A defeat for medicinal weed is a victory for federal authority under the Interstate Commerce Clause in today’s 6-3 Supreme Court ruling upholding federal laws against marijuana. Wrote John Paul Stevens in the majority opinion, “[t]he Controlled Substances Act is a valid exercise of federal power, even as applied to the troubling facts of this case.” (The losing side consisted of Justices O’Connor, Rehnquist, and Thomas.) This is a tough one. I think prosecutions of sick people seeking medicinal marijuana to alleviate their daily miseries are grotesquely ill-conceived, but, then again, I’m not for rolling back federal power to pre-Civil War levels, either. And, for what it’s worth, “some lawyers who have followed the controversy closely predicted that the ruling, while disappointing, would not bring sweeping changes, since most marijuana prosecutions are undertaken by state and local officials rather than federal authorities.“
Category: The Supreme Court
Judge Shredd.
“‘To lose a case like this is huge,’ said William B. Mateja, a former official of the Justice Department’s corporate fraud task force. ‘Arthur Andersen was the poster-child case of all the corporate fraud cases.'” The Supreme Court overturns the 2002 conviction of Arthur Andersen LLP, thus facilitating future corporate shredding binges. “More broadly, some lawyers said the court’s decision shows its sympathy for corporate America’s view that companies should be freer to engage in routine document destruction — often under the ironic title of ‘document retention policy.’“
Nuclear Escalation.
Priscilla Owen may be through, but a number of papers note today how Monday’s compromise only sets the stage for an ugly battle over Dubya’s next Supreme Court pick, likely to be a conservative freakshow.
The Eleventh Hour.
On the eve of meltdown, the Senate center holds, producing a compromise that allows three Dubya judges — Priscilla Owen, Janice Brown, and William Pryor — through in return for a nuclear standdown. The Dems are heralding this as a victory, but, with Rehnquist in ill health, this may just postpone the conflict…
Creeping Tom.
Meanwhile on the House side, Boss DeLay has responded to his recent problems by continuing to act like an inveterate jackass, including calling in the NRA as armed backup and badmouthing Justice Anthony Kennedy to anyone who’ll listen on right-wing talk radio. Yet, instead of taking the Hammer to the woodshed, Dubya consigliere Karl Rove has taken Delay to his breast, calling him “a good man, a close ally of this administration.” Well, ok, then, Karl, but don’t complain when further inquiries into DeLay’s corruption redound upon the White House, then.
Spin, Spin Sugar.
It’s been Extreme Makeover time lately for the GOP, with Antonin Scalia acting chummy in hopes of landing the Chief Justice spot, Boss DeLay dismissing the recent allegations of incessant boondogglery, Karen Hughes coming out of mothballs to sell the Islamic world on Dubya, and the administration trying to sell the rest of us on pre-packaged news. I’m not buying any of it.
The Executioner’s Song.
“Fighting over the ‘evolving standards of decency’ underlying the Eighth Amendment’s ban on ‘cruel and unusual punishment,’ the 5-to-4 opinions reflect an all-out war between the proponents of a living (or at least medium-rare) Constitution and those who want to see it dead (or perhaps well-done, with a nice pinot).” Slate‘s inimitable Dahlia Lithwick explains the Kennedy-Scalia sniping undergirding the Supreme Court’s very welcome 5-4 decision to ban juvenile executions. To keep things in perspective, the only other nations besides us that have put juveniles to death since 2000 are China, Iran, Pakistan, and the Congo…not exactly what you’d call the Axis of Freedom.
Delusions of Grandeur.
As if all the talk of Scalia being our next Chief Justice wasn’t bad enough, it seems the power has really gone to his head of late. “Lamenting his inability to stop the Supreme Court’s slide away from the principles of judicial restraint he espouses, Scalia said he felt like ‘Frodo in “The Lord of the Rings,” soldiering on.’” Excuse me? You, Sir, resemble in no way the Shire-folk, and you’re definitely no Frodo. Perhaps one of the Nine, garbed in black?
Two roads diverged.
While new Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid shores up Scalia’s creds for Chief Justice (ugh, the new Congress hasn’t even met yet and he’s already Daschle redux), Howard Dean preps for a big State of the Party speech tomorrow in which he’ll “argue that the Democratic Party should be rebuilt from the grass roots up, that it should be driven by millions of Americans who make small contributions rather than by a handful of moneyed interests, and that the party should focus not just on presidential politics in swing states like Ohio and Florida but also on down-ballot races even in the reddest of states.” If these are my choices, put me on the Dean Machine…the endless protective camouflage song-and-dance perp’ed by Reid this past weekend has to stop. Update: More on Dean’s speech.
Portending the Nine.
“Indeed, former administration officials say all of the names on Mr. Bush’s short list for the Supreme Court are considered strict constructionists who are closer to Justice Scalia than to Justice O’Connor.” The New York Times tries to figure out if Dubya can actually remake the Supreme Court along “strict constructionist” lines as feared and concludes that, yeah, he probably can.