the Tate brothers being detained, Matthew Jury, managing partner at McCue Jury & Partners, said: “Today’s news is very welcome as it has been a significant concern to many that Tate would seek to avoid justice in Romania and abroad.

“We are grateful to the British authorities for taking our concerns seriously and issuing an arrest warrant.”

Mr Jury said Andrew Tate had “spread a vast amount of disinformation about the criminal allegations he faces in the UK” since his first arrest in Romania.

The law firm said it welcomed the court of appeal’s decision on Tuesday.

In a separate case, the Tate brothers are charged with rape, human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women in Romania after being arrested in the country’s capital in December 2022 alongside two Romanian women.

All four deny the allegations.