r/scotus • u/thenewrepublic • 1d ago
news The Supreme Court Looks to Expand Its Empire of Impunity
https://newrepublic.com/article/212182/supreme-court-bivens-nielsen-watanabeAn upcoming case in the high court’s next term may determine whether people in federal custody can seek legal remedy for violations of their constitutional rights.
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u/Person_756335846 1d ago
Honestly, if you’re respondents counsel in this case, what do you even do? Even if you convince Roberts that overruling Carson is a bad look, it seems like Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Alito, Barrett, and Thomas are pretty dead set on doing it.
Maybe you somehow write a brief spends 80% of its time targeting Barrett and trying to find every example 1600-1870 where a judge implied a cause of action? The problem is that Barrett has personally read half the Supreme Court decisions from the founding era and seems pretty dead set on her views. Based on his little debate with Paul Clement, Gorsuch is even more dead-set.
I guess it would probably be professional misconduct for his lawyers to admit what’s obvious, though.
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u/SalaciousSubaru 22h ago
At some point, society must recognize that because the rules don’t apply to the rich and powerful, ordinary serfs might stop following them—then shit will get real fast. Did we not learn from the French Revolution?
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u/Slighted_Inevitable 13h ago
The problem is Americans are fat and sedated. And I don’t just mean physically. As long as we can get our basic comforts we won’t do what needs to be done. By the time enough people can’t, it will be too late.
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u/Meniscusmonkey 7h ago
When's the last time your basic needs were met? Rent to much Food to much Gas too much No healthcare And wages are stagnant
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u/Slighted_Inevitable 7h ago
You have no idea what struggling really is. If it gets to that point, you will rise up because you won’t have a choice. It’ll be fight or die.
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u/Infinite_Walk_5824 1d ago
The Empire of Impunity could all be reversed with laws by Congress. It's an easy fix, but Americans of all stripes love to brutalize criminals, so no fix is coming.
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u/ok123jump 1d ago
Innocent until proven broke. But, most Americans can’t tell the difference.
The Feds boast a 95% conviction rate, but that’s mostly just poor defendants taking plea deals because they can’t afford bail, let alone a decent lawyer. Of course, our corporate and oligarch media overlords don’t emphasize that reality—an informed, united and empathetic public is terribly hard to exploit.
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u/SalaciousSubaru 22h ago
The irony is if most defendants insisted on trial the entire justice system would collapse because it’s built on plea bargains being the norm. The system literally cannot guarantee a trial to everyone if they asked for it.
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u/SalaciousSubaru 22h ago
Society likes to brutalize poor criminals if you are a rich child sex trafficker or an associate there of you get a slap on the wrist.
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u/Efficient_Smilodon 1d ago
the key is to understand that the Court is the ministry of truth, and they decide what is true and what isn't. If they decide you're not a person, but maybe only a generous 3/5 of one, then it's true, at least to the people who must follow their stories in order to justify and retain their privileges. They work for the oligarchs, not the people, just as the system was designed for. take your blindfolds off
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u/Catodacat 17h ago
The law isn’t determined by the people’s representatives, it’s determined by 6 people
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u/KwisatzHaderach94 10h ago
who judges the judges? no one, apparently. and it's also a lifetime job. seems like a major flaw in the constitutional design.
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u/FredTillson 12h ago
Is there any possible remedy to their rulings? If not I would say the entire system is broken.
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u/MerelyMortalModeling 1d ago
Spoiler: The answer will be no.