EPTI personally think that Trump's guilt should be decided by criminal trial, not by election law.
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gobbledydook
Australia2591 Posts
I personally think that Trump's guilt should be decided by criminal trial, not by election law. | ||
micronesia
United States24449 Posts
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BlackJack
United States9909 Posts
On December 30 2023 08:46 ChristianS wrote: I mean, I agree it’s multifaceted, it’s cultural, etc. But that’s only so useful to say, right? At the end of the day you’re pretty directly saying “they didn’t fund the police enough and liberal DA’s aren’t draconian enough, and that’s why the city’s crime problem is bad.” Implied solution is “they should fund the police and DAs should be more draconian,” alongside an implied prescription for everyone to be nicer to cops. Is that a strawman? I’m happy to be corrected if that’s not what you think, but it didn’t seem terribly ambiguous to me. Generally speaking you’re pretty inclined to blame problems on fuzzy-headed “woke” people, but even to the extent that’s an accurate causal story, so what? Our culture foreverwar certainly promotes a fair amount of stupidity on both sides, but what exactly can be done to stop it? The strawman is suggesting that I think it's a problem with a singular cause that a straight line can be drawn from to fix. More police --> less crime. Problem solved. It's a confluence of factors. Police numbers being reduced, DAs giving out slaps on the wrists because they don't really believe in jail, Police no longer being motivated to arrest people because they will be out the next day anyway, Prisons emptying thousands of inmates onto the streets because COVID, people believing small crimes like shoplifting are victimless and tolerating them, etc. There are perhaps dozens of variables and they all feed off each other and they all have their own feedback loops spiraling out of control. I think the commonality is "wokeness." Throwing common sense out the window in favor of some idea of social justice. Yeah I think people that break the law should be arrested and if they are a danger to society they should be segregated from society. If that's "draconian" then so be it. Everyone accused of a crime has a defense attorney trying to keep them out of prison. We don't need the DA trying to keep them out of prison too. | ||
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BlackJack
United States9909 Posts
On December 30 2023 09:13 gobbledydook wrote: In other news, Trump was disqualified from the ballot in Colorado and Maine and it looks like the Supreme Court is going to have to rule on it. I personally think that Trump's guilt should be decided by criminal trial, not by election law. Irrespective if you think Trump should be taken off the ballot, in my mind the optics of this is not a winning play. SCOTUS is going to overturn it anyway and Trump gets more ammo to play the witch hunt card. | ||
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KwarK
United States41385 Posts
On December 30 2023 09:13 gobbledydook wrote: In other news, Trump was disqualified from the ballot in Colorado and Maine and it looks like the Supreme Court is going to have to rule on it. I personally think that Trump's guilt should be decided by criminal trial, not by election law. His guilt in many things is being decided by criminal trial. Disqualification isn’t a sentence. | ||
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Razyda
429 Posts
On December 30 2023 09:33 BlackJack wrote: Irrespective if you think Trump should be taken off the ballot, in my mind the optics of this is not a winning play. SCOTUS is going to overturn it anyway and Trump gets more ammo to play the witch hunt card. Out of curiosity, as US legal system is somewhat of a maze for me, can SCOTUS, in a manner of speaking, abstain, by stating that elections are state matter and as such it is not a case for it? | ||
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ChristianS
United States3155 Posts
I wouldn’t be too up in arms if SCOTUS read a due process requirement into that provision (i.e. Trump has to actually be convicted of something to be disqualified from office). It’s not in the actual text, but it’s not an unreasonable requirement to add into a slightly-linguistically-ambiguous phrasing. It wouldn’t be especially “originalist” but w/e. My suspicion/fear, though, is that they’ll say something more along the lines of “whether Trump should be on the ballot is a ‘political question’ so we’re gonna let the voters decide,” which would functionally delete that provision of the Constitution for no reason other than political allegiance. That would be, I think, absurd and indefensible, and is probably the most likely outcome, but I’m happy to be proven wrong. I think the chances they uphold CO’s decision is basically zero to the point of barely even being worth thinking about. @BJ: I mean, not to rehash the 2020 criminal justice conversation, but prosecutors have enormous power in this “adversarial” system to, for example, threaten people into plea deals, or work directly with cops to slant the evidence (especially in cases of police brutality), and generally ensure that accused criminals’ lives are pretty dramatically disrupted even if they later turn out to be innocent. And generally speaking, they do, because their bosses, their police coworkers, and voters all love to see massive sentences as often as possible. It’s not remotely clear those policies actually make anybody safer, and it’s extremely clear that the presence of a defense attorney is not sufficient to ensure the criminal justice system only imposes immense suffering on guilty criminals in a way that actually promotes public safety. So no, I don’t think “prosecutors should just try to imprison dangerous people and let defense attorneys serve the role of keeping them honest” is a reasonable take. Nominally it’s the DA’s job to do what best protects the public, which is not necessarily maximizing sentences by any means necessary. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Mohdoo
United States15264 Posts
On December 30 2023 09:45 ChristianS wrote: My suspicion/fear, though, is that they’ll say something more along the lines of “whether Trump should be on the ballot is a ‘political question’ so we’re gonna let the voters decide,” which would functionally delete that provision of the Constitution for no reason other than political allegiance. That would be, I think, absurd and indefensible, and is probably the most likely outcome, but I’m happy to be proven wrong. This is my take as well, other than the prediction. If someone is convicted of insurrection, they are already disqualified directly or indirectly to the extent that the 14th amendment would not be necessary if the intention was to require some kind of conviction. Someone who understands law should correct me if I’m wrong. But I basically see it as the 14th amendment was clearly not intended to require a formal conviction. And if it did require a conviction, would that mean a president could pardon someone and thus allow them to run for president? Anyway, you’ve all heard my rant about why the Supreme Court isn’t real enough time that I’ll just refer to that argument here. Because it isn’t real, they need to be careful with their rulings. Once people decide to just ignore their rulings, they become the tooth fairy in practice rather than just in theory. If Jack Smith or whoever dumps enough evidence that the Supreme Court might be ignored by states, they won’t rule against the states. I think it’s that simple tbh. If Colorado or Maine or whoever were to simply not put him on the ballot despite the Supreme Court ruling they must, there’s simply nothing to be done. That’s the end of the road for the Supreme Court. | ||
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Blitzkrieg0
United States13132 Posts
On December 30 2023 10:47 Mohdoo wrote: This is my take as well, other than the prediction. If someone is convicted of insurrection, they are already disqualified directly or indirectly to the extent that the 14th amendment would not be necessary if the intention was to require some kind of conviction. Someone who understands law should correct me if I’m wrong. But I basically see it as the 14th amendment was clearly not intended to require a formal conviction. And if it did require a conviction, would that mean a president could pardon someone and thus allow them to run for president? Anyway, you’ve all heard my rant about why the Supreme Court isn’t real enough time that I’ll just refer to that argument here. Because it isn’t real, they need to be careful with their rulings. Once people decide to just ignore their rulings, they become the tooth fairy in practice rather than just in theory. If Jack Smith or whoever dumps enough evidence that the Supreme Court might be ignored by states, they won’t rule against the states. I think it’s that simple tbh. If Colorado or Maine or whoever were to simply not put him on the ballot despite the Supreme Court ruling they must, there’s simply nothing to be done. That’s the end of the road for the Supreme Court. The 14th amendment was passed during reconstruction after the civil war when people like Robert E Lee needed to be excluded from public office without trial so it's pretty obvious what the intentions were. | ||
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gobbledydook
Australia2591 Posts
For example if Jack Smith obtained a guilty verdict for his case there would be no doubt in my eyes that Trump would then be barred from office and I'd view the argument of the president not being an officer as spurious. It seems unfair to me for another court, or worse, election officials, judging Trump to be an insurrectionist without having gone through the due process of a trial. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland22452 Posts
On December 30 2023 10:32 JimmiC wrote: All this talk of police numbers made me think of “The Wire” what an amazing TV series, one of the first ones where a season was a story arc instead of an episode and it deals with all sorts of very American issues in a very direct and interesting way. Always shows up on best series of all time lists and belongs. If you have not watched it and want something to binge over Christmas, it is amazing. Yeah great shoot there | ||
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BlackJack
United States9909 Posts
On December 30 2023 09:45 ChristianS wrote: Re: Trump Stuff I wouldn’t be too up in arms if SCOTUS read a due process requirement into that provision (i.e. Trump has to actually be convicted of something to be disqualified from office). It’s not in the actual text, but it’s not an unreasonable requirement to add into a slightly-linguistically-ambiguous phrasing. It wouldn’t be especially “originalist” but w/e. My suspicion/fear, though, is that they’ll say something more along the lines of “whether Trump should be on the ballot is a ‘political question’ so we’re gonna let the voters decide,” which would functionally delete that provision of the Constitution for no reason other than political allegiance. That would be, I think, absurd and indefensible, and is probably the most likely outcome, but I’m happy to be proven wrong. I think the chances they uphold CO’s decision is basically zero to the point of barely even being worth thinking about. @BJ: I mean, not to rehash the 2020 criminal justice conversation, but prosecutors have enormous power in this “adversarial” system to, for example, threaten people into plea deals, or work directly with cops to slant the evidence (especially in cases of police brutality), and generally ensure that accused criminals’ lives are pretty dramatically disrupted even if they later turn out to be innocent. And generally speaking, they do, because their bosses, their police coworkers, and voters all love to see massive sentences as often as possible. It’s not remotely clear those policies actually make anybody safer, and it’s extremely clear that the presence of a defense attorney is not sufficient to ensure the criminal justice system only imposes immense suffering on guilty criminals in a way that actually promotes public safety. So no, I don’t think “prosecutors should just try to imprison dangerous people and let defense attorneys serve the role of keeping them honest” is a reasonable take. Nominally it’s the DA’s job to do what best protects the public, which is not necessarily maximizing sentences by any means necessary. Okay, maybe I'm wrong that removing the revolving doors from our jails would make the community safer, but one thing I always notice when I bring up my theories is that people only shoot them down without providing theories of their own. What's your theory for why police don't show up when you call 911 in Oakland? Something about housing being too expensive? Or is it some iteration of All Cops Are Bastards and it's worse in Oakland because those Cops are just more Bastardy? In what world is it even remotely acceptable to dial 911 and be on hold for 10 minutes before anyone even answers the phone. The problem with the SF Bay Area is that it's pretty one-sided politically so you can't really blame the conservatives for your troubles. So far the response has been either to stick their head in the sand and insist things are not going downhill or insist that things are going downhill in spite of their policies and not because of them. It's actually an impressive feat to mess things up this bad. San Francisco is a gorgeous city, the climate is lovely, it's a few hours drive from the most beautiful national parks in perhaps the whole world, and it's incredibly wealthy. Per capita the city has the most tax revenue of any other city and they still have managed to turn a massage budget deficit. If only they could raise taxes just a bit more. They were dealt a royal flush, folded face up, and insist they are playing their hand correctly. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21109 Posts
On December 30 2023 19:20 BlackJack wrote: I don't think a 10min hold for 911 is acceptable, but I also don't think calling 911 when your car is stolen is acceptable. Its not an emergency unless there is still a guy waving a gun around right there. You call the local police number, not emergency dispatch.Okay, maybe I'm wrong that removing the revolving doors from our jails would make the community safer, but one thing I always notice when I bring up my theories is that people only shoot them down without providing theories of their own. What's your theory for why police don't show up when you call 911 in Oakland? Something about housing being too expensive? Or is it some iteration of All Cops Are Bastards and it's worse in Oakland because those Cops are just more Bastardy? In what world is it even remotely acceptable to dial 911 and be on hold for 10 minutes before anyone even answers the phone. The problem with the SF Bay Area is that it's pretty one-sided politically so you can't really blame the conservatives for your troubles. So far the response has been either to stick their head in the sand and insist things are not going downhill or insist that things are going downhill in spite of their policies and not because of them. It's actually an impressive feat to mess things up this bad. San Francisco is a gorgeous city, the climate is lovely, it's a few hours drive from the most beautiful national parks in perhaps the whole world, and it's incredibly wealthy. Per capita the city has the most tax revenue of any other city and they still have managed to turn a massage budget deficit. If only they could raise taxes just a bit more. They were dealt a royal flush, folded face up, and insist they are playing their hand correctly. Maybe the reason you had to wait wasn't because of budget issues but because apparently people in the SF Bay Area don't know when it is or isn't appropriate to call an emergency number. Maybe an add campaign to raise awareness would be a good use of public funds. (but seriously I know nothing of the area, the local government may well be incompetent. The left is no more immune to it then the right but just something I thought stands out to me) | ||
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Gahlo
United States35058 Posts
On December 30 2023 09:44 Razyda wrote: Out of curiosity, as US legal system is somewhat of a maze for me, can SCOTUS, in a manner of speaking, abstain, by stating that elections are state matter and as such it is not a case for it? Absolutely. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3155 Posts
On December 30 2023 19:20 BlackJack wrote: Okay, maybe I'm wrong that removing the revolving doors from our jails would make the community safer, but one thing I always notice when I bring up my theories is that people only shoot them down without providing theories of their own. What's your theory for why police don't show up when you call 911 in Oakland? Something about housing being too expensive? Or is it some iteration of All Cops Are Bastards and it's worse in Oakland because those Cops are just more Bastardy? In what world is it even remotely acceptable to dial 911 and be on hold for 10 minutes before anyone even answers the phone. The problem with the SF Bay Area is that it's pretty one-sided politically so you can't really blame the conservatives for your troubles. So far the response has been either to stick their head in the sand and insist things are not going downhill or insist that things are going downhill in spite of their policies and not because of them. It's actually an impressive feat to mess things up this bad. San Francisco is a gorgeous city, the climate is lovely, it's a few hours drive from the most beautiful national parks in perhaps the whole world, and it's incredibly wealthy. Per capita the city has the most tax revenue of any other city and they still have managed to turn a massage budget deficit. If only they could raise taxes just a bit more. They were dealt a royal flush, folded face up, and insist they are playing their hand correctly. I don’t know why you were on hold for 10 minutes. Nothing about the budget stuff that’s been extremely over-discussed would have suggested that “we’re gonna have to slash our number of dispatchers by 90%” would have been reasonable or necessary at any point. Maybe they did it anyway just because they’re dumb? Or because fewer 911 calls helps their crime statistics somehow? As a rule I seem to recall average hold times tend to be related to call volume and duration and something about a Poisson distribution. So maybe they just get a lot of calls, or the calls run longer than most for some reason? That’s assuming, of course, that this wasn’t some weird fluke or the day you happened to be calling (maybe that ACAB-ey police department decided to just send a bunch of dispatchers on a training retreat without finding replacements because they don’t actually give a shit about protecting you?). But assuming this is, in fact, a consistent trend it would make sense that it’s a result of higher-than-average call volume, possibly adding in that the petty theft calls they’re getting tend to take longer than the average 911 call to resolve, and/or maybe they’re short on dispatchers for some reason. Presumably the obvious solution would be to hire more dispatchers. Is there some reason that’s not possible? IIRC our conclusion was that after not getting everything they asked for in 2021, they still got significant budget increases in 2022 and 2023, so I don’t buy that they don’t have the money. Is it just really hard to staff that position in SF right now? | ||
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Blitzkrieg0
United States13132 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland22452 Posts
I believe it’s already been somewhat alluded to already but, especially when comparing policy to a European nation state, American locales aren’t isolated from policy failures elsewhere in the same way. You may pursue broader policies I agree with and have worked elsewhere, but if you effectively become a sluice outlet for negative outcomes elsewhere that can neutralise those, or even make them actively counter-productive. Perhaps this is more applicable to Portland which is also oft-mentioned, as I said I’m not intimately familiar with these places as some locals on here would be. Can a less punitive criminal justice system + investment into preventative measures of various kinds work? Absolutely. Can it work when you’re trying to move in that direction and attract excess people from various locales who are drawn in by said attributes? That gets tricky. There may be specific failures that are just bad policy regardless too, that may be a gap in my knowledge which I’ll happily concede. It would seem to me one can apply many of the conservative arguments for tight border controls and immigration restriction internationally, to the domestic sphere as well in a federal state with divergence in policies and economic conditions. Oddly enough conservatives don’t touch this with a set of barge poles duct taped together. Also as an aside if we are talking budgets, it’s not cheap locking people up, so presumably we’ll be taking that money from somewhere if we’re instituting a more punitive approach to law and order. I think it’s perfectly possible for my (and others) belief, backed by data from elsewhere that some of these policies are both more morally and pragmatically a better approach, while the application of said policies just isn’t working where Blackjack and Mohdoo reside. | ||
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King_Charles_III
24 Posts
On December 30 2023 09:44 Razyda wrote: Out of curiosity, as US legal system is somewhat of a maze for me, can SCOTUS, in a manner of speaking, abstain, by stating that elections are state matter and as such it is not a case for it? SCOTUS will allow trump to be on the ballot as is widely predicted. People like to say that section 3 of the 14th amendment doesn't require a conviction but that isn't taking account of the whole picture. Section 5 provides that congress has enforcement power over the 14th amendment. This makes it highly questionable that any other section of the amendment is "self-executing," because it would be pointless to specify that congress has enforcement power if others have enforcement power too. Thus if anyone wants to sue under section 1 of the amendment, they can only do so because congress has passed an enforcement law called "section 1983." As for section 3, Congress's only existing enforcement law is the law that makes insurrection a crime. That crime carries the amendment's penalty of disqualification. This is a very easy way for SCOTUS to reverse Colorado and Maine: congress has the enforcement power. Back during the Reconstruction era, congress had an additional enforcement law in place (federal prosecutors could petition to disqualify someone), and that's how a lot of the disqualifications from that era happened (though there were also some unilateral disqualifications by state officials I think). That law was then repealed by the Amnesty Act of 1872, so all that stands is the crime of insurrection. It makes all the sense in the world that section 5 is how the amendment is enforced. Trump has been charged with crimes over the relevant events but he has not been charged with insurrection. Over 1000 January 6 foot soldiers have been charged with crimes and none of them have been charged with insurrection. But now some dem partisans come in and assert insurrection by a makeshift process. Doesn't make any sense. There is an 1869 case called "Griffin's Case" where the court said section 3 is not self-executing because of section 5. Basically all of the above reasoning. I'd bet my bottom dollar that SCOTUS goes with that. | ||
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Introvert
United States4564 Posts
On December 31 2023 04:27 King_Charles_III wrote: SCOTUS will allow trump to be on the ballot as is widely predicted. People like to say that section 3 of the 14th amendment doesn't require a conviction but that isn't taking account of the whole picture. Section 5 provides that congress has enforcement power over the 14th amendment. This makes it highly questionable that any other section of the amendment is "self-executing," because it would be pointless to specify that congress has enforcement power if others have enforcement power too. Thus if anyone wants to sue under section 1 of the amendment, they can only do so because congress has passed an enforcement law called "section 1983." As for section 3, Congress's only existing enforcement law is the law that makes insurrection a crime. That crime carries the amendment's penalty of disqualification. This is a very easy way for SCOTUS to reverse Colorado and Maine: congress has the enforcement power. Back during the Reconstruction era, congress had an additional enforcement law in place (federal prosecutors could petition to disqualify someone), and that's how a lot of the disqualifications from that era happened (though there were also some unilateral disqualifications by state officials I think). That law was then repealed by the Amnesty Act of 1872, so all that stands is the crime of insurrection. It makes all the sense in the world that section 5 is how the amendment is enforced. Trump has been charged with crimes over the relevant events but he has not been charged with insurrection. Over 1000 January 6 foot soldiers have been charged with crimes and none of them have been charged with insurrection. But now some dem partisans come in and assert insurrection by a makeshift process. Doesn't make any sense. There is an 1869 case called "Griffin's Case" where the court said section 3 is not self-executing because of section 5. Basically all of the above reasoning. I'd bet my bottom dollar that SCOTUS goes with that. I think this is right, Baude and Paulsen dedicate barely any time to that issue (so far as I read) but I think this is where the Dem justices will hang their hat, if not elsewhere also. That and maybe considering the presidency as a different kind of "office." it's one thing to have, say, a senate candidate disqualified within their own state. it's another to disqualify the only nationally elected official (even if indirectly elected). taking someone off the ballot in enough states would make it impossible to win. This argument is still tricky because of course parties like the Green Party don't always get ballot access in every state, but those aren't 14th amendment problems. also, if section 3 is "self executing" and the Court rules that the states MAKE the rules, then people will suddenly be throwing other off the ballot all over the place, which would require the courts be even MORE involved in our elections, something John Roberts and all the justices desperately want to avoid. | ||
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