April 18, 2024 at 8:20 am
You stated that the judge is required to follow the rulings of higher courts. I see two problems with that blanket statement. First, there’s also the ruling of the Supreme Court. Second, the Constitution is a higher authority than any court, and if a judgement is in conflict with the plain meaning of the Constitution then it is every judge’s sworn duty to support the Constitution and not any conflicting judgement.
April 18, 2024 at 11:57 am
What Paul said. Where the Circuits are in conflict with SCOTUS and/or the Constitution, why is a judge required to follow his/her Circuit instead of SCOTUS or the Constitution?
IANAL, but it seems to me that in the interests of justice, adhering to the Constitution first, SCOTUS second, and the Circuits a distant third should get cases resolved faster and with fewer appeals.
April 18, 2024 at 3:10 pm
I would take it further than that. Any judge who defers to a higher court judgement while knowing that the judgement is wrong and in defiance of the Constitution has violated his oath of office. So I would argue that it’s not simply an option to ignore such a decision, but a sworn duty.
No. Simply no.
I give you Judge Easterbrook, Judge Wood of the Seventh Circuit court, who looked at the Heller and decided it didn’t apply to the states. That was their “honest” understanding of the Constitution. Since the Second Amendment didn’t apply to the states, only state constitutions could be used to defend the rights of “the [little] people”.
I give you Judges Jacobs, Lynch, and Lee for the Second Circuit court, who looked at Bruen and Heller and decided that 3 regulations from 1837 and 1843 (past the founding era) excluding people with intellectual disabilities, mental illnesses, and alcohol additions from militia service plus some unknown regulations restricting firearms in schoolrooms met the requirements of this Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulations.
They reasoned that since alcoholics, mentally defectives were banned from Militia’s, not from keeping and bearing arms, that justified modern infringements on people who are neither alcoholics nor mentally defective.
I give you Judges Kayatta, Selya, and Gelpi. Who, using Bruen and Heller, found that even if the presumed that LCMs and “assault weapons” are arms (but they don’t know for sure), found that they are not in common use for self-defense. Thus, they are not protected.
But, you say, these are those nasty circuit courts coming up with these horrible opinions. But it isn’t just the circuits. It is happening in anti-gun courts everywhere.
Look at the fact that of the half dozen or so cases that were combined for the Seventh Circuit to hear, only one was in our favor. The courts in all other cases found that PICA was constitutional. Out in Oregon, we see the same thing. The district courts are finding the state’s infringements constitutional.
We are a land of common law. That means that the law means the same thing for everybody everywhere in the country.
When it is not, a superior court will bring it into agreement.