SCOTUS impeachment

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Which liberal here would be opposed to the impeachment of these judges and support them in their decision on Kelo?  jfern?

Of course I oppose impeaching all 4 justices who voted in favor of state's rights to not end the recount in the Bush vs. Gore case.

[Peter]

Impeachment is only for actual crimes that could be tried in a court of law. If the offense is not triable, then it is not impeachable either. (Such a view is in accord with precedent.)

Such a view is clearly not in accord with precedent:

The Congress has impeached Judges for non-crimes in the past: James H Peck was impeached by the House for abuse of the contempt power, though he was acquitted in the Senate; And in 1936 Halsted L Ritter was impeached on multiple charges many of which were actually indictable. The Senate would later then acquit him of all but one charge, a charge of simply "bringing the Judiciary into disrepute". Ritter challenged the conviction in Court claiming exactly as you do, that he had not been convicted of an actual indictable offence. The Federal Court of Claims dismissed for want of jurisdiction citing that the Constitution grants "sole power" to the Senate to try impeachments.

This all came up again in Nixon v. US when Judge Walter Nixon challenged his impeachment on procedural grounds (he had however ultimately gone to jail for his offences, so a substantive review of the charges was not made). The Court upheld the 1936 precedent and ruled that the issue was non-justicable because there is "a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department".

[Emsworth]

The Congress has impeached Judges for non-crimes in the past: James H Peck was impeached by the House for abuse of the contempt power, though he was acquitted in the Senate; And in 1936 Halsted L Ritter was impeached on multiple charges many of which were actually indictable. The Senate would later then acquit him of all but one charge, a charge of simply "bringing the Judiciary into disrepute". Ritter challenged the conviction in Court claiming exactly as you do, that he had not been convicted of an actual indictable offence. The Federal Court of Claims dismissed for want of jurisdiction citing that the Constitution grants "sole power" to the Senate to try impeachments.

I stand corrected. I intended to refer to the precedents of common law, which the Framers most probably had in mind when they wrote the impeachment clause. Parliament's power to impeach (from which the Framers clearly drew the idea) was understood to comprehend only real "crimes and misdemeanors." An action is not a crime or misdemeanor unless it is actually punishable as such; in the cases cited above, the House abused its power to impeach.

All this is in principle. In practice, an action is impeachable simply because the House decides that it is.

[Schmitz in 1972]

I would argue that most of the Bill of Rights does apply to the states as well as the federal government. The 1st amendment says; "Congress shall make no law..."  Congress specifically applies to the legislative branch of the federal government. So the First Amendment is clearly aimed at the federal government. But the 5th amendment contains no such qualifier. It protects property rights from all governments.

Article I, Section 9.
Clause 3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Article I, Section 10.
Clause 1: No State shall ... pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or ...

The thing about amendments is that it is not always clear where in the Constitution they belong. Your example comes from article I, where the focus is indeed on the powers of congress. However, in amendments unless it begins with the qualifier "congress" or ends with the phrase "congress shall have the power to enforce this article through appropriate legislation" we can not make such assumptions. The fact that the first is prefaced by "congress" but the fifth is not is very telling. Congress could have proposed the 12 amendments in bulk as one superamendment, but they didn't, they were proposed as 12 individual ones having no relation to each other. Also the first was originally the third proposed amendment, doubly reinforcing that the congress qualifyer in the first applies only to the first and not to others. Therefore, the fifth amendment stands alone, independent of any qualifiers that other sections of the Constitution has. I stand by my earlier comments

 As for Barron v. Baltimore, when the plain text of the Constitution answers a question there is no longer any need to look at Supreme Court cases, and when any Supreme Court ruling is contrary to the plain text of the Constitution it carries no weight whatsoever.

[A18]

Try reading that again:

Article I, Section 9.
Clause 3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Article I, Section 10.
Clause 1: No State shall ... pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or ...[/b]

Both are in Article I. By your laughable standard, the second is reduced to redundency.

The lack of a "Congress" qualifier is irrelevant. There is no qualifier in the text above either.

Although this isn't relevant at all (as each amendment is stated in its own way), the first two amendments were procedural in nature.

Now, if one follows your logic, why do we stop at governments? There's no qualifier stating that the amendments apply on to governments. It simply states, for example, that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. If I steal your gun, have I violated the second amendment? Can I be tried in court for violation of your second amendment right?

[Schmitz in 1972]

Try reading that again:

Article I, Section 9.
Clause 3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Article I, Section 10.
Clause 1: No State shall ... pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or ...[/b]

Both are in Article I. By your laughable standard, the second is reduced to redundency.

not really, the first is in a section of article one where it is still speaking of the powers of congress, the second is prefaced by "state" and is furthermore in a section that speaks of states

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Because of the sections the first passage is in the qualifier of congress is implied. As for the second, along with it being implied by the section it's in the qualifier of "state" is present! The fifth amendment is in no larger section however.

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No, because you would have only taken my gun, not my right to a gun since I could just go out and buy a new one.

EDIT: I'm not really up to debating this anymore, so refute it if you wish, but my non-response to such a refutation comes from my tiring from this debate rather than my lack of an answer

[A18]

Here's the preamble to the Bill of Rights:

The Conventions of a number of the States having, at the time of adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added, and as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution;

The intent is quite clear. http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/funddocs/billeng.htm

[Emsworth]

For the second time in one day, I will have to agree with A18 completely and absolutely: the Constitution applies only to the federal government except when otherwise specified by the text itself. This was undoubtedly the intent of the Framers, and is reflected by the plain text of the Constitution itself.

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So the federal government could do the same - just take away each gun that you buy - and still fail to fall foul of the Second Amendment?

[Schmitz in 1972]

Once again I find myself having to use the tired old phrase of you were right and I was wrong. Indeed after doing more reading on the origins of the Bill of Rights I've been forced to conclude that the fifth amendment does indeed apply only to the federal government. However, I must say that amendments 2-8 were very poorly worded in how they allowed for such easy misinterpretation in the manner that I did.

[A18]

The first eight amendments have been applied against the states not by themselves, but by the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause.

[Emsworth]

Indeed after doing more reading on the origins of the Bill of Rights I've been forced to conclude that the fifth amendment does indeed apply only to the federal government. However, I must say that amendments 2-8 were very poorly worded in how they allowed for such easy misinterpretation in the manner that I did.

On their own, the first eight amendments do not apply to the states. However, they do apply by virtue of the privileges or immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is true that the federal judiciary has just stricken the privileges or immunities clause out of the Constitution, ignoring it entirely. However, they have nonetheless managed to apply some parts of the Bill of Rights to the states under the due process clause.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

You guys want to impeach the wrong justices. Didn't Thomas lie under oath during his confirmation hearings?

[J. J.]

You guys want to impeach the wrong justices. Didn't Thomas lie under oath during his confirmation hearings?

Nope, but Anita Hill would have if she had not "corrected" her testimony.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

You guys want to impeach the wrong justices. Didn't Thomas lie under oath during his confirmation hearings?

Nope, but Anita Hill would have if she had not "corrected" her testimony.

Thomas may have also lied on some non Anita related stuff.

[J. J.]

You guys want to impeach the wrong justices. Didn't Thomas lie under oath during his confirmation hearings?

Nope, but Anita Hill would have if she had not "corrected" her testimony.

Thomas may have also lied on some non Anita related stuff.

Ah, care to post the "may" stuff?  Ginsburg "may" have lied about something.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

You guys want to impeach the wrong justices. Didn't Thomas lie under oath during his confirmation hearings?

Nope, but Anita Hill would have if she had not "corrected" her testimony.

Thomas may have also lied on some non Anita related stuff.

Ah, care to post the "may" stuff?  Ginsburg "may" have lied about something.

Probably something that you'd consider true, like that 940 heads and 60 tails aren't statistically significant.

[J. J.]

You guys want to impeach the wrong justices. Didn't Thomas lie under oath during his confirmation hearings?

Nope, but Anita Hill would have if she had not "corrected" her testimony.

Thomas may have also lied on some non Anita related stuff.

Ah, care to post the "may" stuff?  Ginsburg "may" have lied about something.

Probably something that you'd consider true, like that 940 heads and 60 tails aren't statistically significant.

Once again, we see JFRAUD lying about a claim, getting caught, and trying to change the subject.  Typical, typical, typical.

Hey, JFRAUD, why don't you look at the "Rolodex" and tell me what time you will be able to answer the question.  I guess we'll get accurate posts from you only in the years when the month of March comes after July.