Today in Supreme Court History: February 8, 1941

2/8/1941: Justice Willis Van Devanter dies.

Justice Willis Van Devanter

Comments

[Jimmy the Dane]

So in something people might actually care about, how about them freedom truckers? Ain't it funny to watch the liberal media, which basically applauded and ran cover for BLM no more than two years ago, now doing a complete 180 and denouncing activism? The only real difference here is the truckers are completely non-violent and don't seem to need to loot shops to make their point. Funny how that works....

[Queen Amalthea]

Well one difference is that BLM was motivated by outrage at a long history of police brutality* and the trucker's protest is motivated by outrage at the awful tyranny of...(checks notes) being told they have to get a free shot and wear a mask sometimes...

*You'd think 'libertarians' would be quite sympathetic to such a cause, you can't get more stark examples of government abuse than when the cops beat or shoot you wrongly. But of course right wing libertarians follow a version of Jack London's philosophy: 'I'm a white man first and a libertarian second.'

[Jimmy the Dane]

That is like framing "stop and frisk" as engaging in a brief friendly conversation with a police officer who has your best interests in mind.

Queenie has absolutely no self awareness.

[Sarcastr0]

You mean the thing that's happening in Canada? Where their stated goal is for all the MPs to resign?

Yeah can't imagine why that's being treated differently than the American protests against local policies that didn't include giant trucks.

[I Callahan]

That’s not their stated goal. You really have become a parody of your old self.

[LawTalkingGuy]

"non-violent"

Sleep deprivation caused by constant loud noise is generally considered a form of torture. Also one of them appears to have tried to burn down a 100 unit apartment building and actually secured the doors so people couldn't get out.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/police-arson-unit-probes-ottawa-fire-allegation-in-heat-of-anti-mandate-protest

[Bob from Ohio]

Ask Sarcasto, arson is not violence.

I mean I think it is but it wasn't in 2020 so ...

[Sarcastr0]

Bob -

I argued that arson *of an empty building after hours* was not as violent as murder.

Did you see "secured the doors so people couldn't get out?" Quit with your false equivalence bullshit.

[Bob from Ohio]

That's not what you said. I pointed out that arson is defined as a crime of violence and you flatly said it was not.

Stop gaslighting.

[Sarcastr0]

That was how you ended the argument; by leaning on the legal definition.

I still think the comparison between the attempted after hours burning of a courthouse to actual murder was nonsense.

[Sarcastr0]

Also, too, you didn't address your deceitful attempt to draw an equivalence between "secured the doors so people couldn't get out?" with an empty building after hours.

Not saying arson is great or lacks risk to lives, but those two are not equivalent.

[Bob from Ohio]

A man actually died in Minneapolis in a bowling alley fire set "after hours".

We don't know who set that fire or why. The mayor conveniently knows.

"Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson brought the investigation up as part of a special council meeting to address the ongoing demonstrations on Monday. He said the “horrific story” clearly demonstrates “the malicious intent of these protesters occupying our city.”

[Sarcastr0]

Except that's not what you were talking about - you were talking about the attempted arson of the federal courthouse.

Arguing that a specific set of facts could be charged as a violent crime under the law is not the same as proving that particular set of facts is violent.

We don't know who set that fire or why. The mayor conveniently knows.
Yet you know who did the rioting and why, conveniently.

[Bob from Ohio]

Rioters did the rioting.

They have pictures of two men. Are they truckers? Are they involved in the protest?

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, rioters are criminals. Not many were defending the vandalism and looting around here.

But many were and are trying to pretend the 2020 protests were riots.

[Michael P]

Portland's 2020 rioters blocked the doors of an occupied building they tried to burn down, too: https://www.kptv.com/news/mayor-wheeler-on-rioters-setting-fire-at-portland-police-building-you-are-attempting-to-commit/article_8e01541e-d839-11ea-8736-4b746b521476.html

The federal courthouse in Portland was also occupied the various times that rioters firebombed it.

[Sarcastr0]

PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) - Mayor Ted Wheeler had strong words for rioters who blocked exits and started a fire at the Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct building.

Yeah, that's awful. Looks like they declared a riot and dispersed the rioters. Which I don't think many would gainsay.

[Jimmy the Dane]

In Sarcastroland burning down a federal courthouse is legitimate dissent and a fine target. Those who tried to protect the courthouse were "federal troops", "jackbooted thugs", and routinely framed as abusing protesters.

Cops in Canada seizing fuel and propane resulting in protesters being left in below freezing temperatures which is dangerous to their health and welfare are simply keeping the peace with their reasonable efforts.

Leftists truly have absolutely no self awareness these days.

[Sarcastr0]

burning down a federal courthouse is legitimate dissent and a fine target

You know this is not what I said. There is lots of middle ground between 'not as bad as murder' and 'cool and good.'
Why would you lie about this when you know I'm here to call you on it?

Are you accusing the Canadian police of attempted murder of the protesters?! In service of finding double standards, you've gone full drama queen.

[Sarcastr0]

LTG - not to mention the stealing from soup kitchens and stuff.

The parallels to the summer of 2020 really do not paint these truckers in a good light, as it turns out.

[Bob from Ohio]

One alleged fire set by unknown person(s). Dozens of buildings and police cars burned.

One soup kitchen robbed. Dozens of stores looted.

You're right, no parallel.

[Sarcastr0]

You're comparing a nationwide protest movement over an entire summer to one protest.
And conflating lives with property again.
And after dark unsanctioned riots with protests.

[Bob from Ohio]

Here. One city.

https://www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/peaceful-minneapolis-protests-over-george-floyd-s-death-turn-violent-n1216521

[Sarcastr0]

Cherry picking. You don't get to condemn all the protests in 2020 over that.

[Michael P]

What makes picking the focal city of protests "cherry picking" in the 2020 case, but not in 2022? Should he have given examples from Portland, Seattle, Atlanta, Richmond (VA), Kenosha, etc. instead?

[Sarcastr0]

Who is cherry picking in 2022? It's largely one protest, IIRC.

And, BTW, for all it's bad behavior, it is a protest not something I'm going to call a riot or a robbery or whatever.

But...not all protests are legal.

[Michael P]

Your memory is faulty, as usual. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canadian-cities-brace-more-anti-vaccine-mandate-protests-2022-02-05/ -- Toronto, Quebec City, the spot in Manitoba where somebody (who was too extreme for Antifa) drove his SUV into a crowd, and if course Ottawa. Plus sympathy protests among the other 93% of North America's population.

[Sarcastr0]

The story about the protest being declared unlawful is only about Ottawa.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The important long-term point is that the boorish conduct of these truck drivers conduct will benefit the American taxpayer by making it easier for our government to decline requests for handouts when automated trucks cause truck drivers to be unemployed.

I was ambivalent about that prospect. I am beginning to root for expedited development and implementation of automated trucks.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Lives with property.

So what do you think about Canadian cops confiscating fuel being used to provide heat for the protesters? Seems like that is unnecessarily endangering lives. Or is it some lives matter and other don't? Also the distinction between "property" and "life" was always a silly one and this just shows how fickle of an attempt it was to parse the issue.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm pretty sure the truckers are not going to die in downtown Ottowa.

You remain the least serious commenter on this website.

[Jimmy the Dane]

So you are fine with subjecting peaceful protesters to unconscionable conditions simply because you do not like them? That is pretty fresh even coming from you!

[Sarcastr0]

unconscionable conditions

Get off your fainting couch. Especially as you're already backpeddaling from endangering lives to 'unconscionable conditions.'

I see no evidence on the articles covering the truckers' social media that the truckers' conditions are in any way bad, other than some portapotty issues.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Forcing people to freeze to death is certainly unconscionable and dangerous. You should be ashamed of yourself for minimizing the conditions to which these peaceful protesters are being subjected to by the government of Canada.

[Sarcastr0]

Forcing people to freeze to death

Still on the fainting couch, I see.

You really are the least serious person here.

[Jimmy the Dane]

What ever happened to "no justice, no peace"....? Seems the current complainers don't like the tables being turned.

[Sarcastr0]

You do know that civil disobedience often includes being willing to go to jail, right?

'But I was doing a civil disobedience' is not a defense in court.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Unless you short circuit the process by having Soros funded DA's that refuse to press charges because of "social justice" or whatever the latest excuse is they are using....

[Sarcastr0]

LOL

[Bob from Ohio]

'But I was doing a civil disobedience' is not a defense in court.

It can get a light sentence for a deadly arson.

"Mr. Lee credibly states that he was in the streets to protest unlawful police violence against black men, and there is no
basis to disbelieve this statement. Mr. Lee, appropriately, acknowledges that he “could have demonstrated in a different way,” but that he was “caught up in the fury of the mob
after living as a black man watching his peers suffer at the hands of police.” (PSR ¶ 13.)
As anyone watching the news world-wide knows, many other people in Minnesota were similarly caught up. There appear to have been many people in those days looking only to
exploit the chaos and disorder in the interests of personal gain or random violence. There appear also to have been many people who felt angry, frustrated, and disenfranchised, and who were attempting, in many cases in an unacceptably reckless and dangerous manner, to give voice to those feelings. Mr. Lee appears to be squarely in this latter category. And
even the great American advocate for non-violence and social justice, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stated in an interview with CBC’s Mike Wallace in 1966 that “we’ve got to see
that a riot is the language of the unheard.”

[Sarcastr0]

So now you're going after judges for their American sentencing decisions unfairly not applying to these truckers?

[Bob from Ohio]

"now doing a complete 180 and denouncing activism"

Don't you love it when your point is immediately made by your opposition..

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, so many people are denouncing activism.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Calling honking your horn is basically complaining and denouncing activism. Also makes you sound like a cranky boomer.

[Sarcastr0]

Honking your horn all night is a pretty easy time place and manner violation.

Plus, *it's Canada.*

[Jimmy the Dane]

No justice, no peace!

[Sarcastr0]

1) protesting doesn't mean you are immune from arrest. Not many on the left think that.

2) Not all protests are created equal. Protesting because cops are too violent is not the same as protesting because you want all the MPs to resign so you can have fewer Covid restrictions.

One can say this protest is good and that one is bad just fine; there is no broad principle about all protests being good regardless of what they're for.

[Jimmy the Dane]

There is the principle of fair play and the government should not favor one set of viewpoints by providing it support in ignoring the law, failing to prosecute, failing to keep order, etc. while cracking down on a viewpoint it disagrees with because of.....reasons....

Also are you really that tone deaf to think that these people are out in mass because of some marginal, insignificant issue? I remember your reaction when people would point out George Floyd was a criminal with a long list of arrests, high on drugs, in the process of committing a felony....

[Sarcastr0]

You appear to be relying on the principle that various state governments across the US are the same as the Canadian government.

Good luck with that.

You argued the Floyd protests were in service of a bad cause. I think these protests are. That's a distinction both you and I are free to make.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I would argue that a Westernized government built upon individual liberty ought to behave close to the same. Hair splitting is not winning you this argument and is further exposing your hypocrisy.

And thanks for reaffirm just exactly how tone deaf you are. It must be interesting to be inside that head of yours....

[Sarcastr0]

I don't believe that it is a western value to declare all protests are lawful. MLK went to jail, Jimmy. Famously.

I also don't think it's a western value for non-government actors to have opinions on the merits or lack therof of protests.

Your sweeping and wrong generalizations about 'Westernized government' in an attempt to find a double standard continue to amuse.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Your issue and blatant double standard is not the merits of the protest but the reception these peaceful protesters are getting compared to the violent rioters of BLM. You celebrated and defending rioting and law breaking and here you dismiss the plight of actual protesters who are being non-violent. Plus you seem to be fine with the government freezing them to death because you don't agree with their message.

We are talking about the principle of fair play. Both sides have to play by the same rules and get treated in an equitable manner. And here that is lacking. If this was a bunch of dirty hippies with anti-fa declaring a "people's republic" right next to the capitol building you would be applauding them for their courage, etc. and if the government attempted to shut it down by denying them basic services, you would be outraged.

[Sarcastr0]

The protests in 2020 were protests, and largely lawful. Some were not lawful, and then people were arrested.
The riots afterwards were riots. And people in those riots went to jail for rioting.

You celebrated and defending rioting and law breaking. No, I said the protesters were not rioters. Not buying your broad brush in your fear and loathing of BLM is not actually defending rioting, actually.

the government freezing them to death
LOL.

And then you devolve into counterfactual double standards, as ya do.

Really not doing great tonight, Jimmy.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Is that the best you have after being taken behind the woodshed and worked over like a red headed step child?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Hahahaha....I have thoroughly destroyed and once again exposed you as a clown leftist. It is absolutely enjoyable to watch you wiggle around, hair split, and try to justify your otherwise unjustifiable positions.

You endorse violent law breaking protests when it fits into your political mold and find nothing wrong with this sort of behavior. The moment though you get an actual non-violent protest though that does not do so, you are fine with leaving those people in below freezing dangerous conditions and otherwise demonizing them.

Send in the clown....oh wait Sarc is already here!

[Sarcastr0]

I have thoroughly destroyed and once again exposed you as a clown leftist

What are you, twelve?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Seriously is that the best YOU got? You must feel extremely embarrassed at this point and can't even construct a coherent response.

[Michael P]

In S_0's defense, he thinks it is a sign of Juneteenth violence that only one trucker protest has been "declared unlawful", compared to dozens of riots in 2020, making it unreasonable cherry picking to point out the multiple cases of leftist loonies trying to burn down occupied buildings (sometimes trying to jam the doors) back then but perfectly reasonable to blame all the trucker protesters for the actions of a not-yet-identified arsonist now. It's not like an Antifa loser tried to drive over any trucker protesters recently.

Or something. He seems to see the world through funhouse mirrors.

[Sarcastr0]

perfectly reasonable to blame all the trucker protesters for the actions of a not-yet-identified arsonist now

I didn't do that, but go off.

[benji]

Well, this stupidity certainly explains why there were so many comments on this!

[F.D. Wolf]

Willis Van Devanter was an important figure in that episode of Wild West lore known as the Johnson County War. Van Devanter is all the more important to modern students of the affair, because unlike most other individuals associated with it, Van Devanter did not feel the need to destroy all his papers and correspondence related to the Johnson County War. I might suggest Lewis L. Gould's short (10 pp., including illustrations) "Willis Van Devanter and the Johnson County War" in the Autumn 1967 issue of Montana: The Magazine of Western History for an interesting, albeit brief, resume of Van Devanter's role in the affair.

Van Devanter moved to Wyoming Territory in his 20s, where he served in various political positions, including city attorney of Cheyenne and as a member of the territorial legislature. In 1889, at the age of 30, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Territorial Supreme Court by President Harrison. After statehood in 1890, Van Devanter continued as the court's first chief justice, a position he resigned after four days to return to private practice, as well as becoming the state's Republican Party Chairman.

The Johnson County War was a conflict between the politically powerful Wyoming Stock Growers Association (which still exists today), and organization of large, wealthy ranchers, and smaller ranchers and homesteaders in the north of the state. The WSGA considered the latter rustlers and gangsters, while the small ranchers saw the WSGA as wealthy cattle barons trying to steal their land. History is complex, but, on balance, to me, the chief "villains" seem to be the WSGA. Of course, some historians see it differently.

The "War" culminated in April 1892 with an ill-conceived expedition by WSGA men and hired Texas gunmen into Johnson County with the goal of eliminating "rustlers" in Johnson County. These men came to be known as "Invaders" or "Regulators", depending on one's perspective. Their first target was Nate Champion at the KC Ranch, where, after a shootout lasting several hours Champion and one of his associates were killed. Reports vary, but possibly four Invaders were also killed.

A sheriff's posse, attempting to ride to Champion's rescue, descended on the Invaders, who fled to the TA Ranch, where they were besieged for three days. Eventually, the US Cavalry arrived to rescue the WSGA men, who held them for months while state official argued over their fate. Johnson County officials demanded they be turned over to them, but the WSGA knew that would mean certain conviction and hanging (if they even made it to trial before being hanged).

State GOP Chairman Van Devanter was also the attorney for the WSGA. He wrote to Wyoming's two Republican senators about his efforts to secure trial in the south, where he felt the men would have a fairer trial. Eventually, in January 1893, 23 defendants were brought to trial in Cheyenne, where Van Devanter had won a change of venue. Van Devanter had secured twelve peremptory challenges per defendant, so, after several weeks, the jury pool was exhausted, and a 12-member jury could not be secured. Frustrated and facing mounting costs, the county and Van Devanter agreed to seat a jury, jeopardy attached, the case was dismissed, and all the Invaders were set free.

[F.D. Wolf]

I forgot to add the article I cited is freely available at jstor.

[Bob from Ohio]

Fascinating story.

[I Callahan]

Seriously, cool story. Thanks.

[bernard11]

Thank you, F.D.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Van Devanter sounds like a thoroughgoing jerk. He used his legal skill and authority to profit by assisting the powerful, well-connected, and immoral in abusive conduct. He was a bigot. He collected plenty of government paychecks but seemed bothered when government proposed to help someone else. He reportedly prolonged his term at the Court because he wanted to thwart the New Deal and to collect a paycheck.

Did I mention he was a bigot?

He likely was fortunate there is no hell.

[benji]

Please don't post on topic with educational posts.

[Ak Mike]

Isn't the movie Shane about the Johnson County war?

[F.D. Wolf]

Indeed. The conflict between ranchers and homesteaders is a frequent theme in Westerns, with the ranchers usually playing the bad guys.

The vast majority of Wyoming was public land (48% still is today). The big ranchers had massive herds of tens of thousands of cattle. They would let them roam free in the fall and winter. As the weather worsened, the herds would migrate south, but return as it warmed, supplemented by thousands of new calves. and the yearly "spring roundup" would be conducted. Friction would arise over the ownership of new, unbranded "maverick" calves, and doubtless a few were pilfered by small homesteaders.

Beyond that, homesteaders would naturally choose the best land near water sources, which was also the best grazing land. They would put up fences, which, of course, denied the cattle access. More homesteaders meant more fences and less good grazing land. The government tended to favor cattle barons, who were extremely wealthy and organized. (Some would say Wyoming hasn't changed much in this respect, but that "money=political pawer" is hardly a new or native concept). Ergo, friction.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

What came into my mind was the classic "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." Not the Johnson County war, but a similar dispute. And Jimmy Stewart ended up as a US Senator, rather than on the Supreme Court.

[Cal Cetín]

I'm glad this post has seven comments about the topic.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I was wondering how there was 52 comments about Willis Van Devanter!