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There already is legislation for that, the court is ordering EPA to do the right thing and use it instead of trying to be lazy and possibly abusive. See my pre
by Dalewyn 3y ago
There already is legislation for that, the court is ordering EPA to do the right thing and use it instead of trying to be lazy and possibly abusive.
See my previous comments on the matter:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39875212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39875212
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39875156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39875156
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39876314 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39876314
- yohannparis 3y agoTo be fair what kind of judge in their right mind will be accepting this legislation on a technical legal issue; when the outcome and intent are identical and this will just create a waste of time and money on all parties involved?
- causi 3y agoAny of them? The entire body of the law is based on legal technicalities. Judges don't get to decide "what they really meant it to say" when applying the law.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 3y agoDetermining legislation's intent is a core function of every appellate court.
- giantg2 3y agoYeah, but you can't ignore the letter of the law to pursue it's spirit. There are precedents supporting that so that laws don't violate strict construction and lenity. That's doesn't mean it doesn't happen - I've seen laws that explicitly call out "reasonable" in them and the courts decide to apply strict liability instead of a reasonable standard, just to make their job easier (increase convictions).
- tiahura 3y agoI was in court on a giant mixed docket with name changes to murder indictments. One of the cases was a paternity action involving the state’s new paternity statute. There was argument over how to interpret the statute and one of the attorneys tried buffaloing the judge with “Well actually judge, I’m on the committee that drafted the bill and our intent,” The judge cut him off and retorted that he didn’t care what anyone intended, he was going to go by what the statute actually said. I made a mental note to never argue legislative intent in that court.
- singleshot_ 3y agoThe judge did not care what the lawyer had to say because it is improper for a lawyer to testify.
- tiahura 3y agoHe wasn’t testifying, he was arguing. If wasn’t an evidentiary hearing.
- freejazz 3y agoAnd he has no place to state the intent of the committee based upon his own experiences, because it's not an evidentiary hearing
- singleshot_ 3y agoIf it was not an evidentiary hearing, then there were two reasons the attorney’s testimony was disallowed.
- hombre_fatal 3y agoHe’s dismissing someone’s anecdote of what the intent of the law was. Do you not see the difference?
- lazide 3y agoExcept it literally is - both the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law are equally important under the American (and English!) legal systems and most interesting precedent is due to ‘edge cases’. It’s impossible to write any law which covers every scenario and is not either overbroad (penalizes actually desirable or ‘ok’ behavior in some cases), not being possible to get around for bad behavior, or so vague it heavily restricts desired behavior. Hell, look at the legal battles and drama around murder trials or corporate malfeasance for clear examples. And those are the ones where the bad actors were so clearly being bad that professionals felt they could nail them to the wall in court. Also, as the old saw goes - ‘if the letter of the law is not in your favor, argue the intent. If the intent of the law is not in your favor, argue the facts. If neither the letter nor the intent of the law is in your favor, pound the table.’ Carl Sandburg perhaps? For example - did someone commit first degree murder or something else (manslaughter, second degree murder?), if they intentionally laid in wait and shot someone they thought was person A - but it was actually person B, who looked similar but they actually didn’t know at all. After all, they didn’t intentionally commit premeditated murder against person B did they? But they did definitely premeditate something that became a murder! So was this negligent homicide in fact (they accidentally killed simeone who wasn’t their target due to negligent behavior), or first degree murder (intent) because they intentionally murdered a human being with premeditation - though it was actually an accident they killed that particular human being, and they had no premeditation or intent to kill that particular human?
- vundercind 3y agoThere was a post with very good “let’s see what the law actually says…” analysis in the last thread we had. TL;DR there’s definitely room to dispute whether this decision was merely “calling balls and strikes” based on the meaning of the law or kinda a damn stretch.
- freedomben 3y ago> To be fair what kind of judge in their right mind will be accepting this legislation on a technical legal issue; A good judge who recognizes their intended role in the system. They are there to interpret the law and apply them, not to create them. That sometimes leads to situations like this where the outcome is silly, but that's the fault of the system, not the judge. If we decide it's worth letting unelected and mostly unaccountable dictators write laws, then we could fix this particular problem. IMHO it's not worth it
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- treflop 3y agoIn a small organization like a startup or non-profit, efficiency is more important. In a long running country, stability and longevity is preferred, so strict absolute adherence to process is critical. And you can’t have both.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 3y agoFifth circuit court gonna fifth circle court. If they ruled that the sky is blue I would step outside just to make sure.
- alexsereno 3y agoThis exactly, the 5th has the wildest and most twisted rulings to the point even the current Supreme Court has slapped a few down. Any reasonable person should be skeptical.
- ImJamal 3y agoFor anybody interested the 5th isn't the worst court. Here is a summary https://ballotpedia.org/SCOTUS_case_reversal_rates_(2007_-_Present) https://ballotpedia.org/SCOTUS_case_reversal_rates_(2007_-_P...
- alexsereno 3y agoWell judging how bad a court is by how many times this Supreme Court reverses it isn’t the best metric, that would require the SC to be a fair and reasonable actor
- ImJamal 3y agoYou were the one who brought up that the rulings of the 5th were slapped down as some sort of argument about the quality of their rulings.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 3y agoThe point was that SCOTUS is heavily partisan and still finds errors even they couldn't stomach. This was obvious.
- alexsereno 3y agoSorry for the confusion there, but I bought that up as a point that their rulings have been so bad that even the current, extremely partial SC, has been forced by the politics of the situation to slap down their rulings. It’s as if your own friends tell you you’ve gone a bit too far.