The Wonderful Christian Message of Wonderfully Christian South Dakota

[Sunstone]

Of course you need courts, what bothers me is when the court finds rights in the constitution that arent there like abortion. I guess you are trying to dance with me on the choice of my words because you cant dispute my main point. WHEN A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE MAKES A DECISION BECAUSE HE\SHE THINKS ITS A GOOD IDEA INSTEAD OF BASING IT ON A REASONABLE INTERPRETATION OF THE CONSTITUION, THEY ARE ACTING LIKE LEGISLATORS! You dont see a baseball umpire, or a football ref etc change the rules in a game because they think its a good idea, they are bound by the rule book. SC justices should be the same way. Some havent been this way, my solution is to elect presidents who have the conviction to nominate justices who are not so pious and conceited to think they should not be bound by the constitution.

Have you read Roe v. Wade? Precisely in what specific ways did the justices in Roe v. Wade fail to base their opinion on a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution?

 

[Pah]

The Supreme court only creates Constitutional law and it does this every time a case is decided. They make no Federal law, they make no State law. "Law", in this case is being thought of as one when in reality they are sepearate and disitinct.

The body of law that the court makes has no direct bearing on the law passed by legislature. When a law is ruled unconstitutional the legislated or common law is declare null and void - there can be no law without constitutional approval. There is no "new" law fashioned but a ruling from precedent and constitutional analysis will show any law that is rewritten what the "mistakes" are in the one canceled.

The only problem is that the Court can not decide constitutionality until there is an injustice brought before it. So the "mistakes" have a life until voided. Restitution can and will be granted for the mistake.

In fact, unless the Massachusetts legislature had created a new marriage law, marriage would have probably become what is called a "Common Law Marriage" which entrails just acting married to be married. This is the direction specified by The Judiciary Act of 1789 which established the Supreme Court.

 

[kevmicsmi]

Have you read Roe v. Wade? Precisely in what specific ways did the justices in Roe v. Wade fail to base their opinion on a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution?

justice Blackum

"This holding, we feel, is consistent with the relative weights of the respective interests involved, with the lessons and examples of medical and legal history, with the lenity of the common law, and with the demands of the profound problems of the present day." 410 U.S. at 165.

That does not sound like reasonable constitutional interpretation

Justice Potter Stewart From Bob Woodwards
(not a very conservative source) book the bretheren

Stewart thought that abortion was one of those constitutional issues that the Court rarely handled well. Yet it was becoming too important to ignore. Abortion was a political issue. Women were coming into their own, as Stewart learned from his daughter Harriet, a strong, independent woman.
As Stewart saw it, abortion was becoming one reasonable solution to population control. Poor people, in particular, were consistently victims of archaic and artificially complicated laws. The public was ready for abortion reform.
Still, these were issues of the very sort that made Stewart uncomfortable. Precisely because of their political nature, the Court should avoid them. But the state legislatures were always so far behind. Few seemed likely to amend their abortion laws. Much as Stewart disliked the Court’s being involved in this kind of controversy, this was perhaps an instance where it had to be involved.

Justice Renquist dissenting

Nothing in the Court's opinion indicates that Texas might not constitutionally apply its proscription of abortion as written to a woman in that stage of pregnancy. Nonetheless, the Court uses her complaint against the Texas statute as a fulcrum for deciding that States may [410 U.S. 113, 172] impose virtually no restrictions on medical abortions performed during the first trimester of pregnancy. In deciding such a hypothetical lawsuit, the Court departs from the longstanding admonition that it should never "formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied." ... Nor is the "privacy" that the Court finds here even a distant relative of the freedom from searches and seizures protected by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which the Court has referred to as embodying a right to privacy

Clearly stated, the court used "the guidance" of the 14th amendment for the law. aT THE TIME THE 14TH AMENDMENT WAS PASSED IN 1868 THERE WERE 36 STATE LAWS LIMITING ABORTION.


Of course here are some arguments from Pro-Choice people who disagree with the law

What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers’ thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation’s governmental structure. Nor is it explainable in terms of the unusual political impotence of the group judicially protected vis-à-vis the interest that legislatively prevailed over it.… At times the inferences the Court has drawn from the values the Constitution marks for special protection have been controversial, even shaky, but never before has its sense of an obligation to draw one been so obviously lacking." John Hart Ely, The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade, 82 Yale L.J. 920, 935-937 (1973).

"One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found." Laurence H. Tribe, The Supreme Court, 1972 Term—Foreword: Toward a Model of Roles in the Due Process of Life and Law, 87 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 7 (1973).
"As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible." "Justice Blackmun’s opinion provides essentially no reasoning in support of its holding. And in the almost 30 years since Roe’s announcement, no one has produced a convincing defense of Roe on its own terms." Edward Lazarus, The Lingering Problems with Roe v. Wade, and Why the Recent Senate Hearings on Michael McConnell’s Nomination Only Underlined Them, Oct. 3, 2002 (at http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/lazarus/20021003.html). (Mr. Lazarus was a law clerk to Blackmun and describes himself as "someone utterly committed to the right to choose [abortion]" and as "someone who loved Roe’s author like a grandfather.")
"[Roe’s] failure to confront the issue in principled terms leaves the opinion to read like a set of hospital rules and regulations.... Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice Blackmun are part of the Constitution." Archibald Cox, The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government 113-114 (1976).
"Blackmun’s [Supreme Court] papers vindicate every indictment of Roe: invention, overreach, arbitrariness, textual indifference." William Saletan, Unbecoming Justice Blackmun, Legal Affairs, May/June 2005 (at http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/May-June-2005/feature_saleton_mayjun05.msp).

http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2377/pub_detail.asp

Here is from the consenting opinion of Justice Burger

I am somewhat troubled that the Court has taken notice of various scientific and medical data in reaching its conclusion

This is from a CONCURRING justice:banghead3

More from Burger

[FONT=verdana,geneva,helvetica]

[FONT=verdana,geneva,helvetica]In oral argument, counsel for the State of Texas informed the Court that early abortion procedures were routinely permitted in certain exceptional cases, such as nonconsensual pregnancies resulting from rape and incest. In the face of a rigid and narrow statute, such as that of Texas, no one in these circumstances should be placed in a posture of dependence on a prosecutorial policy or prosecutorial discretion. Of course, States must have broad power, within the limits indicated in the opinions, to regulate the subject of abortions, but where the consequences of state intervention are so severe, uncertainty must be avoided as much as possible. For my part, I would be inclined to allow a State to require the certification of two physicians to support an abortion, but the Court holds otherwise. I do not believe that such a procedure is unduly burdensome, as are the complex steps of the Georgia statute, which require as many as six doctors and the use of a hospital certified by the JCAH.

[FONT=verdana,geneva,helvetica]I do not read the Court's holdings today as having the sweeping consequences attributed to them by the dissenting Justices; the dissenting views discount the reality that the vast majority of physicians observe the standards of their profession, and act only on the basis of carefully deliberated medical judgments relating to life and health. Plainly, the Court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortions on demand[/FONT]

Where in his explanation, besides a futile 14th amendment attempt does he mention the Constitution?[/FONT]
[/FONT]

 

[Pah]

You still have to prove that the court acts as legislators

justice Blackum



That does not sound like reasonable constitutional interpretation[\quote]Becuase it is not constitutional interpretation but is a confirming statement give in the material presented by freinds of the court. You'll have to find something else that IS constitutional interpretation

Justice Renquist dissenting

I'm not going to answer smoke and mirrors from dissenting opinions. You have to prove your case with the holding.

Here is from the consenting opinion of Justice Burger



This is from a CONCURRING justice:banghead3

It is entirely dishonest to take a quote out of context The consenting opinion covered many paragraphs and you say this is the "consenting opinion". What you don't say is in which case it appears. It is NOT Roe v Wade

More from Burger

[FONT=verdana,geneva,helvetica]

Where in his explanation, besides a futile 14th amendment attempt does he mention the Constitution?

This isn't from Roe v Wade either. Given your record of out of context quoting, I'd like the citation, if any, of what you used.
[/FONT]

Sunstone, I think it is safe to say kevmicsmi has not read Roe v Wade - well at least he didn't copy and paste from it.

 

[kevmicsmi]

You still have to prove that the court acts as legislators

Sunstone, I think it is safe to say kevmicsmi has not read Roe v Wade - well at least he didn't copy and paste from it.

Ill be busy this morning Ill reply this evening.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Where do you think the dissenting opinions came from? Where do you think the concurring opinions came from? Is that your only retort to my post? Oh well, i thought this thread was dead 5 pages ago, im getting bored with it. Agree to disagree

Pah has made a significant point:

You still have to prove that the court acts as legislators

Kev,
What you're saying and what you are trying to prove simply do not relate to eachother.

 

[kevmicsmi]

Pah has made a significant point:


Kev,
What you're saying and what you are trying to prove simply do not relate to eachother.

I disagree, when the chief justice says

For my part, I would be inclined to allow a State to require the certification of two physicians to support an abortion

in relation to the two abortion cases before them, I cant believe he was reasonably interpreting the constitution. To me, that would be a legislative decision.

It is entirely dishonest to take a quote out of context The consenting opinion covered many paragraphs and you say this is the "consenting opinion". What you don't say is in which case it appears. It is NOT Roe v Wade

Im sorry, but this opinion was rendered in the doe v bolton case which runs congruently to Roe v Wade. The opinion is valid to critique as such.
http://home.aol.com/abtrbng/410burg.htm

This isn't from Roe v Wade either. Given your record of out of context quoting, I'd like the citation, if any, of what you used.

Again if you dont understand their is congruency between roe v wade, and Doe v Bolton, then I cant help you. Oh well here is your citation anyway. http://home.aol.com/abtrbng/roefl-o.htm