*Truth be told, it is not that big of a thumping but I have been itching to use that headline and get it over with.
As you may know, today a 3-judge panel for the 9th Circuit of the Federal Court unanimously denied the Trump administration’s emergency motion for a stay of the Temporary Restraining Order issued by Judge Robart last week. You may have caught it on the news. Let us take a moment to examine some of the Order by the Court and parcel out what they meant from what they said. This kind of translation will hopefully help those who got their law degrees from Twitter and Facebook.
Yes, it has been awhile. As those who subscribe to our newsletter know we have been rather busy lately with our move to the new office. Located at 300 E. State Street in downtown Redlands, CA. The move required some time away from the blog as we set up new services and added some new personnel. For more information on that you can sign up for our newsletter.
We also had some roller derby duties to perform because, well because we like it.
Receiving a whip from Bobby Cendejas and blocking out Kyle Bell
On to the law.
SEARCH AND SEIZURE DEBATE.
We want to thank the folks at Above the Law for bringing this to our attention. There was a debate regarding whether or not the mass collection of phone date is an unconstitutional search and seizure. It is a good question and one worth having because the real question is whether the records themselves are an unreasonable search and seizure. Unreasonable being the key word here. It is an intelligent debate and heaven knows we need more of that instead of the ridiculous talking head arguments we see on television and hear on the radio. Check out the video section there.
GAY MARRIAGE AND THE SUPREME COURT
The Supremes, once again, made no decision on gay marriage at all, thus allowing it in seven more states that overturned gay marriage bans. While it is certainly not a lot loss for the supporters of gay marriage it still is not the decisive Loving-esque decision they are hoping for. Eventually, the Supremes will have to face the key question in same-sex marriage. Can a state that does not allow same-sex marriage be forced to accept a lawful same-sex marriage in another state? Or, put another way, can people who are lawfully married in one state, have their marriage nullified once they move to another state? This full faith and credit question is the real crux of the matter. Once the Court rules on that, the game is over one way or another. For the best coverage on this and other Supreme Court matters, check out the SCOTUS BLOG.
THE LAW HAWK
I do not do YouTube advertising (yet). But if I did, I hope I have the guts to be as bold as this guy. He calls himself, The Texas Law Hawk. And I can not determine if this is the most ridiculous lawyer commercial I have ever seen or one of the coolest. I keep expecting him to challenge the prosecutor to a Texas Death Match, this Saturday Night at the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum to face a Von Erich or Bruiser Brody.
In wrestling related news, we will be returning to New England in 2015 to do Color Commentary work for the Boston Pro Wrestling Marathon. Combined with our 15th law school reunion, I look forward to being back in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
In our upcoming posts we have a special look at John Cena, and two book reviews. One of those reviews concerns a book written by New England wrestling mainstay Sean Gorman. Gorman is on vacation in Paris for the next few days and we wish the tall, lanky bastard well in the City of Lights.
Thanks to the stat trackers at Scotusblog, the excellent blog that covers the US Supreme Court, we see that in the last term the Supremes were unanimous on 65% of their cases. That is more unified than most married couples. Only 14% if the cases before the court were decided by a 5-4 margin. That means that 86% of the time, this Court has reached decisions with a clear majority in terms of decisions. The reasoning may lead to split concurrences, but for the most part, they get to to the same place.
So what is it about these cases that cause a 5-4 split? Over the next few weeks we will look at the 10 cases this term and see what we can learn about the Court from them. For one we will learn that you can get some strange bedfellows and unlike WWE booking, there can still be some surprises.
McCutcheon v. FEC: Campaign finance reform case in which the Court determined that limits on aggregate campaign contributions is unconstitutional. Majority: The usual conservative suspects and Kennedy. Opinion by Roberts.
Navarette v. California: Under the totality of the circumstances, the traffic stop precipitated by an anonymous but reliable tip to 911 complied with the Fourth Amendment because the officer had reasonable suspicion that the truck’s driver was intoxicated. Great mixed bag case. Justice Thomas wrote the majority opinion with Roberts, Kennedy, Breyer, and Alito joining. Scalia dissented, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan.
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