superrific
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I'm not 100%, but I think the court fended off a bunch of that bullshit in the 1960s. That was one of the objections to desegregation.
SCOTUS Catch-all |
- Thread starter nycfan
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The absolute best Sunday School teacher I had growing was a local business man who taught that week's lesson from the front page of the Sunday issue of the News&Observer. Sometimes he picked the story and sometimes he let us pick the story. If we were acting-up and wouldn't settle down, then he would threaten to teach the lesson from church issued Sunday School books. He always gave us a warning before passing out the church issued books. Something like, "Settle down or we can do the official lesson." That threat usually got us settled down.
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“… While several conservative justices expressed support for the school's arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts emerged during the more than two-hour argument as a potentially decisive vote.
There is the possibility of a 4-4 split, as one justice, conservative Amy Coney Barrett, is not participating. That outcome would leave in place an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that blocked the proposed school.
… Conservative justices expressed doubt that charter schools are public schools that are effectively instruments of the state and favored the school's argument that they are entirely private bodies that just happen to receive state funding.
They also expressed concern that it would be a form of religious discrimination under the Free Exercise Clause to bar religious schools from a state charter school program that other entities can participate in. …”
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Supreme Court rules totality of circumstances must be considered in police shootings
The Supreme Court ruled that the totality of circumstances must be considered when determining whether a police shooting is justified, not just the seconds before an officer opens fire.Loading…
www.washingtonpost.com
Unanimous decision — but Kav wrote a concurrence that seemed to direct a possible favorable review of the danger of traffic stops on remand
“… The high court revived a lawsuit by the mother of Ashtian Barnes, 24, who alleged that Harris County, Texas, Officer Roberto Felix Jr. used excessive force when he opened fire on Barnes during a stop for suspected toll violations in Houston.
The New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit granted summary judgment for Felix, using the circuit’s “moment-of-threat rule” that requires asking only whether an officer was “in danger at the moment of the threat that resulted in [his] use of deadly force.”
… “To assess whether an officer acted reasonably in using force, a court must consider all the relevant circumstances, including facts and events leading up to the climactic moment,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court.…”
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Supreme Court sidesteps major ruling on religious public charter schools
The court split 4-4, meaning that an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling barring the state from approving a Catholic charter school remains in place.“… As there was no majority, the court did not issue a written decision, and the case sets no nationwide precedent on the contentious legal question of whether religious schools must be able to participate in taxpayer-funded state charter school programs….”
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This is absolutely shocking.
Well, as soon as they find a case where ACB is not conflicted out, the Court will allow them.
superrific
Legend of ZZL
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Yeah, not that shocking. It just means that Roberts didn't want to go that far.
In Trump 1, Roberts started out by carrying water for the administration, especially in the regrettable Trump v. Hawaii case. By the end, he had figured out that the administration was being staffed by liars and he started to become more skeptical of their arguments. Maybe when we had a good SG under Biden, Roberts forgot how depraved the Trump people are, and he's getting a wakeup now.
Of course this case didn't involve Trump, but my informal observation over time is that the Supreme Court does, in fact, operate according to a kind of momentum. And on an increasingly ideological court, I don't think it's limited to one or two specific topics. The Supreme Court is looking at the collapse of the rule of law and maybe Roberts is thinking that it's not the best time to undo prophylactic rules.
Also of note: Trump is fucking with education. He's going after the university where half the court attended -- and every justice there has close friends who went to Harvard or Columbia. Some of the Justices worked at the targeted law firms (SS was at Paul Weiss), and also have friends in that world, and they can't be happy about that either.
So now another litigant comes and says, "we too would like to fuck with education" and Roberts starts to get nervous. For years liberals have been saying, "um, this 'religious freedom' is actually a road to theocracy" and Roberts was like, "stop with the TDS" and now he's like, "oh, maybe they are right."
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Court upholds federal fraud conviction even without economic harm
Court upholds federal fraud conviction even without economic harm
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the fraud conviction of a Philadelphia-area government contractor. Stamatios Kousisis was found guilty, along with Alpha Painting and Construction, after they failed to comply […]
www.scotusblog.com
“
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the fraud conviction of a Philadelphia-area government contractor. Stamatios Kousisis was found guilty, along with Alpha Painting and Construction, after they failed to comply with a contract provision intended to promote diversity. Prosecutors insisted that federal wire fraud laws apply equally to cases in which the defendant uses deception to enter into a transaction that doesn’t harm the victim financially. On Thursday, the justices agreed.
The court in recent years has resisted what it sees as the federal government’s overly expansive readings of federal fraud laws, so Thursday’s decision was a relatively rare victory for federal prosecutors in that area.
Kouisisis, Alpha, and their business partners won contracts on two major construction projects in the Philadelphia area: a bridge over the Schuylkill River and repairs at Amtrak’s 30th Street Station. As part of the contracts, they were required to work with “disadvantaged business enterprises.”
Alpha indicated that it would use a paint supplier, Markias, that was a DBE. But Markias was merely a pass-through that did not supply any paint to the projects. Instead, other suppliers sent Markias invoices; Markias then added a small mark-up and sent its own invoices to Alpha.
Alpha and Kousisis were indicted on federal wire fraud charges. The government relied on a theory known as “fraudulent inducement” – the idea that Kouisisis and Alpha obtained the contracts by making deceptive promises to use a disadvantaged business enterprise. …”
——
Pardon incoming?
StrangePackage
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Interesting that this is the exact line of argument used by Trump in his case- no harm to the victim.Court upholds federal fraud conviction even without economic harm
Court upholds federal fraud conviction even without economic harm
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the fraud conviction of a Philadelphia-area government contractor. Stamatios Kousisis was found guilty, along with Alpha Painting and Construction, after they failed to comply […]
“
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the fraud conviction of a Philadelphia-area government contractor. Stamatios Kousisis was found guilty, along with Alpha Painting and Construction, after they failed to comply with a contract provision intended to promote diversity. Prosecutors insisted that federal wire fraud laws apply equally to cases in which the defendant uses deception to enter into a transaction that doesn’t harm the victim financially. On Thursday, the justices agreed.
The court in recent years has resisted what it sees as the federal government’s overly expansive readings of federal fraud laws, so Thursday’s decision was a relatively rare victory for federal prosecutors in that area.
Kouisisis, Alpha, and their business partners won contracts on two major construction projects in the Philadelphia area: a bridge over the Schuylkill River and repairs at Amtrak’s 30th Street Station. As part of the contracts, they were required to work with “disadvantaged business enterprises.”
Alpha indicated that it would use a paint supplier, Markias, that was a DBE. But Markias was merely a pass-through that did not supply any paint to the projects. Instead, other suppliers sent Markias invoices; Markias then added a small mark-up and sent its own invoices to Alpha.
Alpha and Kousisis were indicted on federal wire fraud charges. The government relied on a theory known as “fraudulent inducement” – the idea that Kouisisis and Alpha obtained the contracts by making deceptive promises to use a disadvantaged business enterprise. …”
——
Pardon incoming?
Nice to know the Supremes aren't entirely compromised. Low bar but still.
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“A split Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge to a state ban on assault weapons, semiautomatic rifles that are popular among gun owners and that have also been used in multiple mass shootings.
The majority did not explain its reasoning in turning down the case, as is typical. But three conservative justices on the nine-member court publicly noted their disagreement, and a fourth said he is skeptical that such bans are constitutional.
Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have taken the case, and Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to say the law likely runs afoul of the Second Amendment.…”
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SCOTUS holds Mexico did not “plausibly allege” that US gun manufacturers aid and abet illegal sales of guns into Mexico and so Mexico is barred from suit under the PLCAA
ZenMode
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Supreme Court sides with straight woman in 'reverse discrimination' case
The court said members of a majority group don't face an extra hurdle when alleging 'reverse discrimination' in the workplace.
Supreme Court sides with straight woman in 'reverse discrimination' case
The Supreme Court's decision, which landed amid a backlash to diversity programs, could increase \
www.usatoday.com
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Supreme Court sides with woman claiming anti-straight job discrimination
Marlean Ames filed a job discrimination lawsuit in 2020 after she lost out on two jobs to colleagues who were gay at the Ohio Youth Department.“…
The justices unanimously struck down a standard used in nearly half the nation’s federal circuits that required people who are White, male or not gay to meet a higher bar to prove workplace bias in certain cases than do individuals whose minority communities have traditionally faced discrimination.
Marlean Ames argued it was unconstitutional to have different standards for different groups of people. She asked the Supreme Court to revive her discrimination claim against the agency overseeing youth corrections facilities in Ohio. Lower courts had ruled she hadn’t met the higher bar of proof.
… Lower courts said members of majority groups must meet a standard of proof not required of minorities — known as “background circumstances” — to mount a circumstantial discrimination case. That means they must show their employer is the unusual one that discriminates against majority groups, which have not historically faced discrimination.…”
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“…
The Supreme Court decided Thursday that a Catholic charity doesn’t have to pay Wisconsin unemployment taxes, one of a set of religious-rights cases the justices are considering this term.
The ruling comes in a case filed by the Catholic Charities Bureau, which says the state violated the First Amendment’s religious freedom guarantee when it required the organization to pay the tax while exempting other faith groups.
Wisconsin argues the organization has paid the tax for over 50 years and doesn’t qualify for an exemption because its day-to-day work doesn’t involve religious teachings. Much of the groups’ funding is from public money, and neither employees nor people receiving services have to belong to any faith, according to court papers.
Catholic Charities, though, says it qualifies because its disability services are motivated by religious beliefs and the state shouldn’t be making determinations about what work qualifies as religious. It appealed to the Supreme Court after Wisconsin’s highest court ruled against it. President Donald Trump’s administration weighed in on behalf of Catholic Charites.…”