Showing posts with label The Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Law. Show all posts

Monday, November 13, 2023

Blog Mirror: Have they no sense of decency?

A Robert Reich item about Elise Stefanik:

Have they no sense of decency?

The descent of Stefanik has been epic.  It hardly makes sense, at least in the case of a person who has any integrity at all. Starting off as a centrist, she's turned into a Trump hack.

This effort to sanction the court and the court's clerk is shocking.

Stefanik is really playing with fire here. There's at least a halfway decent chance she'll be sanctioned for filing such a bogus challenge. And if the country survives the next election, long term she's going to have the same sort of reputation that Joe McCarthy now has, save for the fact that she'll fully deserve it and McCarthy only partially did.

Unlike McCarthy, Stefanik is a mother. What a legacy for that child will be left.

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

The Post Insurrection. The Defendant. Part VI


April 6, 2023

This story certainly has taken an odd turn, with Donald Trump being indicted for payments to try to silence two bare it all women.

Worst money ever spent, it would appear.

Additional indictments are likely coming, and prosecutions for campaign violations are frankly very rare.  It's an open question whether this is a good development or a bad one for those who regard Trump as a real danger, or those who admire him.  From my prospective, these charges are the most likely to be regarded as political, and it likely would have been best for the country if they had not been brought, for that reason.

As for the coming probable more substantial charges, they can't come soon enough.

April 19, 2023

$787,000,000.

That's the amount Fox News agreed to pay Dominion in settlement for spreading lies about Dominion's voting machines.

I guess the press was concerned that the Supreme Court might dump the New York Times v. Sullivan standard when the case got there, which it would have.  At least two conservative judges and one liberal one had previously indicated that they might.  Too bad it didn't make it all the way up.

April 21, 2023

The Wyoming County Clerks Association issued a lengthy letter defending Wyoming's elections prior to Secretary of State Chuck Gray's meeting with touring election denier Douglas Frank.

April 25, 2023

Propagandist Tucker Carlson has been fired from Fox, but not for spouting Trumpist lies and pro Russian propaganda, but for criticizing the leaders at Fox News behind their backs.

Modern medial being what it is, Carlson will undoubtedly land on his feet, but this does amount to a blow which will reduce Carlson's exposure.  Fox has really taken a beating over this past week.

And CNN let Don Lemon, news anchor, go, although the reasons are murky.  Lemon had made the comment that Nikki Hailey "wasn't in her prime".  The reasons, however, for his termination are less clear.

Carlson has a group of loyal followers and a large pool of angry detractors as well.  His most loyal followers will follow him wherever he goes, but it won't be Fox's bullhorn.  Prior Fox figures who have left it have in fact seen their star very much fade, and while Carlson won't disappear, he'll be very much less visible, and for that matter, probably to most Americans soon invisible.

April 26, 2023

A defamation case in which the plaintiff asserts that Donald Trump raped her has commenced with explosive testimony, including something alluding to DNA, which Trump commented on via Truth Social.  This resulted in a really strong rebuke from the Court ordering Trump to shut up as he was violating a prior order of the Court.

June 11, 2023

As we all know, Trump was found liable for defamation, but not sexual assault.  I failed to note that when it occurred.

Now he faces 37 counts in a Federal indictment, which includes violating the Espionage Act for taking classified material and refusing to return it.

All three of Wyoming's Congressional delegation have questioned the indictment, which was predictable, if sad.

June 13, 2023

Trump will appear in Federal Court in Florida today.

The indictment is so clear that it's almost impossible for this not to result in a conviction, making the feigned outrage expressed by Republican politicians, and the genuine outrage expressed by GOP loyalists, all the more questionable.  Trump will be convicted.

The big question, right now, which is largely not asked by the press, is why Trump took these documents. There's some reason he did it. And as some are in the super secret national defense category, the question is all the more baffling and important.

If it is that he was going to use them for his memoirs, it conclusively shows that he simply doesn't grasp the importance of things.  How a person could live to his advanced old age and not grasp this is hard to imagine, but it would suggest the operation of at least the insulation of privilege, and also perhaps something else mental or in the serious character flaw category.

But it might suggest something more than that, which is all the more disturbing.  Why would a former President walk out the door with matters pertaining to national defense?

There have always been a lot of unanswered questions in this area regarding Trump.  Perhaps his trial will reveal them.

June 21, 2023

Trump's trial is scheduled for August, but it won't really occur anywhere near that soon.

June 28, 2023

Donald Trump has now sued E. Jean Carroll for defamation, alleging she falsely accused him of rape after a jury in a civil trial found that he sexually abused her.  The suit will fail.  In fact, it'll give her the chance to reiterate her claims.

In his espionage act case, he called the audio recordings of him discussing defense plans a hoax.  They're not a hoax, but his most devoted followers will adopt this absurdity.

These two moves are really odd, and smack of desperation.

June 30, 2023

A judge refused to dismiss the first of E. Jean Carroll's lawsuits against Trump, this one also for defamation.  I wasn't aware until now that there were two, but there are, and the second one goes to trial in January.

July 11, 2023

Trump is seeking a lengthy delay of his espionage act case, citing in part the election as a grounds for the same.

July 15, 2023

Well into the 2024 election cycle, unfortunately, politicians who have lashed themselves to the deck of the Stolen Election Myth are in the increasingly awkward position of having it pass over the horizon.  Individuals who are convinced that the election was stolen are capped in number, while also incapable of considering any other evidence at this point.  Politicians, whose issue was this issue, need to keep it alive, or think they do, even though it appears to be of fixed political capital.


Enter Hunter Biden, the troubled son of President Biden, whom the general public cares next to nothing about.  The Right Wing has been harping on him ever since Hillary Clinton quit being interesting, more or less, and is now flogging the story.


Six state Secretary of States in the stolen election camp have signed onto a letter in which they express concern with U.S. Secretary of State Blinken's role as a member of Biden's campaign. They have stated in their letter:  “To cast informed ballots, Americans need transparency into actions by former, and perhaps current, federal government officials to weaponize false information for political purposes,” and “Congress should hold perpetrators accountable and consider all available corrective measures to provide transparency to the public of any improper actions set forth in the report."

They go on to reference the tired Hunter Biden laptop story.

The irony here is that the "weaponizations of false information" is Donald Trump's entire post insurrection modus operendi, and he was working towards stealing the election himself prior to it taking place.  The destruction of the U.S. Post Office seems to have been part of the effort, from which it has not recovered. So yes, there should be accountability, including criminal accountability where appropriate, but that's not exactly going to lock any 2020 Democratic operatives up . . . . 

Wyoming's Secretary of State is one of the signatories.

With the office holders from the last election having been put in office, and having ridden this in some cases into office, the gold on this currency seems to have tarnished into brass. We can predict we'll keep hearing the stolen election mantra, but it doesn't have the shine it used to.  The public may actually have moved in significantly.

July 18, 2023

From the NYT:

Trump Says He’s a Target in the Special Counsel’s Investigation Into Jan. 6

 

It would be the second time the special counsel has notified former President Trump that he is likely to face indictment, this time in connection with the criminal investigation into the events leading up to the Capitol attack.

July 18, cont.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed charges against 16 people who signed paperwork falsely claiming that President Donald Trump had won the 2020 election as part of an effort to overturn the election results.

While individual January 6 Insurrectionist have gone on trial and been convicted, these are the first charges of these type and this, combined with Trump being a target of the Special Counsel's investigation, is a turning point in this story.  My prediction, which is probably contrary to what most might suspect, is that this is really the beginning of the end for Trump.  From here on out, denial of his association in an effort to subvert democracy will become increasingly more difficult for even diehard populists to deny, and denying the result of the 2020 election will become politically risky.

July 21, 2023

Donald Trump's trial under the Espionage Act is now scheduled for May 2024.

July 28, 2023

A revised indictment ads new charges against President Trump and adds a new defendant.

August 2, 2023

Trump indicted for the insurrection and surrounding activities:


Last prior edition:

The Post Insurrection. Unfit for any office. Part V.

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

"How can you represent. . . "


Elk Mountain.

Every lawyer has been asked that question at some point.  Usually it's "how can you represent somebody you know is guilty?"

Usually, amongst lawyers, it's regarded as kind of an eye rolling "oh how naive" type of question.  For lawyers who have a philosophical or introspective bent, and I'd submit that's a distance minority, they may have an answer that's based on, basically, defending a system that defends us all.  Maybe they have something even more sophisticated, such as something along the lines of St. Thomas More's statement in A Man For All Seasons:

William Roper : So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More : Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper : Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More : Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

That's about the best answer that there may be, and frankly the only one that applies to civil litigation.  We can console ourselves that in representing the interests of the potentially liable, we protect the interest of everyone.

But what about plaintiff's lawyers?

Frankly, the excuse is wearing thin.  

I.e., I don't believe it for a second.  It's all about cash.

And this is a real problem.

The question is what to do about it.

Well, frankly, the average person can't do much.  But you don't really have to accept it, either.

Shunning has a bad name in our culture.  Indeed, one English language European source states:

More specifically, shunning or ostracising is a form of abuse. It is discrimination and silent bullying. Unfortunately, often people who have been shunned also face other forms of abuse, ranging from death threats and physical assaults to murder.

And there's a lot of truth to that.

At the same time, it was and is something that is often practiced to varying degrees in religious communities.  Indeed, up until the revision of the Code of Canon Law in 1983, Catholic excommunications were of two types, vitandus and toleratus, with vitandus requiring the Faithful to cease all normal connections with the excommunicated.  It was very rare, but it could happen. Since 1983 that distinction does not exist.  Some Amish, however, still have such a practice, and they are not alone.

Realizing this is extreme, I also realize, as I've seen pointed out twice, that land locking rich magnates cannot do it without local help. They always hire somebody, I've heard them referred to as "goons" to be their enforcer, and when they need legal help, they hire a Wyoming licensed attorney.  Indeed, in this instance, remarkably, the plaintiff did not use a Denver attorney, which I thought they likely would have. 

And this has always been the case.  Wyoming Stock Growers Association stock detectives were sometimes enforcers back in the late 19th Century, and they were hired men.  In the trial of the Invaders, a local Cheyenne attorney was used, but then again, that was a criminal case, which I do feel differently about.

Elk Mountain is basically mid-way, and out of the way, between Laramie, Rawlins and Saratoga.  People working for Iron Bar Holdings have to go to one of those places for goods and services.  There's really no reason the excluded locals need to sell them anything.  Keep people off. . .drive to Colorado for services.

And on legal services?  I don't know the lawyers involved, so I'm unlikely to every run into them. But I'm not buying them lunch as we often do as a courtesy while on the road, and if I were a local rancher, and keep in mind that outfits like Iron Bar Holdings don't help local ranchers keep on keeping on, I'd tell that person, if they stopped in to ask to go fishing or hunting, to pound sand.

If this sounds extreme, and it actually is, this is what happened with some of the law firms representing Donald Trump in his effort to steal the election.  They backed out after partners in their firms basically, it seems, told Trump's lawyers to chose Trump or the firm.

And there are many other examples.  Lawyers bear no social costs at all for whom they represent in civil suits.  People who regard abortion as murder will sit right down with lawyers representing abortionists, people seeking a radical social change will hire lawyers to advance the change, and the lawyers fellows feel no pressure as a result of that at all.

Maybe they should.

Or is that view fundamentally wrong?

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Logic, the 2nd Amendement, and the 14th.

Folks like Robert Reich and other pundits who are not in the far right "let's default on the debt and destroy the global economy" camp are quoting the 14th Amendment a lot right now.

Why?

Well, consider this, it states:
Amendment XIV

Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

The argument is logical enough, and pertains to this:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, . . . shall not be questioned.

A cap on debt that operates to dishonor the debt, intentional or not,  as long as it was authorized by law, cannot be questioned.

The stupid debt caps call it into question.

Clearly, they are unconstitutional, just as pundits, including those on the left, note.  And firebrands on the right who hold otherwise are demonstrating contempt for the constitution.

So let's next consider this.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The same thing is at work here.  Not infringing, means not infringing.

The point here isn't to argue the policy or wisdom of either provisions.   Rather, you don't get to depart from the logic train once you board it.  Or, in other words, if you are a guy like Robert Reich, you can't argue that you can go ahead and infringe the Second Amendment, as it doesn't mean what it says, while arguing that you must apply the 14th Amendment, as it means what it says.  Nor can you be Kevin McCarthy, and argue that the Second Amendment is plain in its meaning, while turning a blind eye to the 14th Amendment.

They both mean what they say, but if you argue one, you must accept the other.  If you can logically argue to depart from the text of one, you must do the same as they're both so plain.

Saturday, November 19, 2022

What does that statute really say? The Respect For Marriage Act, what it says, what it means, what it means behind what it means, and the reaction to Lummis voting for it.

There's been a lot of news about the Senate passing a "same sex marriage bill", and on Wyoming Senator Lummis voting in favor of the bill, thereby aligning her vote with that of Congressman Liz Cheney.

Did the Senate actually pass a bill expressly protecting same-sex marriage?

Well, not really.

Here's the statute:

Shown Here:
Placed on Calendar Senate (07/21/2022)

Calendar No. 449

117th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 8404

To repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and ensure respect for State regulation of marriage, and for other purposes.


IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
July 20, 2022

Received; read the first time

July 21, 2022

Read the second time and placed on the calendar


AN ACT

To repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and ensure respect for State regulation of marriage, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Respect for Marriage Act”.

SEC. 2. REPEAL OF SECTION ADDED TO TITLE 28, UNITED STATES CODE, BY SECTION 2 OF THE DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT.

Section 1738C of title 28, United States Code, is repealed.

SEC. 3. FULL FAITH AND CREDIT GIVEN TO MARRIAGE EQUALITY.

Chapter 115 of title 28, United States Code, as amended by this Act, is further amended by inserting after section 1738B the following:

§ 1738C. Certain acts, records, and proceedings and the effect thereof

Section 7 of title 1, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:

§ 7. Marriage

If any provision of this Act, or any amendment made by this Act, or the application of such provision to any person, entity, government, or circumstance, is held to be unconstitutional, the remainder of this Act, or any amendment made thereby, or the application of such provision to all other persons, entities, governments, or circumstances, shall not be affected thereby.

Passed the House of Representatives July 19, 2022.

Attest:

Well jeepers Yeoman, you may be thinking, there's no mention of same-sex marriage or homosexuality in there at all.

That's right, there isn't.

So what's up with those claims?

Well, those who have read the Dobbs decision know that Justice Thomas made a comment to the effect that Dobbs implicitly suggests that other areas where the Supreme Court has legislated on the topic of marriage may be just as invalid as when it did on abortion in Roe v. Wade. To some extent, at least in the case of Obergefell, he's correct.  I'd submit that this does nothing to the holding in Loving v. Virginia, on interracial marriage, but some people fear that Loving will now fall as well.  It is clear that if Thomas had his way, Obergefell would be reversed.

But if it were reversed, that would mean that a Dobbs like result would occur.  States would be free to allow for same gender unions if they wanted to, and some would, and some would not.

All this statute does is apply full faith and credit to the topic, to achieve the same result that the Wyoming Supreme Court did when same gender unions were not a thing in Wyoming.  If contracted elsewhere, the Wyoming Supreme Court held, full faith and credit would cause them to be valid here.

This statute achieves the same result.

Does that mean that this legislatively secures same sex unions across the nation?

Well, not directly, but maybe indirectly.  After all, if you can cross state lines to contract the union, you can still get there.

Years ago, that wasn't actually quite as clear, but it has been, except in the case of homosexual legal unions, for many decades.  At least in Wyoming, it became clear that this was also the case before Dobbs.

Lummis might point out, I suppose, that the statute also does the same thing for interracial marriages, but those aren't under any lingering threat anywhere.

Or at least it can be argued that this is the case, and that seems to be the case to me.  I.e., I don't think Dobbs endangers interracial marriages in any fashion. Others, including a speaker at the Wyoming Bar Convention, apparently, maintain otherwise, which is right about the point that Harriet Hageman walked out of the convention room and into the hall, although she didn't silence herself, apparently.

Well, not everyone was happy with this in the state.  The state GOP sent out this email:

Dear Wyoming Republicans and County Leaders,

Yesterday’s vote on the “Respect for Marriage Act” sadly saw our own Senator Lummis vote aye. This act threatens religious liberties and is opposed to the Wyoming Republican Party Platform which was ADOPTED UNANIMOUSLY at the May 2022 Republican State Convention by more than 400 delegates from across the state.

Well, this is interesting.

Lummis came back into D.C. in the 2020 election, during which she cozied up to the far right.  Prior to her running there was serious speculation that Liz Cheney was going to run for the same office, and in fact Lummis' early announcement may have been timed to jump the gun on Cheney and get in position first.  If that was her goal, it was a smart one, as Cheney ultimately decided to run again for the House, which she did, getting around 75% of the Wyoming GOP vote.  But there did seem to be some bad blood between the two, and frankly I can't quite blame Cheney for being upset, if she was, about losing, probably permanently, the chance to be in the Senate.

As soon as Lummis rolled back into town, she joined the Trumpsters in her vote to question the election, and seemed to be getting on the Ted Cruz Party Car.  I frankly wondered if she saw Cruz as the heir apparently to Trump, and Cruz seemed to view himself that way, throwing out candy to the far right with his position on the 2020 election.

Then came 2022.  If Lummis really held bad blood towards Cheney, she got her revenge as the inside baseball is that she's the one who told Il Duce that he ought to bestow knighthood upon Harriet Hageman, which he did.  Lummis later publicly endorsed Hageman, an extraordinary thing for a Senator to do against an incumbent of her own party.

Then came the 2022 election and the only red wave was the hemorrhaging of GOP hopes for the election.  In spite of his helping the GOP to turn in a really bad performance in 2022, and losing in 2020, and helping the GOP to lose both the House and the Senate in 2018, and being the President only due to the lunacy of the electoral college in 2016, Il Duce announced his renewed March On Rome last week.

But even before that, like a bloodhound sniffing the trail of a distant fugitive, Lummis sniffing the political winds endorsed Ron DeSantis as the head of the GOP.

And now she's joined Cheney in a vote which is contrary to the state GOP's platform, an act which in recent years has resulted in declarations of expulsion for improper thought.

Lummis has proven to be pretty savvy.  She gave the State Bar the middle finger salute in 2020, and she's basically giving the GOP Central Committee the middle finger salute right now.  

In the meantime, if a Republican columnist and sort of gadfly is correct, the hypocrisy problem that we've pointed out of the Illiberal Democrats in the GOP may have exhibited itself.  He came out with a column that goes after the Wyoming GOP with both barrels.  Indeed, with both barrels and all six cylinders.  It's really brutal.

I'm not going to repeat what he wrote there, as he's claiming real inside baseball knowledge that I certainly don't have and which is pretty personal.  But what it does point out is the really hypocritical nature of the Illiberal Democracy positions taken by the GOP, or at least Wyoming's GOP, at the present time.

I'm a social conservative, and I think Obergefell was wrongly decided.  I think Justice Thomas was right on that in Dobbs, and I think that Senator Barrasso's no vote on this bill was correct.

But I also think that in order to understand why you are or against something, you need to have that grounded in the existential and metaphysical.  And that's a really uncomfortable thing, particularly in the area of sex and marriage.

I don't expect everyone who olds the traditional views to be saints, far from it.  But I do expect people to be intellectually honest.

Indeed, that's why two French figures are so interesting in my point of view.  One I can unfortunately not recall by name.  He was a parish pastor who had numerous affairs with women of his parish, but when asked to renounced his faith during the French Revolution, he went to this death rather than do so, noting publically that he was "a bad Priest", not a non-believer.

Another example was Charles Péguy, the tortured French poet who had been a non-believer who came round to being a devoutly believing, but non practicing, Catholic, as he felt himself so burdened by his sins that he mistakenly could not overcome them.

Both of these examples are not to be followed.  Péguy should have gone to Confession and fully practiced.  But their intellectual honesty when it mattered is what really counts here.

Does Lummis have any?  While I disagree with Cheney's vote too, I know that she does. She's paying for it now.  And what about the Wyoming GOP?  Having cited to traditional values, will those who have not exhibited them in their personal lives now stop proclaiming themselves as the moral standard-bearers and retrace their steps to where they departed from the narrow path, or do they regard themselves as somehow personally exempt?

Thursday, October 20, 2022

Rennovating the University of Wyoming law school?

And, we might note, to the tune of $30,000,000, at least if what reports from a recent event I went to indicate.  The public, i.e., State of Wyoming money, portion of that is $10,000,000, which is important to keep in mind, although that's wroth pondering in and of itself. That means anyway you look at it that 2/3s of that come from donations, which is amazing, if accurate.  

UW's summation of the project is as follows:

A 19,300sf, two-story addition will wrap the northwest end of the existing building. 25,000sf of the existing facility will be renovated creating spaces for clinics, accessible restrooms and improved vertical circulationThe facility expansion and improvements will bring the College of Law into compliance with American Bar Association standards, centralize College of Law clinics with the broader legal education program and allow students, professors, and the community better access to resources. The project will greatly enhance the recruitment of potential students and faculty to the College of Law and support the public legal service the University of Wyoming provides to the citizens of Wyoming.

Super nifty, eh?

Hmmm. . . maybe not so fast.

First, as is so often the case, a little history.

1926 University of Wyoming debate team.  I wanted to put up a photo of the 1923 College of Law graduating class, which I think would be the first one, but I couldn't find one.

A big renovation that occurred some years after I went there also was to "bring the College of Law into compliance with American Bar Association standards. . . "

At least if this goes forward, and it seems like it certainly shall, the 1970s styling of the current law school will be abandoned for a more traditional look.  That's good, as the current law school is really ugly.

Apparently, the new structure will look like this:


And apparently it will include something called the Alan K. Simpson Center for Clinical and Experiential Learning.1 

And as a graduate of the institution, I'm thrilled. . . . well, like a lot of lawyers if you talk to them quietly. . . I'm not.

Why are we doing this?  And don't give me the "ABA says. . . ".  If it's the case that the school falls out of ABA compliance on a fairly regular basis, there's either something systemically wrong with the school, or the ABA standards.

The law school was founded in 1920 and was the first professional degree program offered by the University of Wyoming, if "profession" is constrained to its original meaning, that being an occupation that professes by its nature, it would include only law, divinity and medicine.  That definition is probably too narrow by contemporary terms, but it would still be limited, in spite of the American social trend to define everything as a profession, to the law, divinity, broadly defined medical occupations (human medicine, veterinary medicine dentistry) and accounting.  Looked at this way, FWIW, the medical fields have expanded their knowledge and reach, taking over two areas that were formerly practiced by tradesmen (dentistry and veterinary medicine) and accounting has become so complicated that it's a subspecialty of the law in reality. 

I'd be tempted, I'd note, to add engineering, which is now a licensed profession.  It isn't the only one, however, by any means.  Teaching is subject to licensure as well, and so now is being a geologist, which it was not when I graduated back in the dawn of time with a Bachelor's of Science in Geology (the earth was still cooling back then).

So my definition may, I'll confess, be too narrow.

The law school originally held classes on a floor in the old UW library building, meaning that two of the lawyers I once practiced with had gone to the school there.  It was moved to a separate building in 1953, and I practiced with some lawyers who went there at that time.  The current building was opened in 1977, with additional library space added in 1993, after I went there.

Somewhere I have some photos of the pre 93 building, but I've never uploaded them.

The move in 1953 makes sense, and the move in 1977, even if the latter's 1970s architecture leaves a person less than inspired.

But this?

I don't really know why the University added a law school in 1920, but I can guess. UW is a land grant university and was seen as a big step towards statehood when it was formed in 1886.  As that 86 date indicates, it predates statehood.  Land grant universities tended to focus on what was deemed necessary for the state.  I don't know what classes were offered in the early days, but they probably were ones that focused on agricultural and industrial areas that were vital to the state.

Law is vital to the state.  

Indeed, it's vital to a civil society.  It's indeed remarkable that lawyers were the only institution in the entire state that bucked the "election stolen" myth when 41 of them, followed by 52, dared to take on Trumps anointed Harriet Hageman, herself a graduate of the University of Wyoming College of Law, on her backing the stolen election lie.

Law isn't the only thing vital to the state, however, and this is frankly a bit much.

For that matter, I thought the post 93 renovations, while nice, were a bit much.  You can see a little bit of them here:

University of Wyoming College of Law Large Moot Court, Laramie Wyoming


This is the large Moot Court Room for the University of Wyoming.  Having been in most of the courtrooms in the state I can safely say that its one of the nicest in the entire state.


The back half, or gallery half, of the courtroom has a moveable wall that can open up to allow greater space, or perhaps just more conventional space in the courtroom and also allow the courtroom to function as a lecture hall.  Viewed as a courtroom, what we see here in front of us is the bar of the court.

When I went to UW's College of Law it didn't have a moot courtroom at all, now it has two, a large one and a small one (I have yet to see the small one).  This particular room was the large classroom at the time.  It is quite a facility and I guess it demonstrates how much the physical assets of the College of Law have improved in the past three decades.

According to the University, the College of Law will allow the courtroom to be used by the state courts upon request, if it is not already in use.

Indeed, the degree to which a law school is necessary is pretty open to question now.  When I got out of the College of Law in 1990, it was still the case that the state had a state specific section of the bar exam. Since that time, the Supreme Court caused the State Bar to go to the Uniform Bar Exam.  This was controversial at the time, as it should have been.  The net impact of it was to allow out of state lawyers to easily transfer their licenses to Wyoming, which was pretty easy to do beforehand.  Now the floodgates are open. The current exam has no state section whatsoever, and therefore it's just as easy to get a degree from the University of Ohio, or whatever, and hang out a shingle as a "Wyoming lawyer".  Indeed, lawyers who are members of any of the state legal organizations will inevitably find out of state, usually Colorado, lawyers in positions in those organizations.

Indeed, it should be noted that part of the propaganda for the law school renovations is 

The project will greatly enhance the recruitment of potential students and faculty to the College of Law and support the public legal service the University of Wyoming provides to the citizens of Wyoming.

That really should be read as:

The project will greatly enhance the recruitment of potential out of state students and faculty to the College of Law and support the public legal service the University of Wyoming provides to the citizens of Wyoming in the form of aid to the those on the lower rung of society.

Now, let me note, helping those on the lower run of society is a good thing, but that's what law school clinics do.  That's fine.

But recruitment of out of state students?  That's a byproduct of a collapsing enrollment base.  

Indeed, there have been persistent rumors ever since the Supreme Court mandated the UBE that this was done to try to aid UW and that UW's College of Law wanted it.  The thought, the rumor maintains, was that the UBE would help UW graduates go to Colorado or elsewhere, and thereby boost the school by divorcing it from the practice inside the state.  If that was the thought, it achieved the polar opposite and didn't really help the school.

It also didn't help the school when a former Dean of the Law and a former, then new, UW President got into an enormous spat over the focus of the school. The students sided with the Dean, but they had little knowledge on what they were really achiving. The Dean, at that time, was really focusing on small time law, seemingly haveing given up on the long history of big time law inside the state. The President wanted to link the law school's focus to the energy industry. The Dean resigned and the President failed.

What all this gets to is this.  When the state had a state focused bar exam almost all the students know that they were going right into practice with Wyoming firms and the like.  Now, many leave, sometimes nearly half.  Going to UW still provides a direct link to Wyoming firms, but not the hard and fast way that it used to.  It's signficant, but reduced.

Given all that, the point of having a law school is now somewhat debatable.

Alaska doesn't have one.

Now, this is not to say that most Wyoming lawyers aren't from UW, they still are, which speaks for its survival. And it should also be noted that while law is a profession, it's also sort of a trade, and a law school in Laramie serves as sort of a trade school.  Graduaing from there means you are respected by Wyoming firms.

Indeed, the law has long been an occupation for polymaths to a degree, and even more than that, an occupation for lost polymaths.  The law is full of people who liked lots of stuff but not one thing in particular, or who couldn't make a living in that one thing they really liked.  But to be brutally frank, it's also a haven for people who'd reached career dead ends early in life and found the back alley of the law an easy one, or maybe the only one, to duck into.  Sure, there are those who "always wanted to be a lawyer", but right now, of the state's entire population, that's five people.

And the law school also serves as a place that people end up in as they're Wyomingites, have a degree, and have nowhere else to turn to.

Now, that's not intended as a slight to lawyers. Lots of lawyers who really would have preferred to be something else in their young lives are great lawyers.  Some of these, indeed many, so take to the law that, as noted in our recent threads on retirement, can't leave it or won't.  

But we have a law school and $30,000,000 is a lot of money.

It should be used for something else.

A veterinary school would be my choice.  We don't have one, but we sure have a lot of animals in this state, and a lot of those animals are agricultural animals  Wyoming veterinary students have to go somewhere else for their studies.  That speaks of their dedication, but it also speaks to the state's neglect.

A dental college also strikes me as a good idea. Not every resident in Wyoming has legal problems, but they all have teeth.

Massively expanded law school?  Don't need it.

We'll get one anyway.

Footnotes.

1. This would suggest that perhaps the Simpson family or his firm had some role in the donations.  That's just a guess.  He's a 1958 graduate of the UW College of Law.  His father Milward was a 1925 graduate of the Harvard College of Law.  His father, William, was also a prominent Wyoming lawyer, having read the law, rather than going to law school, under two other lawyers.  Alan Simpson's sons are also lawyers, one of whom is a currently sitting judge.

This is remarkable in that this means that the currently actively practicing members of the family are fourth generation lawyers.

Saturday, May 21, 2022

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXXIII (Maybe) overruling Roe v. Wade. Let the misstated arguments, bad analogies, and outright lies begin. .

When in trouble, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

Unknown.

Everyone has heard the news, of course, a leaked draft of a United States Supreme Court opinion would, if it becomes the final opinion, definitively overrule Roe v. Wade.

Which means that the Supreme Court has not overruled Roe v. Wade yet, and it very well may not, and if it does, it frankly likely will not in the form of the draft opinion, even though the draft is a good draft and this is the approach, absent one based on natural law, that they should take, in context.

Well, anyhow, a firestorm of predictable protests has broken out. So let's look at the controversy, such as it is, and the supposed issues and features of it.

A surprise that isn't a surprise.

Let's start with an obvious one.

Every legal analyst in the universe has known that Roe v. Wade was going to be overruled, so this is no surprise whatsoever.  The huge surprise would be if it wasn't.  This has been suspected for years.

So why the shock and amazement?

. . . a Lander resident, said she wasn’t surprised by the leaked draft, which was publicized Monday. But she was “a little surprised at the audacity of the claims that (Roe v. Wade) has been so wrong all along,” she said.

Casper Star Tribune.

Well, I really don't know, quite frankly, but part of it is simply manufactured.  Indeed, for that reason I think the leaker is most likely from the political left, not the right.  Since the leak, the press has taken up the theory that surely the leaker is from the right, and this is an effort to keep doubtful judges from straying.  Knowing that protests would result with Roe was overruled, no matter what, the opposite is much more likely.  The release was likely from the left, as part of a last ditch effort to keep Roe in place.

As part of that, quite frankly legal scholars have found the text of Roe to be wanting right from day one.  Hardly noticed now, quite a few on the left questioned it for decades, and even such figures as Justice Ginsberg stated that the text was pretty much crap.  The Court nearly overruled it at the time of the Casey decision, and apparently was set to until Justice Kennedy changed his mind out of a fear of what it would do to the court.  Kennedy is my least favorite modern justice so that he'd become a limp noodle at this point only cements my opinion of him, quite frankly, but as he's done on to retirement, and the justices appointed after him were not of his mindset, that Roe would be reversed isn't a surprise at all.

Scary democracy.

Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.

From the draft opinion.

So, after the tulmet and shouting, what does that draft, if it becomes the law, really do?

Well, if you listen to folks like Chuck Todd, Cossacks will be arriving at your house next Thursday to rifle through your drawers, steal your children, eat your lunch, and shave your cats.

Not so.


It does one thing, really, and only one.  It returns the issue of legislating and regulating on the topic of abortion, to the voters, through their legislators.

That's it.

Basher: All right chaps. Hang on to your knickers.  [He triggers the bomb, and the safe door cracks open.]  [Laughing, Basher dances into the vault – and the alarm goes off]  Basher: Oh leave it out! You tossers! You had one job to do!

Ocean's Eleven 

And everybody loves democracy, and therefore the left in particular is excited about that, right?

Obviously not.  So much so, that even legally trained Democratic politicians are willing to tell some huge whoppers about it.

The court's decision does one thing and one thing only.  It returns this issue to the states, which means it returns it to the voters.

That doesn't deprive anyone of anything, if the concept of deprivation is even operable here.  It doesn't tell women what to do about anything whatsoever.

Our nation’s historical understanding of ordered liberty does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated.

* * * 

Our decision returns the issue to those legislative bodies and it allows women on both sides of the abortion issue to seek to affect the legislative process by influencing public opinion, lobbying legislators, voting and running for office. Women are not without electoral or political power

Justice Samuel Alito.

Well, that's just a sham, right because men control the vote, right?

Not so at all.

Women are registered to vote in the U.S. at higher rates than men. In recent years, the number of women registered to vote in the U.S. has typically been about 10 million more than the number of men registered to vote.

Rutgers.

And here's the thing, it's been shown that in states that will act to restrict abortion, like Oklahoma for example, the female electorate in those states supports those moves. That is, more women favor restricting abortion than not.

That's the way democratic societies are supposed to work.

Indeed, while there are indeed rights enshrined in the Constitution to protect minorities against majorities, they are few in number, and they should be.  They must be limited to essentials to guard against demonstrated abuses, or they inflict abuses, or, and here's the thing, they can also address essential existential rights to protect them.

Well, that's what Roe did, right?

Not so much.  Indeed, right at all.

What a conservative court could do, and didn't.

To listed to the press, you'd think that what the Supreme Court determined was that abortions should be illegal, which is completely false. But that's why this decision is not a "conservative" one, it's a libertarian one.

We've noted before that there are no real "conservatives" on the Supreme Court.  If there were, a much different result could be reached.

At one time, the Supreme Court openly took the position that there was a natural law, and that the natural law deserved consideration in matters.  It didn't always dominate, however, and a really good example of that is a case we've discussed here before, The Antelope.  In that pre Civil War case the Supreme Court outright held that slavery was against the natural law, but not against the law of the United States, and therefore the law of the United States won out.

As abortion, however, involves the killing of a human being, no matter how a person may wish to camouflage that, a very different result could be reached.

Indeed, perhaps one thing the long build up to this debate may have served to do is to destroy the bogus arguments about the topic of abortion that had existed at one time.  Early on there were plenty of people who claimed to not know when human life began, but hardly anyone takes that position anymore.  Current abortion supporters either just don't address this at all, or are outright in their view that a mother has the right to off her child up to a certain point.

In order to take that position, except in the case of the life of the mother, a person is really limited, if they think it through, to a position of atheistic conveyance.  That is, there's nothing beyond us and our immediate goals dominate.  That argues, we'd note, not only for abortion, but also pretty widespread killing in general.  Certainly euthanasia should be allowed, if we believe that, but we probably ought to kill most felons too, as it would be a lot cheaper and convenient if we did that, rather than warehouse them in prisons. And for that matter we probably ought to do in those with serious mental defects.

That very few really are for mass killing tends to demonstrate that few have really thought this through.  It's much easier, frankly, just not to.  If you do, this is the only place to go. Once we start killing for convenience, the old phrase "well. .  he needed killing" begins to have pretty wide application.

Anyhow, a contrary natural law position is that all humans have a right to life that can only be forfitted to protect a person or society from the putative decedent inflicting bodily harm.  Ie., generally, there's a right to self-defense, but that's where the line is drawn in an individual killing another person.  And there's no reason that a really conservative court couldn't hold that the infant's rights and the mother's are co-equal, and therefore at a bare minimum she could not kill the infant save in the instance of the infant being set to inflict certain grave bodily injury.

And indeed, frankly, in the history of our laws, and in keeping with the concept of being secure in our persons, that's the opinion that would make the most sense.

That isn't the one the court decided.  Not even close.

The Supreme Court has never taken away a right

This argument is based solely on the idea that the unborn child has no rights at all, that's the only way you can get the argument to work.

Even then it's a bad argument, although its the stare decisis argument.  Essentially it  holds that no matter how badly the Supreme Court messes something up, once they totally screw it up, it must be preserved as a screw-up for all time and eternity.

If this was the case, the Dred Scott decision, which held that a slave owner had a right to the return of his slave even if they crossed into a free state, would still be admired as a brilliant legal decision.  Indeed, it should be noted, that holding wasn't much different than Roe.  One party had a right, and the other didn't.

The Civil War and the post-war amendments took care of that situation, of course, not the Supreme Court itself.  But the point is obvious.  If some people had a right, for example, to a "separate but equal" education, and then that was changed, yes, you were taking away a right that had previously been extended, but one that needed to be because the prior decision was wrong.

This decision doesn't even go that far, of course.  It just tosses things back to the states.

It jeopardizes other "rights"

This is the one argument, and the only one, that actually makes some sense, although only somewhat.

Because the fanciful creation of a fictional right by Roe utilized a discovery of a right that didn't actually exist within the "penumbra" of the Constitution, it created a method to extend such rights where they also didn't really exist in print.  That created a frankly dangerous situation in that Roe was easy to cite as a basis for finding those rights existed.

Having said that, the impact here is much more limited than might be claimed.  The claim that it's going to lead to a lot of state legislation regarding marriage, for example, is constrained by Loving v. Virginia, which predates Roe.   So no matter what may be claimed, it's not the case that states can now outlaw interracial marriage, as some have suggested might now occur.  That wouldn't occur anyhow, but the holding in Loving and what it means is in no way impacted.

What it might mean for same-sex marriage, however, is in fact much less clear.  The reason for that is that the holding in Obergefell was frankly made up just like the holding in Roe, and everyone pretty much knows that.  Indeed, Obergefell may be the last of the post 1970s decisions that really simply invented something out of whole cloth, and the process used to arrive upon it was nearly identical to that of Roe's.

Indeed, the near term history of it was as well.  Like Roe, following it gained widespread acceptance while, at the same time, it was clear that it wasn't universally accepted, and it had the impact of simply preserving a debate rather than deciding one.  Long term, therefore, it might very well be expected to have the same history.  Given that, its frankly the case that it would be better if Obergefell was in fact overruled and this returned to the states right now.  That won't occur, however, as it would be too traumatic for the court.

This likely might mean, however, that coming attacks on state's rights to regulate marriage, which has always been the legal norm, might be arrested.  I.e., we may not see any polygamy challenges soon, which we could have expected otherwise.

The other thing we keep hearing is that this may mean that the Supreme Court will send the issue of the regulation of contraceptives back to the states.  This is also unlikely.

The Court determined this issue before Roe as well, in 1965's Griswold v. Connecticut. The raising of the issue is a stalking horse, but it's not a wholly illogical thing to bring up.  Rather than Roe being a foundation for Griswold, it's actually the other way around.

The thing here that's of interest is that contraceptives have become so accepted that their health hazards, known to a much better degree in 2022 than they were in 1965. That's not really on point, but it's interesting in that if the same pharmaceuticals were being released for the first time today, as they were then, I'm not sure the FDA would actually approve them for public safety reasons.  At any rate, this decision, if it becomes law, has no impact on the 1965 opinion and no matter what the arguments on this topic are, or may have been, its doubtful this will change in any fashion, even if legally it probably really ought to revisit the topic.

That brings up "abortion pills".  It's been claimed that this may mean, and it very well might, that states will outlaw these, or outlaw them coming by mail.

On the last item, that's a curious one, and particularly creepy one, which will simply note.

The thing here is whether or not court's will rule that this is simply an area dominated by the Federal Government through the Commerce Clause.  Generally that's the case with pharmaceuticals and state's don't, and probably can't, regulate them at all.  That issue is sure to come up, and the direction even the Supreme Court takes on this may very well be surprising to those panicking now.  It should be noted, as will be below, that the entire concepts of abortion pills as legitimate pharmaceuticals is more than a little Orwellian and not much different than imagining small arms ammunition to be the same thing, but nonetheless, this is not nearly as predicable as some may imagine.

But what about. . . 

Because so much of this is patently obvious, supporters of abortion resort rapidly to stalking horse arguments, the classic one being "well what about instances of rape or incest".

No normal person even wants to discuss rape and incest, so this argument sends a person into silence as a rule, but we'll point out here that at least as to rape, ever single living human being on the planet is undoubtedly a descendant from that event at some point.  I know one very gentle soul who knows for a fact that, in his case, he is, his grandmother having been employed as a maid and suffering a rape from her employer.  His "grandfather" was not, but rather a man who married her while she was still pregnant.

Here's the thing, a person is no less a person because of a rape.  That's a hard truth, but a truth nonetheless.  Yes, carrying a child due to rape must be awful, but nonetheless, killing a person because of it doesn't make the event less awful.

Interestingly here, I'd note, rape is one of the original common law felonies and was in fact punishable by death at one time.  Seemingly nobody makes the argument that rapist should be executed, but then that argument does not have an equivalency here.

Incest is an even more horrific crime against the individual and nature, but the same arguments pertain.

In both instances, however, it would be noted that the number of abortions due to these events is incredibly small, something like 1% at most.  So the argument that widespread bloodshed should be allowed because of the 1% is knowingly disengenguine.  It's much like the logic that allowed white communities to wipe out entire black ones in the South due to an allegation of rape.  One person, that is, was accused, typically falsely, but the entire black section of town is torched.

That in fact gets to two other arguments, one involving distance and the other involving race.

Another argument that's revived in this debate is the old one about somebody having to travel for miles and miles to another state to procure an abortion.  First of all, that assumes abortion is legitimate to start with.  But just as an argument, it's a dog that doesn't hunt anymore.

By and large, in states that will outlaw abortion, it's already the case that it's fallen out of favor to such an extent that people already experience this.  So that won't change much.  The other thing is that an argument that made some sense as an argument in 1973 doesn't anymore.

Indeed, in 1979 the Nitty Gritty Dirt band issued a song about wistful thinking of traveling that included this line:

Voila! An American Dream Well, 

we can travel girl, without any means

 When it's as easy as closing your eyes 

And dream Jamaica is a big neon sign

That song involved a person dreaming of travel, but the "we can travel . . . without any means" became pretty much true in later years and almost was then.

The truth is, in the modern United States, this is already a feature of the landscape of this issue and, while people really hesitate to note it, the American culture of 2022 is so much wealthier than that of 1972 that things like travel are much less an impediment to anything than they were then.  Indeed, the concentration of poverty in some urban areas of the United States actually reflects that, as the urban poor have migrated to them, rather than being stuck in urban areas that they were previously in by default.

That bring up the odd "particularly minority women", by which pro abortion people fall back on one of their oldest arguments, which is that abortion is necessary to off African American babies.

This treads on being a racist argument on their part, and it at one time very much was.  Early proponents of any type of birth control often based their arguments on controlling the black population.

There's no overt effort to do this now, but the racist nature of the argument nonetheless comes through.  It suggests that there's just something different about blacks and for abortion . . . 

An interesting aside to this is the degree to which the WASP culture in the US is sort of a post children culture in and of itself.  There are a lot of cultural aspects of that which are outside this debate, but regarding children as almost sort of a virus is part of it.  Which gets to this

"Healthcare"

There's suddenly all sorts of claims and for that matter press about abortion being "healthcare".

Something that frustrates a natural process isn't healthcare, and that's obvious.  The natural process is what is seeking to be prevented.  It's the antithesis of healthcare.  This is no more healthcare than it would be if you stopped into your doctor, and he just suggested killing you if you had a cold.  Yes, it'd stop the cold alright, but sure wouldn't be healthcare.  Accelerating death or actually causing it never is.

It'll impact the fall election.

Finally, this is really a different topic, but it comes up again and again.  How will this impact the fall election?

The hope of Democrats is that it brings out hordes of enraged Democratic voters who will help them keep slim majorities in the House and Senate.

It won't.  

If anything, recent history has shown that no matter what the issue is, Democratic voters tend to stay home and watch reruns of Dawson's Creek or something rather than go vote.

Last Prior Thread:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist Part XXXII. The, public address, forgetting where you are, graduation speech, ⚥,part II, exhibitionist edition.