Author Topic: Sotomayor: It's a mistake to believe 'the law is clear' in Supreme Court cases  (Read 549 times)

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Offline mystery-ak

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Sotomayor: It's a mistake to believe 'the law is clear' in Supreme Court cases
By Judy Kurtz - 01/25/22 11:24 AM EST

Justice Sonia Sotomayor says "the biggest misconception people have" when Supreme Court rulings are weighed and handed down is that "the law is clear" to begin with.

“Most people think of the law as black and white, that there's an answer,” Sotomayor said Tuesday during an appearance on “Live with Kelly and Ryan."

“But the reality is, there isn't a clear answer. Most of the time when the Supreme Court takes cases, it's because the courts below that are disagreeing about the answer,” she added.

The laws, Sotomayor explained, are written generally.

“By the time the case comes to the Supreme Court, or to any court, actually — the courts below us or even the Supreme Court — it's because the answer’s unclear. And that can be unsatisfying to people. They don't understand why the judges are disagreeing. They don’t understand why it’s so hard.”

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https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/591220-sotomayor-its-a-mistake-to-believe-the-law-is-clear-in-supreme
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Offline Smokin Joe

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It is because people have abandoned principle and muddied the waters where some simple definitions would do.

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Offline mountaineer

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an appearance on “Live with Kelly and Ryan."

Couldn't get on "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," Sonia?
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Offline Kamaji

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Very often there are ambiguities.  Law is written in language, and language always contains ambiguities, and merely adding definitions does not always resolve those ambiguities.  Furthermore, once a law is before the Court, it is not generally possible to go and post-hoc add definitions.

Offline Smokin Joe

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Very often there are ambiguities.  Law is written in language, and language always contains ambiguities, and merely adding definitions does not always resolve those ambiguities.  Furthermore, once a law is before the Court, it is not generally possible to go and post-hoc add definitions.
The problem is that definitions are changed. Usages change.
The question is one of what the words meant when they were written.
Admittedly, a lot of law is sloppy, but that is on the legislatures.
The Constitution isn't sloppy, and the principles, if drawn from the usages and meanings of the words at the time it was written, can be applied to even the technological changes that have happened since by addressing the principles involved.

Just as no one has any right to read your mail (a felony) without a warrant, so too should your electronic communications not posted for public view be protected. Simple as that. (4th Amendment).

 
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis

Offline Kamaji

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The problem is that definitions are changed. Usages change.
The question is one of what the words meant when they were written.
Admittedly, a lot of law is sloppy, but that is on the legislatures.
The Constitution isn't sloppy, and the principles, if drawn from the usages and meanings of the words at the time it was written, can be applied to even the technological changes that have happened since by addressing the principles involved.

Just as no one has any right to read your mail (a felony) without a warrant, so too should your electronic communications not posted for public view be protected. Simple as that. (4th Amendment).

 

Language is inherently sloppy.  Furthermore, there is always the issue of how to integrate disparate provisions, which were drafted separately, but which must operate on the same set of facts in some fashion.  Oftentimes, there are no rules of operation that dictate how competing provisions interact, and the courts are frequently called upon to resolve those issues.

The old canard used to illustrate latent ambiguities is the one about a law that defines the felony of burglary to be "breaking and entering the close of another at night with the intent to commit a felony therein."

At first glance, "at night" seems to be a pretty unambiguous term, but it isn't.  All can agree that for these purposes the day is broken into two periods:  night and not-night.  That then leads to the question:  when does "night" begin, and when does it end?

Is it defined merely by the clock, and if so, what time on the clock is to be used, or does it depend on the level of ambient light at the time in question?  If 6pm is chosen as the fixed boundary for when "night" begins, then there will be plenty of break-ins during the summer that don't count as burglaries, and plenty of break-ins that happen during the winter, when everyone is still up and about, that will count as burglaries.

On the other hand, if it is defined on the basis of ambient light, how little light must remain before it becomes "night"?

All of these issues are latent ambiguities that are inherent in the language itself.

Offline Smokin Joe

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Language is inherently sloppy.  Furthermore, there is always the issue of how to integrate disparate provisions, which were drafted separately, but which must operate on the same set of facts in some fashion.  Oftentimes, there are no rules of operation that dictate how competing provisions interact, and the courts are frequently called upon to resolve those issues.

The old canard used to illustrate latent ambiguities is the one about a law that defines the felony of burglary to be "breaking and entering the close of another at night with the intent to commit a felony therein."

At first glance, "at night" seems to be a pretty unambiguous term, but it isn't.  All can agree that for these purposes the day is broken into two periods:  night and not-night.  That then leads to the question:  when does "night" begin, and when does it end?

Is it defined merely by the clock, and if so, what time on the clock is to be used, or does it depend on the level of ambient light at the time in question?  If 6pm is chosen as the fixed boundary for when "night" begins, then there will be plenty of break-ins during the summer that don't count as burglaries, and plenty of break-ins that happen during the winter, when everyone is still up and about, that will count as burglaries.

On the other hand, if it is defined on the basis of ambient light, how little light must remain before it becomes "night"?

All of these issues are latent ambiguities that are inherent in the language itself.
It is really easy to go to the DNR or equivalent website where the times for sunrise (official start of "day") and sunset (End of "day", start of "night") are posted for the purposes of hunting.
Day or night can be quantified.
Or you can just go by 'when the streetlights come on".

But with the Constitution, there is a guide as to the intent of the Founders: The Federalist Papers, and that series of essays clarifies much of what is more succinctly stated in the Original Document and the Bill of Rights.

Any who claim to be Constitutional scholar enough to be seated at the SCOTUS Bench should have read it at the very least, and it was once required reading in Civics classes.

It is only confusing when people attempt to interpret those principles, as stated then, through a distorting lens of woke-ism and altered meanings the have been the product of a decades-long assault on the meanings of words used in our language, which makes using those definitions and understanding original intent nearly incompatible. But then, I am of the belief that much of this that does not occur directly as the ordinary evolution of vernacular, has occurred because of the mass media and is influenced by the same sort of folks who wish to subvert the Constitution, and that that obfuscation is intentional. Similarly, I find no excuse for sloppily written law. While it may seem tedious, some research, some effort, will produce a law that is neither ambiguous nor vague. But then much law is written by lawyers, who seem to propagate such legislation as a professional courtesy to others of their ilk. It is a form of job security for the lawyers.

Folks who qualify as Conservative seem to have far less trouble with original intent, but perhaps that is circular reasoning.

 
« Last Edit: January 30, 2022, 12:35:39 pm by Smokin Joe »
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis