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Precedent changes (with respect to Smith vs. Maryland). This judge's bias is evident from the first sentence of his ruling when he invokes the memory of 9/11.
by swalkergibson 13y ago
Precedent changes (with respect to Smith vs. Maryland). This judge's bias is evident from the first sentence of his ruling when he invokes the memory of 9/11.
The problem is that to the lay-person, this reads like, "well, you weren't really supposed to know about it, so you can't do anything about it." Whether or not the ruling is legally sound is basically irrelevant now. It is a PR problem and no amount of "trust me, I am a lawyer" is going to convince people who know how to read that this ruling does not sound like total garbage.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> The problem is that to the lay-person, this reads like, "well, you weren't really supposed to know about it, so you can't do anything about it." That's exactly what it says. > Whether or not the ruling is legally sound is basically irrelevant now. Its relevant in understanding where the problem lies on the particular issue of the statutory claim being made by the ACLU (i.e., not with the court here, but with the Congress that wrote the law specifically to exclude this type of claim, and even more broadly with the entire principle of sovereign immunity and the way it stands in direct opposition to the idea of limited government, since a government that is only as accountable as it chooses to allow itself to be is not in any meaningful sense limited.) > It is a PR problem and no amount of "trust me, I am a lawyer" is going to convince people who know how to read that this ruling does not sound like total garbage. The ruling sounds like total garbage because it is legally sound and the law underlying it is garbage.