Snyder versus Phelphs hits Supreme Court...must vent

[reefraff]

Quote:
Originally Posted by spanko http:///forum/thread/381003/snyder-versus-phelphs-hits-supreme-court-must-vent/20#post_3317845
Not true sir the congress can tell the supreme court in effect to pound sand. http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=overruling_the_court, http://www.rules.house.gov/archives/jcoc2ay.htm
Also read here
http://www.jmu.edu/madison/gpos225-madison2/madexpcontojeff.htm
What I mean is if the Supreme Court says for instance Smut magazines are protected speech under the first amendment they are. Now if say congress had banned sales of smut mags at grocery stores because of inappropriate content which lead to the ruling then turned around after the ruling and passed a law banning all magazines at grocery stores period they didn't change the court's ruling or the constitutional protection they create by their ruling but got around it. Congress cannot get around the basis for a court ruling, for a practical real life application of such review the history of the Patriot Act.

 

[reefraff]

Quote:
Originally Posted by spanko http:///forum/thread/381003/snyder-versus-phelphs-hits-supreme-court-must-vent/20#post_3317854
Another good read, again as an understanding of the framers thoughts,
"The Bill of Rights was understood, at its ratification, to be a bar on the actions of the federal government. Many people today find this to be an incredible fact. The fact is, prior to incorporation, discussed below, the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states. This is, however, quite in line with what the Constitution was originally designed to be: a framework for the federal government. In other words, though the federal government was banned from violating the freedom of the press, states were free to regulate the press. For the most part, this was not an issue, because the state constitutions all had bills of rights, and many of the rights protected by the states mirrored those in the federal Bill, and many went further than the federal Bill.
This point is best illustrated by one of the amendments that Madison proposed in his initial speech:

Fifthly, That in article 1st, section 10, between clauses 1 and 2, be inserted this clause, to wit:
No State shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases.

This clause, seemingly innocuous to us today, was rejected by the Senate in its final draft of the Bill, and the concept that any part of the Bill of Rights would apply to the states was still 100 years away. Several cases that came before the Supreme Court in the 19th century attempted to have the Court establish that the Bill should apply to the states, to no avail:
In Barron v Baltimore (32 U.S. 243 [1833]), the Court ruled that the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment did not apply to the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland by extension. Succinctly, the Court wrote: "...the fifth amendment must be understood as restraining the power of the general government, not as applicable to the states."
In Pervear v Massachusetts (72 U.S. 475 [1866]), the Court was asked to rule on fines imposed upon a liquor dealer by the state. Pervear was licensed by the United States under the current internal revenue code to keep and sell liquor. He was fined and sentenced to three months of hard labor for not maintaining a state license for his liquor business. Part to the defense attempted to invoke the 8th Amendment's Excessive Fines and Cruel and Unusual Punishment clauses. The Court, again quite succinctly, said: "Of this proposition it is enough to say that the article of the Constitution relied upon in support of it does not apply to State but to National legislation."
ium;">
As to the Bill of Rights being a bar to federal acts, the Bill took some knocks in the first years of the new nation. The 1798 Alien and Sedition Act, for example, made nationals of countries the United States was at war with subject to summary arrest, and also made "false, scandalous and malicious" writings about the government a crime, with the burden of proof placed squarely on the shoulders of the defendant rather than the state. Madison and Thomas Jefferson were both adamantly opposed to the Act, and said that being unconstitutional, states were free to ignore (or nullify) the law. The Act, repealed in 1801, was never ruled unconstitutional."
Go back and read things like the federalist papers. What good would it do for the founders to enshrine our right to bare arms as a check against tyrannical government yet leave it open for the state governments to revoke those very rights? What good would the freedom to practice your religion be if states could turn around to block those very rights? The bill of rights are part of the constitution. Where in the constitution does it state it only applies to the federal government and not the states?

 

[mantisman51]

Spanko is correct, before the Civil War, many states and some Federal court cases literally said that certain parts of the Bill of Rights pertained only to the Federal government. That is why the 14th Amendment was passed after the Civil War. It not only guarantees equal rights for all citizens, it guarantees no state statute or court ruling can supercede Federal law. That is what the Federal government is using against us in Arizona with prop 1070 now.

 

[reefraff]

Read article 6 of the constitution. Once an amendment passes it become as much a part of the constitution as any other section of it.

Article VI - Debts, Supremacy, Oaths
All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
The 14th had language inserted in it to remove a supreme court case precedent. That doesn't mean the court ruling that created that precedent wasn't flawed.