Source: http://pbohan.blogspot.com/2018/05/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 01:12:59+00:00

Document:
In recent writings I have talked about the issues associated with elevating Fundamental Rights as well as the Court using personal opinions to draw up methodologies to produce the favored political result. The 2016 decision between Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstendt is a good example of such a case. In this case, the majority held that a Texas statute aimed at increasing the safety of women having abortions was unconstitutional because it created “an undue burden on abortion access”. The Court struck down every provision and failed to sever provisions that were constitutional (a common Court practice) especially for laws written specifically with a severability clause. In essence the Court found provisions that patients “be treated with respect, consideration, and dignity” and patients should not be given any “misleading” information, and facility fire safety codes must be up to date are examples of provisions of the law that were found unconstitutional. Why? Because the majority held determining the constitutionality of all clauses in the statute would be too burdensome. Justice Breyer’s opinion is so bad it contains the following statement “determined wrongdoers, already ignoring existing statutes and safety measures, are unlikely to be convinced to adopt safe practices by a new overlay of regulations.” This statement basically rules out the need for any regulations of any kind. Why place gun regulations on felons if they will refuse to abide by such regulations? This is a dangerous statement. Justice Ginsberg concurring opinion states: “When a State severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstance may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners.” This “may” or “may not” be the case because these facts were not in evidence. Justice Ginsberg is merely injecting personal opinion. This should not happen in any case, let alone in a case being heard in the highest court of land.
What is important to focus on in this case is Justice Thomas’s dissent because he points to all that is wrong with the Court’s methodology in evaluating complicated cases such as this one on abortion. First, Thomas points out that the Court “invented” the “undue burden” standard for evaluating abortion cases in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). However, this case rewrites the “undue burden” standard developed in Casey in several ways. For example, the Court in Whole Women’s Health “balances benefits with burdens” which it did not do in Casey. Another new wrinkle in the Whole Women’s Health decision is for the first time the Court fails to leave medical science regulations up to the legislators who confer with medical professionals. Finally, states have always been given the benefit of the doubt if it acts in a rational way then they are not imposing an undue burden. Thomas points out that “The majorities undue-burden test looks far less like our Casey precedent and far more like the strict-scrutiny standard that Casey rejected.” In other words, the majority had to find a way to strike down this law and had to change their own precedent and rules to do so (Breyer wrote the majority opinion and heard both cases). This decision is dangerous for many reasons. First, “the majority reappoints this Court as ‘the country’s ex-officio medical board with power to approve and disapprove medical and operative practices and standards throughout the United States.” Hence, the ever growing power of the monopolized government gets bigger and more powerful with this decision.
Finally, the Court "Ordinary [does not allow] plaintiffs filing suits to vindicate constitutional rights of others." No women had filed suit against the new abortion safety regulations.
Bravo to Thomas, he is the only Justice interpreting the Constitution as it should be: through its text. Without the text the document has no limits. Interpreting the Constitution differently is just opinion, policy making, and making up the law as you go. The Court’s ad-hoc way of deciding cases needs to go, it is unfair to the people and the states.
Moral and Social justice are often seen as polar opposites similar to conservative and liberal philosophies. However, these philosophies do unite from time to time. For example, both moral and social justice have common themes over crime, but they tend to differ over retribution. There are even times when the two dangerous philosophies unite in Supreme Court cases. One such case is Taylor v. United States (2016) where the Court held that the Hobbs Act which “makes it a crime for a person to affect commerce or to attempt to do so by robbery” was constitutional. Taylor was convicted of robbing two drug dealers in Virginia. Taylor did not get away with any money or marijuana, but instead stole a few household items.
The Commerce Clause has been a heaven for social justice. The Court has used the Commerce Clause to regulate everything that is economic including hourly wages, maximum hourly work days and weeks, as well as to allow workers to unionize. The Commerce Clause has even been misapplied to uphold the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (should have used the Fourteenth Amendment). Liberals believe the reach of the Commerce Clause goes beyond the regulation of economic activities to include the regulation of government mandates, gun laws at schools, and crime against women. So it should come as no surprise all four liberal justices sided with the majority opinion and the federal government’s power grab.
But why would three Conservative justices side with the liberals in this case (if Scalia were alive he would have sided with the majority too)? Only Justice Thomas dissented. Well, the answer is simple, the moralistic code or philosophy of conservativism is to side with 1. Harsher penalties for crime and 2. Always rule against drug crimes.
Taylor v. United States shows the pettiness of both the Liberal and Conservative sects of the Court. It also illustrates the discriminatory flaws in both the moral and social justice aspects of our monopolized government because rulings violate the rights of some individuals but not others. In his majority opinion Justice Alito based his ruling on the Court’s precedent in Raich v. Gonzalez (2005), which was also a bad decision (Liberals and Conservative united over social and moral justice). Alito wrote: “the activity at issue, the sale of marijuana, is unquestionably an economic activity”. However this point neglects modern Commerce Clause principles in United States v. Lopez; United States v. Morrison, and United States v. Bond which implies: “the Constitution requires a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local.” The Constitution’s Commerce Clause (or any clause) does not “allow Congress to punish robbery.” Allowing Congress to have national police power “would subvert the basic principles of federalism and dual sovereignty”. What is more troubling is Alito statement: “proof that the defendant’s conduct in and of itself affected or threatened commerce is not needed”. That is a remarkable statement because as Thomas points out in his dissent that this “effectively relieves the government of it central burden in a criminal case – the burden to prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt.” This means “today’s decisions weakens longstanding protections for criminal defendants.” Moreover, Alito says “Our holding today is limited to cases in which the defendant targets drug dealers for the purpose of stealing drugs or drug proceeds.” However, the Court’s “reasoning allows for unbounded regulations.” If Taylor can be convicted for violating a federal law that states a person cannot “delay, obstruct, or affect” commerce without any burden of proof, what is to stop the government from treating any local robbery with the same methodology. Worse yet, the Court may apply the law differently depending on what was stolen. This is the definition of discrimination.
Since any robbery is economic in nature, what is to stop the government from applying the Hobbs Act to any theft? And think about the implications if the Court treats “drug robberies” different from other types of robberies? And if all this is not bad enough think about the fact that Taylor never stole any drugs or drug money, but was convicted based on what he intended to steal. What would happen if everyone was arrested for intending to break the law? Wait, it gets worse, the government did not have any burden of proof to show that Taylor broke the law or intended to break the law. This is “guilty until proven innocent” and more innocent people will be jailed if the standard of proof switches to the defendant. This is the power of what happens when moral and social justice unite in one ruling. This is not the only time the Court used the commerce clause to impose stricter standards on a specific type of crime. In 1971 in Perez v. United States, the Court applied federal jurisdiction to the illegal activity of loan sharks. This is scary stuff. Remember, Taylor and Perez would be punished under state statutes and laws, they would not get off without punishment. This case is important because it provides the federal government more police power at the expense of the States. This means the federal government monopoly continues to garner more strength and when that happens nobody’s rights are safe since criminal protections are becoming extinct.

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