LC 2.57 Supreme Court Confirmation for Bacon King (Confirmed)

[Pyro]

Supreme Court Confirmation for Bacon King

Section I: Confirmation

1. Honoring the nomination set forth by the Governor of Lincoln, Mr. Bacon King of New York shall be hereby appointed to the position of Regional Justice of the Supreme Court of Atlasia.

Sponsor: Pyro

The Opening Debate period has begun and shall last no less than 72 hours.

[Pyro]

I would ask the nominee provide an opening statement at this time.

Following this, we can proceed with the confirmation hearing.

[Bacon King]

First off I would like to thank the Governor for his nomination and the support he has expressed for me.

I have been involved in Atlasia for literally over half of my life and I know this community like the back of my hand. I am very experienced in the law -- I have won countless lawsuits both as a private citizen and as Attorney General, and I received widespread accolades for my tenure as Pacific Justice.

Newer members may not know me as I've only recently returned to Atlasia after spending some time away so feel free to ask any questions you might have

[Bacon King]

Here are some links to my relevant experience: cases I have filed as a private citizen, cases where I served as prosecutor, cases where I represented another Atlasian, and decisions I crafted as Pacific Justice.

First, feel free to check out the Law Office of Bacon Kingman and Associates, Atlasia's only law firm! It includes much of my work as a private attorney.


This was my official thread as Pacific Justice! Work pertaining to my entire tenure can be found there but I'll share some of the biggest decisions below. My legal rulings helped a region with a serious activity crisis and horrendously written constitution return to relevance and prosperity.

Here are examples of specific cases over which I presided. I'm proud to have done so in a fair and diligent manner.

The case of Seatown v. Politics Junkie. My ruling was here: Decision BK0004

The case of DemPGH v. the Pacific. My rulings were here: Decisions BK0005 and in the following post, BK0006

It was my legal judgement in Decision BK0007 that allowed the principle of federalism to remain intact even while circumstances forced the region to be under direct Federal management.

I should note that these legal decisions do not in any way reflect my judicial philosophy or judgement and bear no relation to any decisions I might write on the Supreme Court. As Pacific Justice I was granted extremely broad and overreaching authority by a poorly-written regional constitution; while these judgements may seem like judicial overreach they were in truth very restrained given the powers granted to that office. I include these decisions only to demonstrate my fairness as a judge to all interested parties, my ability to guide courtroom discussion onto the judicially relevant issues, and the thorough nature of my decisions.


I have been an legally active for over a decade, back when we had a region that was legally called "The Dirty South" (truly, a regrettable moment in our nation's history)

Here are some examples of early cases I made:

Bacon King v. The Southeast
Bacon King v. The Southeast II
IDS v. Ben Kenobi


Regarding my experiences before the Supreme Court:

I was the Attorney General prosecuting the first ever lifetime ban in Atlasian history

Here is a more recent case wherein I preserved the integrity of Atlasian elections

edited to add another one: I'm particularly proud of my argument in this case, especially the analogy about a roommate's kitten towards the end of the thread

Let me know if you'd like more examples!


There are numerous instances where I was the only person in Atlasia sufficiently attentive and knowledgeable to notice the law wasn't being observed. Here are a couple of examples about weird technicalities and nuances of election runoffs:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=201123.0
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=249466.0

There was one time I was literally the only person to noticed that the entire nation accidentally missed election day


While this is not court-related, it's an example of my attentiveness and ability to process and digest a lot of complex information into an understandable format. This was my up-to-the-minute livefeed of a brief and chaotic moment in Atlasian history that makes for a very interesting read in hindsight


I hope this information helps you all reach a decision about my qualifications

[windjammer]

I totally endorse this nomination and I thank Peanut for having appointed Bacon King after my recommendations.

[Esteemed Jimmy]

I fully support the appointment of Bacon King as Lincoln’s regional Supreme Court justice.

[fhtagn]

Not a member of the Lincoln council, but considering your close friendship with the current President and other members of your party on and off Atlas, if a scenario were to ever arise involving said people you have these relations with, would this be a situation in which you'd recuse yourself from the case due to the potential conflict of interest, or can you provide examples of cases you've taken on as an attorney that went against folks that were personally close to you to provide us with with an example of your ability to separate your duties from personal relationships?

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Since the Council doesn't seem to be rushing out with questions, I'll ask the nominee similar questions to those I asked at the PiT confirmation hearing.

1. What assurances can you give me that you will not come to a position on a case prior to submission of briefs by the parties, and that your rulings will not be easily predictable - i.e. why should all parties believe you will give honest consideration to their side and not just fall into an ideological box?

2. Do you consider yourself to be an originalist and/or textualist? If so, what do these terms mean to you? If not, how would you describe your judicial philosophy?

3. In your view, when is it appropriate for the Atlasian Supreme Court to overturn its own precedent?

[Former President tack50]

Also not a member of the Council, but I will ask 2 questions regarding 2 important judicial doctrines in Atlasia:

¿What is your position on standing to sue? Unlike in the real world, standing has rarely been an obstacle for lawsuits in Atlasia

¿What is your position on stare decisis?

[Pyro]

Thank you, Bacon King, for your finely worded opening and introduction.
I believe that your tenure in this field certainly qualifies you for the appointment.

My only questions would be as follows:

- Having read your work in Decision BK0007, I would be interested in hearing more about your view pertaining to the tenuous balance of federalism versus regionalism.

- Have there been any specific cases from your time in Atlasia that you found yourself completely opposed with the final verdict? If so, why? Similarly, how would you approach delivering a verdict should the overwhelming majority of Atlasians stand on the opposing side?

[Bacon King]

I'm very happy for all these excellent and interesting questions! Not only is this an enjoyable opportunity for me to discuss these topics with you all, it's also in my opinion a necessary component of the due diligence of any judicial confirmation hearing. I was concerned about the initial lack of discussion so I compiled the examples of my previous legal experience in an attempt to give this hearing the attention it deserves. It indeed looks like it catalyzed some exciting discussion.

Please note that I will be busy for most of this evening on account of a prior IRL commitment, so I may not be able to respond to everything in full until roughly this time tomorrow. Until then, during my moments of free time I'll respond to what I can via phone-posting as time permits. I'll probably only be able to answer a single post at a time but everyone feel free to continue the questions and I'll answer in full when I'm off tomorrow afternoon.

[Bacon King]

Not a member of the Lincoln council, but considering your close friendship with the current President and other members of your party on and off Atlas, if a scenario were to ever arise involving said people you have these relations with, would this be a situation in which you'd recuse yourself from the case due to the potential conflict of interest, or can you provide examples of cases you've taken on as an attorney that went against folks that were personally close to you to provide us with with an example of your ability to separate your duties from personal relationships?

If confirmed I will adhere fully to the standard expectations of judicial recusal in both Atlasia and the United States. For any case where I find myself biased and unable to keep an open mind I will of course recuse myself. Likewise I would also do so whenever my presence on the bench would lead to even the appearance of bias to a rational and neutral observer (regardless of my own opinion) in any case where the outcome would materially benefit me personally. This is the standard applied to every member of our judiciary and I should of course be no exception from this principle.

That said, however, to address the second portion of our question I have always striven to be fair and neutral in the court room as well as elected/appointed office. As Pacific Justice I ruled against friends several times: most notably against Seatown in BK0004 and against Simfan in BK0009 (back in 2013 the #atlasforum IRC was still a small but active and tight-knit group, and as the all three of us were regulars I spoke with them every day). Similarly, as Attorney General I prosecuted Snowstalker for his rebellion and he was thereafter banned for life from holding office in Atlasia – but we remained good friends even afterwards and not long after that trial I even had the pleasure of meeting him in person. I also consider NCYankee a friend, even though I still led (and won!) a lawsuit against the SOFE to allow two wrongfully-invalidated votes to be counted even though it unfortunately brought Yankee’s ticket from a win to merely a tie. Also, speaking of NCYankee: during his extensive tenure as President Pro Tempore of the Atlasian Senate he routinely corresponded with me whenever he needed assistance with the notoriously loophole-ridden OSPR (the resolution that at the time set the rules for how the Senate functioned) and I always advised him to the best of my ability, even when it meant that it allowed the passage of bills that I personally opposed.

The law must be interpreted accurately and justice must be served wherever it is necessary. This is a solemn responsibility that trumps friendships as well as professional relationships and I take it very seriously.

[S019]

How far can a region go in imposing gun control before it violates the second amendment?

When regarding the precedent of an "undue burden" set in Planned Parenthood v Casey, how far can a region go in restricting abortion, before it imposes an "undue burden?"

What is your guiding judicial philosophy?

[Bacon King]

1. What assurances can you give me that you will not come to a position on a case prior to submission of briefs by the parties, and that your rulings will not be easily predictable - i.e. why should all parties believe you will give honest consideration to their side and not just fall into an ideological box?

The answer to your question is the most notable feature of our entire legal system because it’s why the practice of law ever appealed to me in the first place: it’s the very nature of our adversarial system. The law isn’t decided by learned elders who have everything memorized, or distant scholars in some ivory tower who have studied and and dissected and quantified the entire system. The law isn’t (or shouldn’t be) decided by dispassionate magistrates or by ideological partisans who always rule in accordance with their personal beliefs and principles.

The law is made by argument – by representatives of two disagreeing sides, both working against each other to craft the more logical, convincing, and persuasive argument concerning the application of constitutional principles, precedents, and statutes onto the specific details of the specific case before them. This entire system falls apart if the judge does not keep an open mind – and that open mind must not only be maintained to the submission of briefs, but rather should be kept throughout the entirety of the trial itself.

I will therefore always decide based on the trial itself, because otherwise, what would even be the point of it?

2. Do you consider yourself to be an originalist and/or textualist? If so, what do these terms mean to you? If not, how would you describe your judicial philosophy?

This is interestingly an area where my philosophy is very different in Atlasia than it would be in the real world (and an explanation of my real-world philosophy would not only be an excessively lengthy tangent, it would also be entirely irrelevant to the matter at hand, so I will spare you that monologue )

Within Atlasia I am something of a strict textualist, yes. As a Justice my role will not be to write laws, or enforce laws, but merely to interpret what has been written and/or enforced, within the context of existing Atlasian jurisprudence.

I do not consider myself an originalist, no, because such a concept seems bizarre in the context of Atlasia. I wouldn’t need to extrapolate the intent of the original authors of our Constitution and/or laws… because they’re probably still around, we could literally ask them, and that would be extremely problematic because we’d have no way of knowing if what they were saying was true, if they were misremembering, or possibly even saying something false to influence the trial.

In general the text of a law should stand on its own and not require additional context to understand its meaning. If that means the law applies in unintentional ways, the responsibility isn’t on the Supreme Court to assume and apply what they infer to be the intentional application – it’s the responsibility of the legislature to amend that law to fix the unintended consequence they wrote into it.

3. In your view, when is it appropriate for the Atlasian Supreme Court to overturn its own precedent?

Ideally, never. The court should never be in a situation where it directly reverses itself, although I do concede that may be possible as the Supreme Court’s Justices are all humans, and humans are all fallible. However a court should only “reverse” itself when new laws or constitutional amendments have been applied since the creation of the precedent, or because the new case includes factors that substantially change the application of the precedent that were not considered in the original case (which would not truly in my opinion be considered “overturning precedent” but is commonly interpreted as such by many observers).

[Bacon King]

¿What is your position on standing to sue? Unlike in the real world, standing has rarely been an obstacle for lawsuits in Atlasia

I have always opposed “standing” requirements in Atlasia because this is a simulation and not a real world government. If someone believes a law to be unconstitutional, they should be able to file suit as an interested party by virtue of being a fellow participant in the game. You should not have to invent fictional people who have had their fictional constitutional rights theoretically ignored in order to file a lawsuit.

¿What is your position on stare decisis?

I believe precedent is incredibly important, second only to the actual text of the Constitution and statute. Without precedent, there is no consistency, and with no consistency, there is no law.

[Bacon King]

Having read your work in Decision BK0007, I would be interested in hearing more about your view pertaining to the tenuous balance of federalism versus regionalism.

BK0007 was a particularly difficult case for me because of the circumstances involved. The Pacific Region was in a crisis, both within the GM’s narrative and within the meta-narrative of the game itself. Because of the spiraling economic collapse and the sheer inactivity of most regional officeholders, the Federal government was offering to bail out the region but at the same time was also assuming direct control of the regional government to do so. The Pacific Constitution at the time actually granted me explicit authority to essentially create new laws on a whim, which I was very hesitant to do because that in my mind is not what a judiciary should be doing at all. However in those days, with the legislature unable to pass anything and the governor unavailable to sign it anyway, I was the only official that could act. By making the Federal project of “Operation Save the Pacific” into something whose de jure authority originated within the regional government itself, I allowed all three branches of the regional government to reserve the right to end Federal control at any moment, thus allowing ultimate control to remain in the hands of the people rather than the appointed Federal bureaucrat.

Those were very different times however and the entire affair is perhaps the best example for why Atlasia is much better off with three regions rather than five. As for my general philosophy, however, I think Article II, Section 3, Clause 1 of our present Constitution is clear enough:

The powers not delegated to the Republic of Atlasia by this Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the Regions, are reserved to the Regions respectively, or to the people.

Congress has specific an enumerated areas of responsibility, and while some of those enumerated powers may be relatively broad, they each have limits, and anything beyond those limits are exclusively the purview of the regions (excepting, of course, the constitutional rights of the people, which can be infringed by neither).

Have there been any specific cases from your time in Atlasia that you found yourself completely opposed with the final verdict? If so, why? Similarly, how would you approach delivering a verdict should the overwhelming majority of Atlasians stand on the opposing side?

I have been in Atlasia since 2005 so there have been quite a few cases where I did not agree with the final decision, although the only of those opinions that I can remember off hand were all authored by Justice Sam Spade, which was an insanely long time ago. The only one really relevant today was a decision of his that set absurdly strict requirements of standing to even bring a case before the court, which as I explained in a previous answer is a terrible idea for a forum-based simulation game.

[Bacon King]

How far can a region go in imposing gun control before it violates the second amendment?

As far as I’m aware, no method of gun control can violate the recognition of the state of Arizona

When regarding the precedent of an "undue burden" set in Planned Parenthood v Casey, how far can a region go in restricting abortion, before it imposes an "undue burden?"

Respectfully, I do not believe my take on the nuances of real-world case law is at all relevant here. Either A) within the context of our game world there has never been any such case, or B) if such a case did exist, it was made completely moot with the adoption of our current constitution, as it isn’t the constitution under which Planned Parenthood v Casey was decided.

What is your guiding judicial philosophy?

See my previous answer to Wulfric for details here – I am a textualist

[Bacon King]

Similarly, how would you approach delivering a verdict should the overwhelming majority of Atlasians stand on the opposing side?

I just realized I didn't answer this half of this question, my sincerest apologies!

I have no qualms with writing an opinion disliked by others so long as my opinion is based on sound logic and reasoning with a firm basis in the law. The judiciary is insulated from political pressure and public opinion specifically for the reason that what is legally just and correct is not always what the people want.

If the public dislike the outcome of a verdict I make, I hope they would understand that my job is merely to interpret the laws as they are written. The onus on fixing a bad and unpopular law is not with the judiciary, but with the legislature.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Endorsing the nomination

[JGibson]

BaconKing would make for a good successor to Justice Blair.

[Former President tack50]

Endorsing the nomination

[Poirot]

Not a member of council. My question is: You posted a registration post less than two months ago. Was it a registration for coming back in Atlasia (not a state or party change). If yes, for how long have you been outside Atlasia?

[Bacon King]

Not a member of council. My question is: You posted a registration post less than two months ago. Was it a registration for coming back in Atlasia (not a state or party change). If yes, for how long have you been outside Atlasia?

That is correct! I was outside Atlasia for just shy of sixth months: I left on December 24 2018 and returned on May 17 of this year

Here is the post containing my deregistration:

Bacon King
deregister
(and I resign as AG, to make that explicitly clear)

A huge issue has recently arisen that my family has to face irl and unfortunately I don't really have the time to Atlas, and what limited time I do have, my thoughts are too distracted to be able to concentrate on my role here.

Merry Christmas

[Pyro]

Lincoln Council is now in Final Business Period

The Second Council of Lincoln will dissolve at Midnight EST July 16th

[PSOL]

I motion for a move to cloture.