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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas' highest court on Wednesday struck down a state law that requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot, ruling the requirement unconstitutional just days before early voting begins for the Nov. 4 election.
In a decision that could have major implications in the state's election, the state Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that determined the law unconstitutionally added a requirement for voting.
The high court noted that the Arkansas Constitution lists specific requirements to vote: that a person be a citizen of both the U.S. and Arkansas, be at least 18 years old, and be lawfully registered. Anything beyond that amounts to a new requirement and is therefore unconstitutional, the court ruled.
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On October 16 2014 07:19 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas' highest court on Wednesday struck down a state law that requires voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot, ruling the requirement unconstitutional just days before early voting begins for the Nov. 4 election.
In a decision that could have major implications in the state's election, the state Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that determined the law unconstitutionally added a requirement for voting.
The high court noted that the Arkansas Constitution lists specific requirements to vote: that a person be a citizen of both the U.S. and Arkansas, be at least 18 years old, and be lawfully registered. Anything beyond that amounts to a new requirement and is therefore unconstitutional, the court ruled. Source
Lemme guess, they once again tried to do this as close to the elections as possible instead of you know, several years in advance with programs in place to help everyone get such an identification paper?
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An atheist in Northern California has been awarded nearly $2 million in a settlement with the state and a nonprofit drug rehab organization for violating his religious liberty by sending him to jail for refusing to submit to a “higher power” as part of a treatment program, local news outlets reported.
After serving a year behind bars for methamphetamine possession, 46-year-old Barry Hazle Jr. of Shasta County was ordered to participate in a residential drug treatment program.
When he arrived at the Empire Recovery Center in Redding, Calif., the atheist was told that the center’s 12-step program, which was modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous, involved submitting to a “higher power” through prayer, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Tuesday.
When Hazle balked and asked about secular drug rehab, he was told that Empire was the only state-approved facility in Shasta County — and that it wasn’t picky about whom that higher power should be — the Chronicle said.
“They told me, ‘anything can be your higher power. Fake it till you make it,’” he told the newspaper.
But when Hazle still objected — the program included prayer and references to God, according to the Redding Record Searchlight — he was sent to jail at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco for more than 100 days. Probation officials said they did so because Hazle was allegedly being "disruptive, though in a congenial way, to the staff as well as other students ... sort of passive-aggressive,” the Searchlight said.
In 2007, Hazle sued the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and WestCare California, a Fresno-based substance abuse treatment organization contracted by CDCR to coordinate rehab for parolees, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Six weeks later the CDCR, citing federal case law, issued a directive saying that parole agents can’t compel a parolee to participate in religious-oriented programs, and that they must offer a nonreligious alternative if they object, the Bee reported.
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Norway28900 Posts
haha $2 million. and to a meth addict. that's gonna work out well :D
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The Post's Sari Horwitz reports that Obama intends to nominate Vanita Gupta, currently director of the ACLU's Center for Justice, to lead the civil rights division of the Justice Department. Gupta also currently leads the ACLU's National Campaign to End Mass Incarceration. Horwitz writes:
Gupta, 39, who was born in the Philadelphia area to immigrant parents, has been praised by a wide array of political activists for her civil rights work, especially on prison reform, an issue on which liberals and conservatives have found common ground.
Given her background, the move to the civil rights division is in many ways a natural one. And interestingly, much of her interest in disparities reflects concern over racial disparities in the war on drugs.
"The war on drugs has been a war on communities of color," she wrote in 2011.
Gupta has been an outspoken opponent of mandatory minimum sentencing laws, particularly their application in drug offenses. Last month, she penned an op-ed for CNN centered around a man sentenced to life in prison for buying marijuana.
"This country has spent 40 years relentlessly ratcheting up the number of people going to prison and dramatically expanding the time we hold them there," she writes. "We've spent decades criminalizing people with drug dependency, passing extreme sentencing laws, and waging a war on drugs that has not diminished drug use."
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United States44353 Posts
Is there no way they could tell him he was right, apoligise, pay his legal costs and then spend the $2m on a setting up non religious treatment program? I'm absolutely for the state not compelling people to do religious activities with the threat of prison but the ruling is kinda dumb.
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On October 16 2014 13:19 KwarK wrote:
Is there no way they could tell him he was right, apoligise, pay his legal costs and then spend the $2m on a setting up non religious treatment program? I'm absolutely for the state not compelling people to do religious activities with the threat of prison but the ruling is kinda dumb.
No, because they settled the case, so this IS telling him he was right. Of course, they were never going to just walk away without paying his lawyer off, who will probably take a 40% cut of this.
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United States44353 Posts
I guess I just don't see the advantage of punitively high settlements in cases of a public institution vs a member of the public. I can see why they need to sometimes be crazy high to avoid private businesses viewing penalties for antisocial practices as a cost of doing business and avoiding to get their shit together but a publicly funded institution simply passes the costs on. It's an incentive to comply with the law that works well in the private sector but has no use in the public sector.
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Is it punitive? I view it as compensatory. He had to spend 100 days in jail unjustly because the state was violating his civil rights.
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On October 16 2014 14:07 KwarK wrote:
I guess I just don't see the advantage of punitively high settlements in cases of a public institution vs a member of the public. I can see why they need to sometimes be crazy high to avoid private businesses viewing penalties for antisocial practices as a cost of doing business and avoiding to get their shit together but a publicly funded institution simply passes the costs on. It's an incentive to comply with the law that works well in the private sector but has no use in the public sector.
It went up and down the court system as they tried to decide precisely this issue. Originally there were no damages but the Ninth Circuit overruled it in 2010, saying he deserved financial restitution for his loss of liberty, since he was in a program that refused to transfer him somewhere else, refused to allow him an exemption or alternative from accepting God per se, and then sent him back to prison for failure to complete the program as a condition of parole because he never complied.
The program sunk itself when they said they didn't know what "alternative non-religious treatment" was and refused to make any accommodations for an atheist, and the state sunk itself on First Amendment grounds by sending him back to prison. A million bucks is a decent way to convince them to come up with alternative non-religious treatments (the state and contractor each got hit with a million dollar fine).
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On October 16 2014 14:07 KwarK wrote:
I guess I just don't see the advantage of punitively high settlements in cases of a public institution vs a member of the public. I can see why they need to sometimes be crazy high to avoid private businesses viewing penalties for antisocial practices as a cost of doing business and avoiding to get their shit together but a publicly funded institution simply passes the costs on. It's an incentive to comply with the law that works well in the private sector but has no use in the public sector.
What happens if they just ignore the court? They can just go back to court if anyone sues them and only pay legal costs.
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United States44353 Posts
I guess I'm working under the assumptions that state run organisations would want to obey the law and that if they wanted to disobey the law then being fined taxpayer's money wouldn't actually be a problem for them.
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On October 16 2014 15:25 KwarK wrote:
I guess I'm working under the assumptions that state run organisations would want to obey the law and that if they wanted to disobey the law then being fined taxpayer's money wouldn't actually be a problem for them.
Interesting, I would venture to say this didn't cross the program's mind at all. From my reading of the issues, it seems they were overzealous with the "submission to a higher power" step and they took this guy's noncompliance as an unwillingness to cooperate rather than a sincere expression of his beliefs.
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United States44353 Posts
On October 16 2014 16:12 coverpunch wrote:Show nested quote +On October 16 2014 15:25 KwarK wrote:
I guess I'm working under the assumptions that state run organisations would want to obey the law and that if they wanted to disobey the law then being fined taxpayer's money wouldn't actually be a problem for them. Interesting, I would venture to say this didn't cross the program's mind at all. From my reading of the issues, it seems they were overzealous with the "submission to a higher power" step and they took this guy's noncompliance as an unwillingness to cooperate rather than a sincere expression of his beliefs.
Absolutely, my point is simply that once a court tells them to stop being so overzealous then that ought to be enough for them to stop and if that isn't enough for them to stop then I don't see how being fined someone else's money is going to change the equation.
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Oh come on Kwark. It's not like government agencies don't look at the money that is appropriated for them as their own money. People work there. There are officials who depend on the money. It's not as if they just raise the taxes to cover the fine.
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United States44353 Posts
And you assume that they haven't anticipated such expenses and built them into the budget? Or that if they overspend due to something like that the overseeing body will go "hey, you know those things that we're paying you to do, don't worry about those this year"?
The money doesn't come from shareholders, it doesn't impact the bottom line.
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On October 16 2014 15:06 NovaTheFeared wrote:
Is it punitive? I view it as compensatory. He had to spend 100 days in jail unjustly because the state was violating his civil rights.
Hm, that's a lot of compensation. I think it would be quite hard to find a middle class or lower person that wouldn't willingly choose to go to prison for 100 days for 2 million dollars. That's 20000$/day. I'd probably even go to one of your american horrorprisons for that money, though i guess the chance of getting boiled alive in a shower would make me think multiple times about that.
Anyways, the point i was making is that this is at least an order of magnitude or two too much money to be just compensation for 100 days in jail. The sum is obviously so large to punish the organisation, not because this is just compensation for 100 days in jail.
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Well that was my impression from reading the news article. Your response had me dig up the decision, and it does indeed seem to be compensatory damages that were ordered by the appeals court before it was ultimately settled. I should note that punitive damages were on the table for the retrial that was ordered which is why the settlement might be higher than compensatory damages alone.
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EPT
