Tuesday, 19 April 2011, WASHINGTON, D.C. - We hope by now you have duly paid the Man for your Times digital subscription and are not GETTING THE NEW YORK TIMES ABSOLUTELY FREE SIMPLY BY SETTING YOUR FIREFOX BROWSER TO "PRIVATE BROWSING". From the District Courts, through the Courts of Appeal, and all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, Federal Judges and Justices this week have been besieged by a cosmic coming together of bizarre and confusing cases which they skilfully are seeking to avoid.
At the District Court level, growing numbers of trial court judges have expressed mounting unhappiness with the unpleasant situation they have been put in of sentencing hundreds and perhaps thousands of mostly minority defendants to mandatory federal sentences that even Congress has had to recognize are so grossly unfair that Congress finally had to do something after sitting around for the past couple decades merely ignoring the issue and taking bribes as usual in other matters.
Namely, as has been obvious to the rest of the United States' population for a generation or more, African-Americans and other minorities have been languishing in prisons suffering mandatory ten-year or more terms for possessing crack cocaine in quantities that were it powder cocaine would see them, like the non-minorities who are usually caught with powder, serving fractions of the sentences if the cocaine were powder not crack. The two drugs are the same.
Although the United States Constitution nowhere addresses Congressional power to criminally prosecute drug possession, the Government now has been keeping busy for about a century making more and more of a mess of this area to the point where the "War on Drugs" has become a global incubator for international criminal organizations that otherwise would not even exist. Although that point has not yet quite sunk in with the United States Government yet, it was pointed out in the not overly liberal Economist magazine in a cover article as long ago as 1987. Apart from the Economist, apparently only George Soros is the only one of means who has managed to comprehend the situation, and meanwhile the United States Constitution has methodically been stripped of many of the provisions that allowed this country to become great.
In any case, although Congress as mentioned above actually finally did grasp the point about the crack cocaine sentencing and remarkably decided even to do something about it without being paid off, unfortunately in passing last year's Fairness in Sentencing Act the Congress forgot to make it apply to pending convictions awaiting sentencing. This has left District Court judges in the somewhat uncomfortable position of sending minorities off to mandatory sentences for a significant portion of their lives, even after the former law has expressly been recognized as grossly unfair. Since the Constitution really no longer has an effective "cruel and unusual" prohibition now that, for example, President Obama can order drones to kill American citizens in foreign countries without a trial (although they cannot be wiretapped), District Court judges in growing numbers are expressing a lack of satisfaction with their jobs. After all, they did not sign up to be judges in Stalinist Russia.
Meanwhile, appellate court judges have had problems of their own related to, amongst other things, the murky waters lapping at the 9-11 prison somehow still operating at Guantanamo Bay since Congress will not fund transportation for "detainees" to be flown to the mainland United States for formalities like charging them with crimes or giving them trials. Most recently, they have had to deal with five Muslim Chinese who have sought asylum in the United States since all agree they are not guilty of anything but probably will be executed should they be returned to China.
Somehow this one got passed off to the Supreme Court this week. The Court, however, cleverly seizing on an alleged split amongst the Circuits or some arcane reason, dodged this case as well. The reason: the Justice Department had spread the happy news to the Circuit Court that Palau and one other "unidentified" country, island, place, or something that was not China anyway had agreed to take the Guantanamo Chinese Muslims. Palau as far as the Ninth Amendment knows was last believed to be far away out in the Pacific Ocean perhaps in the vicinity of Guam "Where America's Day Begins".
Although Palau or the other "unidentified" place apparently was not the Chinese asylum seekers' first choice when they requested "the United States", the United States Supreme Court apparently felt it sounded good enough to them. In any case, now it was a "new" case if it even still was a "case", and the Court does not have to hear those except in certain circumstances which we will not examine here at this time.
As to cases involving global warming (not that again, that one is getting to be like the Exxon Valdez case for the Supreme Court, kind of like Dickens' "Bleak House") those were simply ignored or sent back somewhere or put on the bottom of the pile. This extra special procedure can only be done by the Supreme Court security guards when the Justices are all in conference or the restroom and cannot see what is going on outside, and the clerks are at lunch. Then finally, the last public matter for the beginning of the week was the State of Virginia wanting to overturn the new Obama Health Care law, like the "teabaggers" do, since Teabaggers and Virginians apparently do not need health care. On that one the case just simply disappeared from the marble palace with no comment whatsoever.
Far and wide, Federal Judges and Justices eagerly await summer vacation if they have one coming, or at least a snow, hurricane, tornado, or rain day, or something. Maybe short-term disability. Things just do not seem so intellectually stimulating now that most judges have been appointed by right-wing wackos, there essentially is no Constitution, and the Patriot Act lets them do most anything they want, except go home early.
Copyright 2011 Big M and Little L All World Rights Expressly Reserved
At the District Court level, growing numbers of trial court judges have expressed mounting unhappiness with the unpleasant situation they have been put in of sentencing hundreds and perhaps thousands of mostly minority defendants to mandatory federal sentences that even Congress has had to recognize are so grossly unfair that Congress finally had to do something after sitting around for the past couple decades merely ignoring the issue and taking bribes as usual in other matters.
Namely, as has been obvious to the rest of the United States' population for a generation or more, African-Americans and other minorities have been languishing in prisons suffering mandatory ten-year or more terms for possessing crack cocaine in quantities that were it powder cocaine would see them, like the non-minorities who are usually caught with powder, serving fractions of the sentences if the cocaine were powder not crack. The two drugs are the same.
Although the United States Constitution nowhere addresses Congressional power to criminally prosecute drug possession, the Government now has been keeping busy for about a century making more and more of a mess of this area to the point where the "War on Drugs" has become a global incubator for international criminal organizations that otherwise would not even exist. Although that point has not yet quite sunk in with the United States Government yet, it was pointed out in the not overly liberal Economist magazine in a cover article as long ago as 1987. Apart from the Economist, apparently only George Soros is the only one of means who has managed to comprehend the situation, and meanwhile the United States Constitution has methodically been stripped of many of the provisions that allowed this country to become great.
In any case, although Congress as mentioned above actually finally did grasp the point about the crack cocaine sentencing and remarkably decided even to do something about it without being paid off, unfortunately in passing last year's Fairness in Sentencing Act the Congress forgot to make it apply to pending convictions awaiting sentencing. This has left District Court judges in the somewhat uncomfortable position of sending minorities off to mandatory sentences for a significant portion of their lives, even after the former law has expressly been recognized as grossly unfair. Since the Constitution really no longer has an effective "cruel and unusual" prohibition now that, for example, President Obama can order drones to kill American citizens in foreign countries without a trial (although they cannot be wiretapped), District Court judges in growing numbers are expressing a lack of satisfaction with their jobs. After all, they did not sign up to be judges in Stalinist Russia.
Meanwhile, appellate court judges have had problems of their own related to, amongst other things, the murky waters lapping at the 9-11 prison somehow still operating at Guantanamo Bay since Congress will not fund transportation for "detainees" to be flown to the mainland United States for formalities like charging them with crimes or giving them trials. Most recently, they have had to deal with five Muslim Chinese who have sought asylum in the United States since all agree they are not guilty of anything but probably will be executed should they be returned to China.
Somehow this one got passed off to the Supreme Court this week. The Court, however, cleverly seizing on an alleged split amongst the Circuits or some arcane reason, dodged this case as well. The reason: the Justice Department had spread the happy news to the Circuit Court that Palau and one other "unidentified" country, island, place, or something that was not China anyway had agreed to take the Guantanamo Chinese Muslims. Palau as far as the Ninth Amendment knows was last believed to be far away out in the Pacific Ocean perhaps in the vicinity of Guam "Where America's Day Begins".
Although Palau or the other "unidentified" place apparently was not the Chinese asylum seekers' first choice when they requested "the United States", the United States Supreme Court apparently felt it sounded good enough to them. In any case, now it was a "new" case if it even still was a "case", and the Court does not have to hear those except in certain circumstances which we will not examine here at this time.
As to cases involving global warming (not that again, that one is getting to be like the Exxon Valdez case for the Supreme Court, kind of like Dickens' "Bleak House") those were simply ignored or sent back somewhere or put on the bottom of the pile. This extra special procedure can only be done by the Supreme Court security guards when the Justices are all in conference or the restroom and cannot see what is going on outside, and the clerks are at lunch. Then finally, the last public matter for the beginning of the week was the State of Virginia wanting to overturn the new Obama Health Care law, like the "teabaggers" do, since Teabaggers and Virginians apparently do not need health care. On that one the case just simply disappeared from the marble palace with no comment whatsoever.
Far and wide, Federal Judges and Justices eagerly await summer vacation if they have one coming, or at least a snow, hurricane, tornado, or rain day, or something. Maybe short-term disability. Things just do not seem so intellectually stimulating now that most judges have been appointed by right-wing wackos, there essentially is no Constitution, and the Patriot Act lets them do most anything they want, except go home early.
Copyright 2011 Big M and Little L All World Rights Expressly Reserved
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