Today in Supreme Court History: February 26, 1869

2/26/1869: The 15th Amendment is submitted to the states.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Intel Corp. Investment Policy Committee v. Sulyma, 589 U.S. --- (decided February 26, 2020): 3-year statute of limitations for ERISA suit begins when plaintiff actually knew employer had improperly invested funds, not when it could be deduced from those annual reports nobody reads (myself included)

United States v. Apel, 571 U.S. 359 (decided February 26, 2014): commandant's order barring protester from Vandenberg Air Force Base applied to whole property, including publicly accessible area reserved for protesters; conviction under 18 U.S.C. §1382 upheld

United States v. Wells, 519 U.S. 482 (decided February 26, 1997): conviction under 18 U.S.C. §1014 (making false statement to federally insured bank) does not require that false statement be material (here, lessor of office equipment which assigned proceeds to bank hid the fact that lessor and not lessees was responsible for repairs)

United States v. Maine et al., 516 U.S. 365 (decided February 26, 1996): original jurisdiction case where Court rejects Massachusetts's argument that it extends over all of Vineyard Sound and almost all of Nantucket Sound; decree describes straight lines of demarcation (case originally involved 13 Atlantic states and ended up with practically every state limited to three miles offshore)

Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68 (decided February 26, 1985): established rule that defendant is entitled to state-appointed psychiatrist to evaluate insanity defense (hence the phrase "Ake hearing")

[Commenter_XY]

Fifteenth Amendment

Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section 2
The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

I have always wondered what is it legally to 'abridge a right'; and what are the limits to 'appropriate' legislation?

[not guilty]

Abridgement of a constitutional right is or is not what five members of SCOTUS say at a particular time. Look at the hash that protection of First Amendment freedoms has become.

The same is unfortunately true of Fifteenth Amendment jurisprudence. See, Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013).

If in the next life John Roberts meets James Cheney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, I hope they beat the stuffing out of him.

[Commenter_XY]

Look at the hash that protection of First Amendment freedoms has become.

I agree completely, not guilty. But I am somewhat less certain that our views are aligned about those protections. 🙂

[Krayt]

During the still-ongoing debacle of Congress threatening to wreck section 230, crushing stock prices, unless they censor harrassment-oh-please-start with the harrassing tweets of our political opponents, there was a marked shift from “harrassing” as justification, to “dangerous”, because harrassing was protected speech. And dangerous could rhetorically piggyback on immediate true threats, or however that is phrased.

One thing is certain, for those who pay attention: these are all power broker hacks who have zero concern for freedoms and are happy to stomp all over them using hot air for short term political gains.

You self-benighted folk, who cheer on with a clear conscience, to gitcher opponent, are exactly the kind of asshole the founding fathers were protecting against.

Yes, Donald "Lock Her Up!" Trump deserves this in some cosmic sense, but the correct answer is neither side should be doing this, not both. Ibid. founding fathers.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Has anyone argued that "previous condition of servitude" means that ex-prisoners should always get back their vote?

I am so ignorant of this that for all I know, all ex-prisoners do have the right to vote. But news reports leave the feeling that they do not.

[Brett Bellmore]

Imprisonment isn't a condition of servitude, though. And, besides, the 14th amendment expressly permits disenfranchisement of convicted criminals, and implied repeal is disfavored in constitutional interpretation.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

According to the ACLU Felony Disenfranchisement Map, there are two states where convicted felons (so not Don Blankenship) are permanently disenfranchised: Virginia and Kentucky. In seven other states, some felons are permanently disenfranchised, and there is a process for them to apply for the right to vote to be returned: Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Iowa, Wyoming, and Arizona.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Everywhere else, convicted felons can vote after they are out of prison, or upon completion of sentence, or always, even while in prison. That last one is only Maine and Vermont.

[SRG]

Apel should have argued that as the USAF had no constitutional standing, and any law regarding the USAF was ultra vires, no-one in the USAF had any authority to order anything. I mean, he'd still lose, because no court would find in his favour, but at least he'd lose with a technically correct argument.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I don't understand your point. This was a criminal proceeding for trespass. After flouting the commandant's orders, Apel was brought before a Magistrate Judge who fined him (not sure who the prosecuting entity was). He appealed his conviction in federal court.

[SRG]

The commander and everyone else associated was acting ultra vires because the USAF is a clearly unconstitutional entity. Congress has no authority to create it nor the president to command it. So there is no basis for the commander's actions nor the prosecution. Technically...

[Dan Schiavetta]

Even adopting your view of things, the Air Force is part of the Army, for which the President is the Commander-in-Chief, art. II, §2, Congress has the power to “raise Armies” (art. I, §8), and the National Security Act of 1947, which created the Air Force, was simply Congress reorganizing the armed forces and assigning who would do what.

[SRG]

The air force is NOT part of the army because that's not what an air force is nor what an army is.

The Constitution should have been amended to reflect this new force (that Jefferson had not the wit to appreciate though he had the opportunity).

It's funny - in all the years I have noted that the USAF is not covered by the Constitution, I have had responses like, it's part of the army because that's what it came out of, or, the Constitution says the president is commander in chief of the military (which it doesn't), etc. And no-one every says, oh, the Constitution should have been amended. even though this would be a trivial fix. People seem so resistant to the idea of amending the Constitution when it's manifestly out of date, preferring to re-interpret. And in this case it applies to textual conservatives, who suddenly find themselves going all living document.

[Dan Schiavetta]

So Congress can control TV and radio because they’re not “the press” (First Amendment)? After all the 1A was never amended to add those quite different media.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The anti-Air Force position isn’t that the U.S. military can’t incorporate aircraft and the other weapons systems used by the Air Force. Instead, it’s that the constitution only authorizes congress to create two different military services (an army and a navy), and so those weapons need to be allocated to one (or both) of them, not placed in a third, unauthorized service.

[David Nieporent]

The constitution authorizes congress to create multiple armies.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The argument isn’t that the Air Force is part of the army. (Okay, I guess captcrisis did make that argument, but obviously it’s wrong.) Rather, the argument is that it’s army—one of the armies that congress is express.y empowered to raise. To my knowledge, Congress and DOD have always treated the Air Force as subject to the two year appropriation limit. See, e.g., Appropriations for Air Force, 40 Ops. Atty. Gen. 555 (1948) (recognizing limit but concluding it did not preclude appropriation to purchase aircraft, relying on 1904 opinion on army procurement).

[Noscitur a sociis]

Just missed the edit window. The second sentence should read:

Rather, the argument is that it’s an army—one of the multiple armies that congress is expressly empowered to raise.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks.

(though this discussion is peripheral -- or whatever is the superlative of peripheral!)

[David Nieporent]

Technically correct is the best kind of correct; technically incorrect is the worst. The Air Force is an army.

[SRG]

The Air Force is an army.

Except that it isn't, just as the navy isn't an army.

[David Nieporent]

Except that it is. Provide a definition of army that excludes the Air Force.

Not only is your position anti-dictionarial, but it's anti-historical too; the Air Force was simply a branch of the U.S. Army when it was formed. But nothing in history or the constitution says that the U.S. can't have more than one army (indeed, Article I Section 8 gives Congress the power "To raise and support Armies"), and nothing in history or the constitution says that they can't be divided by the weapons they use rather than on some other basis.

[SRG]

Provide a definition of army that excludes the Air Force. An army is that branch of the military that fights on land.

Not only is your position anti-dictionarial, Except it isn’t.

but it’s anti-historical too; the Air Force was simply a branch of the U.S. Army

And now it isn’t.

But nothing in history or the constitution says that the U.S. can’t have more than one army

Indeed not. And it was and is a common enough usage to describe a large enough unit of a nation's army as an army in itself (cf the British Eighth Army).

[David Nieporent]

The navy is an army; it's just that another name for it had become commonplace before the constitution was adopted, so people didn't refer to it that way.

[SRG]

https://www.etymonline.com/word/army
"Originally used of expeditions on sea or land; the restriction to "land force" is by late 18c"

And it's clear that those countries which use the term "army" to encompass all forces are the exception
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army

[David Nieporent]

“Originally used of expeditions on sea or land; the restriction to “land force” is by late 18c”

Yes, that's what I said: the navy is an army, but because a separate term had become commonplace before the constitution was adopted, people didn't (and don't) refer to it that way.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I think a lot airmen would be very surprised to hear that!

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The reality is that the Air Force was given its separate status at the dawn of the Atomic Age, when the priority was getting everything in shape in case of a surprise attack by the Commies (remember Pearl Harbor!). The process of constitutional amendment to create an Air Force would be too laborious, and by the time of ratification the whole country could have been a smoldering cinder. So go ahead and skip the amendment process and get the Air Force up and running. Such, I would guess, would be the thought processes of the time.

To iron out this inconsistency an amendment would be nice, but once you’ve got the Air Force why call its constitutionality into question?

[Dan Schiavetta]

. . . and it was just a reorganization of the long-existing Army Air Corps, rearranging the chain of command below the Secretary of Defense.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Sure, but that’s the part that the Margrave of Azilia and SRG are claiming is unconstitutional.

Could Congress “reorganize” the entire army by “rearranging the chain of command” to make the whole thing part of the navy?

(To be clear, I don’t think the Air Force is unconstitutional. I just don’t think the historical link to the Army Air Corps/Army Air Forces has much to do with it.)

[David Nieporent]

It has everything to do with it. Unless one is prepared to claim that the Army Air Corps itself was unconstitutional — and I cannot fathom what that argument would be — then there's no basis for claiming that it became unconstitutional because they renamed it.

[SRG]

They changed the line of command. The USAF is not subordinate to nor commanded by the US army.

[David Nieporent]

The USAF is not subordinate to nor commanded by the US army.

Not "the" US army; a US army.

And The constitution doesn't say anything about any of those considerations. It says that the President is CinC, and he is — of the USAF as well as other US armies.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Now do the Marine Corps. And the Coast Guard!

[Dan Schiavetta]

And the Space Force! (how come the Framers didn’t anticipate that! — after Jefferson and Adams saw the first successful hot-air balloon launch in France in 1783, they could have at least urged the creation of a Balloon Force — unfortunately neither was at the Convention)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB32OLW7suA

[ReaderY]

But Congress listened. The Hot Air Force takes a very active part in Congress’ proceedings to this day.