Supreme Court strikes down DOMA

[Kleves]

The Court holds (5-4 of course) that: DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment. The Court ruled that it didn't have jurisdiction in the Prop 8 case.

[Caliga]

Congratulations, gays

[CountDeMoney]

So the leaderboard so far this week: Fags 1, Negroes 0.  Yay.

[Caliga]

So the leaderboard so far this week: Fags 1, Negroes 0.  Yay.

MAH WHITE GUILT

[Admiral Yi]

The Court holds (5-4 of course) that: DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment. The Court ruled that it didn't have jurisdiction in the Prop 8 case.

Who voted which way?

[DGuller]

It really makes you feel good about the robustness of this country's democratic system when one person's success or failure at dying at the right moment decides some pretty fundamental questions.

[Scipio]

Big week for conventional wisdom of SCOTUS watchers.

[Kleves]

Who voted which way?

Majority: Kennedy, the liberals. Dissent: the conservatives (who thought that the Court lacked jurisdiction, or, if it had jurisdiction, was overreaching).

[Kleves]

Interestingly, the decision to dismiss the Prop 8 case for lack of standing was also 5-4, but with a strange line-up. Majority is Roberts with Scalia, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan. Dissent is Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Sotomayor. That's the first time I have ever seen Kagan and Sotomayor on opposite sides of an opinion.

[Admiral Yi]

Declining to hear Prop 8 means the California SC decision to overturn stands, right?  Or do I have it backwards?

[Scipio]

You know, I think that Obama is really smart, but damn, does he have some shitty litigators working for him.  According to Scalia's dissent, the government's appeal brief took a non-adversarial position?  What idiocy.  That's the definition of no case or controversy.

They should have filed a pro-forma defense of DOMA, to deprive Scalia of that basis for dissent.

[garbon]

[Admiral Yi]

You know, I think that Obama is really smart, but damn, does he have some shitty litigators working for him.  According to Scalia's dissent, the government's appeal brief took a non-adversarial position?  What idiocy.  That's the definition of no case or controversy.

They should have filed a pro-forma defense of DOMA, to deprive Scalia of that basis for dissent.

Please explain what this means.

[Kleves]

Declining to hear Prop 8 means the California SC decision to overturn stands, right?  Or do I have it backwards?

The district court's decision enjoining the enforcement of Prop 8 stands, I believe.

[Kleves]

Please explain what this means.

Standing requires a "case and controversy" and that a ruling would remedy the injury suffered by a party in the case. The Court isn't allowed to issue advisory opinions if it doesn't have a case and controversy before it. In the DOMA case, I believe the initial district court ruling went against the Feds (i.e. saying DOMA was unconstitutional). Obama then decided not to try and defend the law, so when the case went to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, both the government and the law's challenger were asking that the judgment be affirmed. Same thing happened at the Supreme Court level.

Scalia says: "The majority can cite no case in which this Court entertained an appeal in which both parties urged us to affirm the judgment below. And that is because the existence of a controversy is not a "prudential" requirement that we have invented, but an essential element of an Article III case or controversy. The majority's notion that a case between friendly parties can be entertained so long as "adversarial presentation of the issues is assured by the participation of amici curiae prepared to defend with vigor" the other side of the issue, effects a breathtaking revolution in our Article III jurisprudence."