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Part of Thomas's dissent seems based in the fact that Nelson and Madden had been convicted, so at that point in time the state was entitled to those fees, and t

Part of Thomas's dissent seems based in the fact that Nelson and Madden had been convicted, so at that point in time the state was entitled to those fees, and that the fees went into the public pool. The later overturn of convictions didn't change the fact that the state was at one point entitled. Thomas: "It does not follow, however, that petitioners have a property right in the money they paid pursuant to their then-valid convictions, which now belongs to the State and the victims under Colorado law."[1] I believe in the value of a diverse court, but I rarely agree with the logic of Clarence Thomas. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1256_5i36.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1256_5i36.pdf

kristofferR 9y ago
How can you possibly agree with that? If overturned convictions are still financially valid then you have no de facto right of appeal (in financial disputes).
- beamatronic 9y ago
  It sounds like there is really no such thing as an overturned conviction. There is no constitutional right, apparently, to being "made whole" if your "conviction" is "overturned".
  - ghaff 9y ago
    >There is no constitutional right, apparently, to being "made whole" if your "conviction" is "overturned". Which in the general case is pretty clearly true. If someone is arrested and found not guilty, have their conviction overturned on appeal, etc. they're not in general entitled to payment for lost wages, legal costs, etc. It seems reasonable to consider this a different situation in that it involved a specific fine but I can at least see the counterargument that it's not.
- sswaner 9y ago
  I rarely agree with Thomas and certainly don't in this case. I find his rationale to be nonsensical.
- lukas099 9y ago
  OP didn't say they agreed with it. In fact they implied that they did not agree.
- kybernetikos 9y ago
  It's not so much that they are financially valid, it's whether you consider the money to have been taken by the state, and that it should compensate you for the money it took, or if your money is being held by the state, and it should return it. If you consider that it should compensate you for the money it took off you, then Colorado has a law on the books governing the compensation process, which Thomas (and the previous court - the Colorado Supreme Court) thinks you should follow. The majority opinion seems to be that not quickly returning (and it considered it as returning rather than compensating) the innocent parties property offends their right to due process.
  - benchaney 9y ago
    The entire premise of appellate courts (and by extension the Supreme Court) is that if the government does something wrong it should be reversed. Ignoring this fundamental truth seems completely insane.
AcerbicZero 9y ago
I appreciate his "generally" staunch defense of constitutionally enumerated rights, but his logic tends to fall apart once applied outside that scope. His weak interpretation of the 4th amendment is particularly disappointing to me.
- lisper 9y ago
  His (and other conservatives) repudiation of the ninth amendment is even more, um, disappointing.
  - CWuestefeld 9y ago
    I'd have said the opposite - that Thomas et al are closer to getting it right (although nobody seems to quite get all the way). I'm guessing that you're not making any distinction between negative rights (which is what the Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution deal with) versus the more modern idea of positive right. Negative rights are those where the government is constrained from interfering with you; freedom of speech and the right to keep and bear arms are obvious examples of this. Positive rights are those where we say that a person has an right to GET a thing, and so the government must be obligated to provide it. The Constitution does not guarantee any of this [1]. In that context, it seems correct to view 9A as saying that there exist additional unenumerated negative rights. But trying to do so with positive rights eventually gets into trouble, because there's no clear ceiling on how much of something is due to each person. So for example, there's a thing going around Facebook with Jimmy Kimmel about healthcare, which has everyone saying that no one should never need to consider finances when their child is sick. This is plainly false in the general case, because it would imply infinite resources. In the real world, there will always be a point at which we must say "no more". IMHO, given that the Constitution was written in the context of the Enlightenment idea of negative rights, and positive rights hadn't been part of the discussion; together with the fact that the limits of positive rights are thus left completely undefined, I'm quite OK with the Court deciding to keep a tight leash on that. [1] Although I suppose the right to an attorney when accused is kinda fuzzy. But it doesn't suffer from the problem of open-ended obligations that I discuss later.
ouid 9y ago
I don't know that this comment really adds anything, but I think that any conversation about Clarence Thomas should include his minority position in this case http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/politics/26scotus.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/politics/26scotus.html
dragonwriter 9y ago
A conviction that is reversed is reversed only because it was not, in fact, legally valid at the time—that is the whole point of the appellate process—so whether or not Thomas' logic is any good, it starts from a false premise. And one which Thomas, having been an appellate judge for quite some time now, has no excuse for getting wrong.
diminoten 9y ago
I think it makes some procedural sense. After all, the state was entitled at the time it took the money, and if the state insists, you'd have to sue them to regain that money. It's the same with any other transaction where the assumptions in that transaction were found to have been (non-maliciously) incorrect. But from a... well, moral perspective (I hate to bring morality into a legal discussion but it is really where I draw my sense of these things), it's wrong because it provides a path for someone who has done no wrong to be harmed without providing a path for them to be restored.
- pishpash 9y ago
  It does not make even procedural sense. The state is not entitled (at least subject to full return) until the whole appeals process is finished. Consider the opposite case to see how the state deals with money, if the IRS accepts your tax return but later finds fault with it, can you just say sorry? No you pay everything plus interest. You'd pay a penalty too if it was willfully wrong. Likewise, if the state took the money maliciously, they should even pay a penalty. In no case should they be entitled to clear the ledger like they did.
scythe 9y ago
>Part of Thomas's dissent seems based in the fact that Nelson and Madden had been convicted, so at that point in time the state was entitled to those fees, and that the fees went into the public pool. The later overturn of convictions didn't change the fact that the state was at one point entitled. I think it's an interesting argument. But I think you also have to consider why the money is considered to be "in the public pool", and whose interests are at stake when it is. It is clearly in the defendant's interest that the money is still considered a taking as long as he is alive. It is only in the state's interest in the event that the defendant is exonerated or in the case that the money must be tracked explicitly. It is an observational fact that some convicts will be exonerated. It seems therefore that the interest of the state must outweigh the interests of exonerated defendants in order for us to assume the money can be considered only as part of the public pool after it is taken. When we ask whether it is a compelling interest that the state be able to retain money from vacated convictions or that all convicted money be tracked, it seems that this would be the case only if the state's financial status were dependent on money obtained from criminal convictions. Such a state would seem to resemble pre-civilized governments and it is this assumption that I reject with due horror. The state must not be an organism dependent on judicial takings.
emmelaich 9y ago
Read between the lines; Alito's concurring comment and Thomas' dissenting comment both support a sharper delineation and addressed the more substantive issue. The majority relied on "procedures" and "due process". Alito focussed on the fact that they were not guilty and obviously had a right to get it back. Thomas' dissent took the majority to task for not providing a clear opinion as to whether the category of the funds in this particular case was in the same category as attorney's fee and other costs that you clearly do no get back. Unfortunately I don't think this case provides much of a basis for overturning civil forfeiture. (NB I am not a lawyer; not even American!)
emmelaich 9y ago
Read between the lines; Alito's concurring comment and Thomas' dissenting comment both support a sharper delineation and addressed the more substantive issue. The majority relied on "procedures" and "due process". Alito focussed on the fact that they were not guilty and obviously had a right to get it back. Thomas' dissent took the majority to task for not providing a clear opinion as to whether the category of the funds in this particular case was in the same category as attorney's fee and other costs that you clearly do no get back. Unfortunately I don't think this case provides much of a basis for overturning civil forfeiture. (NB I am not a lawyer; not even American!)

kristofferR 9y ago

How can you possibly agree with that? If overturned convictions are still financially valid then you have no de facto right of appeal (in financial disputes).

beamatronic 9y ago
It sounds like there is really no such thing as an overturned conviction. There is no constitutional right, apparently, to being "made whole" if your "conviction" is "overturned".
- ghaff 9y ago
  >There is no constitutional right, apparently, to being "made whole" if your "conviction" is "overturned". Which in the general case is pretty clearly true. If someone is arrested and found not guilty, have their conviction overturned on appeal, etc. they're not in general entitled to payment for lost wages, legal costs, etc. It seems reasonable to consider this a different situation in that it involved a specific fine but I can at least see the counterargument that it's not.
sswaner 9y ago
I rarely agree with Thomas and certainly don't in this case. I find his rationale to be nonsensical.
lukas099 9y ago
OP didn't say they agreed with it. In fact they implied that they did not agree.
kybernetikos 9y ago
It's not so much that they are financially valid, it's whether you consider the money to have been taken by the state, and that it should compensate you for the money it took, or if your money is being held by the state, and it should return it. If you consider that it should compensate you for the money it took off you, then Colorado has a law on the books governing the compensation process, which Thomas (and the previous court - the Colorado Supreme Court) thinks you should follow. The majority opinion seems to be that not quickly returning (and it considered it as returning rather than compensating) the innocent parties property offends their right to due process.
- benchaney 9y ago
  The entire premise of appellate courts (and by extension the Supreme Court) is that if the government does something wrong it should be reversed. Ignoring this fundamental truth seems completely insane.

AcerbicZero 9y ago

I appreciate his "generally" staunch defense of constitutionally enumerated rights, but his logic tends to fall apart once applied outside that scope. His weak interpretation of the 4th amendment is particularly disappointing to me.

lisper 9y ago
His (and other conservatives) repudiation of the ninth amendment is even more, um, disappointing.
- CWuestefeld 9y ago
  I'd have said the opposite - that Thomas et al are closer to getting it right (although nobody seems to quite get all the way). I'm guessing that you're not making any distinction between negative rights (which is what the Bill of Rights and the rest of the Constitution deal with) versus the more modern idea of positive right. Negative rights are those where the government is constrained from interfering with you; freedom of speech and the right to keep and bear arms are obvious examples of this. Positive rights are those where we say that a person has an right to GET a thing, and so the government must be obligated to provide it. The Constitution does not guarantee any of this [1]. In that context, it seems correct to view 9A as saying that there exist additional unenumerated negative rights. But trying to do so with positive rights eventually gets into trouble, because there's no clear ceiling on how much of something is due to each person. So for example, there's a thing going around Facebook with Jimmy Kimmel about healthcare, which has everyone saying that no one should never need to consider finances when their child is sick. This is plainly false in the general case, because it would imply infinite resources. In the real world, there will always be a point at which we must say "no more". IMHO, given that the Constitution was written in the context of the Enlightenment idea of negative rights, and positive rights hadn't been part of the discussion; together with the fact that the limits of positive rights are thus left completely undefined, I'm quite OK with the Court deciding to keep a tight leash on that. [1] Although I suppose the right to an attorney when accused is kinda fuzzy. But it doesn't suffer from the problem of open-ended obligations that I discuss later.

ouid 9y ago

I don't know that this comment really adds anything, but I think that any conversation about Clarence Thomas should include his minority position in this case http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/politics/26scotus.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/politics/26scotus.html

dragonwriter 9y ago

A conviction that is reversed is reversed only because it was not, in fact, legally valid at the time—that is the whole point of the appellate process—so whether or not Thomas' logic is any good, it starts from a false premise. And one which Thomas, having been an appellate judge for quite some time now, has no excuse for getting wrong.

diminoten 9y ago

I think it makes some procedural sense. After all, the state was entitled at the time it took the money, and if the state insists, you'd have to sue them to regain that money. It's the same with any other transaction where the assumptions in that transaction were found to have been (non-maliciously) incorrect. But from a... well, moral perspective (I hate to bring morality into a legal discussion but it is really where I draw my sense of these things), it's wrong because it provides a path for someone who has done no wrong to be harmed without providing a path for them to be restored.

pishpash 9y ago
It does not make even procedural sense. The state is not entitled (at least subject to full return) until the whole appeals process is finished. Consider the opposite case to see how the state deals with money, if the IRS accepts your tax return but later finds fault with it, can you just say sorry? No you pay everything plus interest. You'd pay a penalty too if it was willfully wrong. Likewise, if the state took the money maliciously, they should even pay a penalty. In no case should they be entitled to clear the ledger like they did.

scythe 9y ago

>Part of Thomas's dissent seems based in the fact that Nelson and Madden had been convicted, so at that point in time the state was entitled to those fees, and that the fees went into the public pool. The later overturn of convictions didn't change the fact that the state was at one point entitled. I think it's an interesting argument. But I think you also have to consider why the money is considered to be "in the public pool", and whose interests are at stake when it is. It is clearly in the defendant's interest that the money is still considered a taking as long as he is alive. It is only in the state's interest in the event that the defendant is exonerated or in the case that the money must be tracked explicitly. It is an observational fact that some convicts will be exonerated. It seems therefore that the interest of the state must outweigh the interests of exonerated defendants in order for us to assume the money can be considered only as part of the public pool after it is taken. When we ask whether it is a compelling interest that the state be able to retain money from vacated convictions or that all convicted money be tracked, it seems that this would be the case only if the state's financial status were dependent on money obtained from criminal convictions. Such a state would seem to resemble pre-civilized governments and it is this assumption that I reject with due horror. The state must not be an organism dependent on judicial takings.

emmelaich 9y ago

Read between the lines; Alito's concurring comment and Thomas' dissenting comment both support a sharper delineation and addressed the more substantive issue. The majority relied on "procedures" and "due process". Alito focussed on the fact that they were not guilty and obviously had a right to get it back. Thomas' dissent took the majority to task for not providing a clear opinion as to whether the category of the funds in this particular case was in the same category as attorney's fee and other costs that you clearly do no get back. Unfortunately I don't think this case provides much of a basis for overturning civil forfeiture. (NB I am not a lawyer; not even American!)

emmelaich 9y ago