The US Constitution

Is the US Consititution that important to you?

  • strictly a legal document and should be followed to the letter and intent

    Votes: 14 70.0%

  • a living document that ebbs and flows interpreted by 9 people on the supreme court

    Votes: 4 20.0%

  • it's old and antiquated and should be totally ignored by the courts for the good of society?

    Votes: 2 10.0%
  • Total voters
    20
  • Poll closed .
Socrtease said:
Yes because that is what was going to happen. Legislators were going to PASS an amendment and then the states were going to ratify an amendment that would keep the government from using illegally and unconstitutionally gaine evidence and thus allowing the defendant to go free even though evidence of guilt was found in his house. There is no advantage to anyone to introduce, vote for or ratify that amendment. Shit for YEARS conservatives have said that ill gotten evidence SHOULD NOT be thown out. The warrant requirement was called a technicallity. Politicians are dead against doing ANYTHING that would look soft on crime and that is how conservatives would label any attempt to pass an amendment to the constitution putting the exclusionary rule in. This is why we have judges. They look at the law or the amendment and if the result contradicts the law or the right then they correct it. Remember the Bill of Rights are not GIVING you and I anything. Those are all rights we possess solely due to our exisitense. They cannot be given or taken away. So when a person is convicted using evidence that was obtained in violation of the 4th the state is taking something the consitution says it CANNOT.
Click to expand...
By your argument, the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments should not have been needed - just a proper reinterpretation under SCOTUS.

The problem with your argument is there is nothing to stop some future SCOTUS from simply reversing the exclusionary rule - EXCEPT the properly worded amendment. That is another reason amendments are the proper way to add to, or change the Constitution - because those addition/changes are much stronger, taking a whole lot more effort to reverse. It is also because unwise changes are a lot less likely to go through (only one in 219 years). SCOTUS decisions are much more prone to undue negative influence, and with the rift growing between political philosophies, that is becoming more true rather than less true. Politicians are openly and admittedly more concerned with justices that believe as they do than justices that will mete out justice with wisdom and fairness.

And rather than focusing only on your GOOD SCOTUS decision as an example, why don't we dwell on some of the not-so-good ones, and how amending the Constitution made certain a future SCOTUS would not make the same bad decision again. Dread Scott anyone?

Or how about the need for an amendment before Separate but equal is reinstated?

Or how about one to reverse the recent decision where Imminent Domain was extended to private development "for public good"?

Certainly there is a place for SCOTUS to determine if the wording of the Constitution is inadequate to a circumstance or question. But it was never the intent of the founders to allow SCOTUS the unilateral authority to make those changes once it is indicated a change is needed. The fact that there are far more negative examples of SCOTUS decisions than amendments that later needed to be rectified shows that SCOTUS is not a good final arbiter between governmental authority and personal liberty.
 
Last edited:
Good Luck said:
By your argument, the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th and 26th Amendments should not have been needed - just a proper reinterpretation under SCOTUS.

The problem with your argument is there is nothing to stop some future SCOTUS from simply reversing the exclusionary rule - EXCEPT the properly worded amendment. That is another reason amendments are the proper way to add to, or change the Constitution - because those addition/changes are much stronger, taking a whole lot more effort to reverse. It is also because unwise changes are a lot less likely to go through (only one in 219 years). SCOTUS decisions are much more prone to undue negative influence, and with the rift growing between political philosophies, that is becoming more true rather than less true. Politicians are openly and admittedly more concerned with justices that believe as they do than justices that will mete out justice with wisdom and fairness.

And rather than focusing only on your GOOD SCOTUS decision as an example, why don't we dwell on some of the not-so-good ones, and how amending the Constitution made certain a future SCOTUS would not make the same bad decision again. Dread Scott anyone?

Or how about the need for an amendment before Separate but equal is reinstated?

Or how about one to reverse the recent decision where Imminent Domain was extended to private development "for public good"?

Certainly there is a place for SCOTUS to determine if the wording of the Constitution is inadequate to a circumstance or question. But it was never the intent of the founders to allow SCOTUS the unilateral authority to make those changes once it is indicated a change is needed. The fact that there are far more negative examples of SCOTUS decisions than amendments that later needed to be rectified shows that SCOTUS is not a good final arbiter between governmental authority and personal liberty.
Click to expand...
I will once again suggest you read Federalist 39 written by the guy that wrote the document and see that it was exactly what he intended when he wrote the constitution. He also intended that the SCOTUS have the ability to overrule the majorities in state legislature when they began to act tyranical. Remember he believed in the danger of majorities taking rights from minorities.
 
Last edited:
Socrtease said:
I will once again suggest you read Federalist 39 written by the guy that wrote the document and see that it was exactly what he intended when he wrote the constitution. He also intended that the SCOTUS have the ability to overrule the majorities in state legislature when they began to act tyranical. Remember he believed in the danger of majorities taking rights from minorities.
Click to expand...
I have read all the federalist papers, more than once.

There was more than one person involved in writing the Constitution. There were many opinions. But of note is Article III did NOT give to SCOTUS the power desired in FP39. Of additional note is the anti-federalists strengthened the lack of that enumerated power in Article III by stating if it is NOT an enumerated power of the federal government, then it does not BELONG to the federal government, but the states and the people.

In short, FP39 states what Monroe DESIRED in federal authority. The final VERSION of the Constitution, to include the BOR, did not give him all he desired.
 
Watermark said:
Conservatism should be banned. I don't know about the rest. Fuck the constitution.
Click to expand...

I agree with that. Burn the constitution! The time of the Gods has ended, the time in which we has free can write our own history has come! We've had enough we are their puppets no more!

*raises pitchfork*
 
Good Luck said:
I have read all the federalist papers, more than once.

There was more than one person involved in writing the Constitution. There were many opinions. But of note is Article III did NOT give to SCOTUS the power desired in FP39. Of additional note is the anti-federalists strengthened the lack of that enumerated power in Article III by stating if it is NOT an enumerated power of the federal government, then it does not BELONG to the federal government, but the states and the people.

In short, FP39 states what Monroe DESIRED in federal authority. The final VERSION of the Constitution, to include the BOR, did not give him all he desired.
Click to expand...

So you are saying there should be no judicial review and judges should allow unconstitutional edicts to be executed?
 
Watermark said:
So you are saying there should be no judicial review and judges should allow unconstitutional edicts to be executed?
Click to expand...
No, you brain dead fuck. I am saying there should be a constitutional amendment defining the exclusionary rule specifically so there is no way for later courts, under some despotic shit head like we have now, to reverse the exclusionary rule. As it stands, all it takes is a reversal from an unbalanced SCOTUS. With an amendment, we can count on the exclusionary rule being there because then it takes a whole lot more people to make a bad decision to remove that protection.

Again, I remind you of decisions like Dred Scott, separate but equal, etc. as support for my claim that SCOTUS is not good enough, by itself, to protect our liberties. That is why we added the 14th Amendment defining citizenship - to prevent another SCOTUS decision arbitrarily defining citizenship according to circumstance, and to prevent state governments from arbitrarily violating our Constitutional protections. Back then we knew what many apparently do not know now: the decision of 9 men is not a good enough protection of liberty.
 
Last edited:
I understand where you coming from so lets evaluate your way of doing this. If your world existed, no one would be able to appeal the illegal search of their house. Instead they would have to petition their representative, from prison, to introduce a constitutional amendment which would say that any search without a warrant would be unconstitutional, which the fourth already says, and that any evidence siezed would have to be excluded from the trial of the guilty guy whose house they found the evidence at. Just for my edification what would motivate a legislator to introduce that particular amendment?

Lets move on to Miranda, which the court not to long ago upheld. In your world, people who were coerced into confessing to a crime would have to wait for the same procedure to get a NEW Amendment that says people accused of a crime cannot be made to confess and if they do then the confession must be excluded. Again the motivation for a legislator, one that is up for re-election from time to time, to introduce amendments which would appear to assist criminals escapes me.

The guy that wore a t-shirt that said "Fuck the Draft" would have to wait for the amendment that said, "hey dumbasses, written words on shirts are also protected speech."

Larry Flynt would have had to wait for the amendment that says, "hey, you all are still dumbasses and satire and wholly unbelievable ads in magazines are also protected speech."

And the Jehovas Witnesses who were being force to have their kids pledge to the flag would have to wait for the Amendment that says "Even unpopular religious beliefs are protected by the Free Exercise Clause.

I can do this all night long. Do you understand WHY your solution is unreasonable and untenable? Do you understand how many people who had their 4th Amendment rights violated would have to sit in jail waiting for congress and all the states to pass your exclusionary rule amendment? Do you understand how NO LEGISLATOR in her right mind would EVER introduce those amendments. Do you understand how no legislator hoping to be re-elected would ever vote for it and how states would NEVER ratify them?

You idea is to keep people in prison when they shouldn't be and limit peoples rights to only those things that are popular.
 
Most states have jury instructions that tell them they must follow the law. Very rare to get a jury to not do that.
 
Socrtease said:
Most states have jury instructions that tell them they must follow the law. Very rare to get a jury to not do that.
Click to expand...

true. that does not mean that those instructions are correct. Our judicial system was set up so that juries judged facts AND law. prosecutors and legislators didn't like the fact that their 'laws' could be undone by a free people, so they changed the rules.

fija.org
 
Last edited:
Good way to "get out of" jury duty is to talk about Jury Nullification while they are picking the jury.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top