Today in Supreme Court History: May 18, 1860

5/18/1860: Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party presidential nomination.

President Abraham Lincoln

5/18/1896: Plessy v. Ferguson decided.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (decided May 18, 1896): the notorious “separate but equal” decision: segregated train cars are not denial of Equal Protection; black people were not denied transportation because they had their own cars (Harlan, in dissent, famously decries “the damage this day done”; he also says that the white race would always dominate, which my Con Law professor took as a declaration of racism, though a more insightful person would see it as a way to mitigate the shock of what he was saying to an overwhelmingly pro-segregationist public)

Comptroller of Treasury of Maryland v. Wynne, 575 U.S. 242 (decided May 18, 2015): Maryland must allow its taxpayers a credit for income tax paid to other states; otherwise it creates inter-state protectionism in violation of “Dormant Commerce Clause”

Saint Francis College v. Al-Khazraji, 481 U.S. 604 (decided May 18, 1987): persons of Arab descent can bring §1983 claim (professor alleged denied tenure due to being Arabic)

Bousley v. United States, 524 U.S. 614 (decided May 18, 1998): defendant can take advantage of post-conviction change in law (Bailey v. United States, 1995, holding that possession of firearm is not an aggravating element under drug trafficking statute if firearm is unrelated to the trafficking)

Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith, 598 U.S. 508 (decided May 18, 2023): Warhol exceeded “fair use” of photo of (the artist once and now again known as) Prince when he derived works from his silkscreen of photograph meant for one-time use in magazine (i.e., derivative of derivative, which pretty much sums up Warhol’s life and work)

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (decided May 18, 2009): plaintiff’s suit for governmental misconduct (that Bush Administration officials condoned post-9/11 discrimination against Muslims by detaining them without evidence) dismissed because no specific acts alleged

St. Louis I.M.&S.R. Co. v. Taylor, 210 U.S. 281 (decided May 18, 1908): it is not an unconstitutional delegation of Congressional power for the Interstate Commerce Commission (remember them? the first regulatory agency!) to set standards for height of railroad couplings

Talton v. Mayes, 163 U.S. 376 (decided May 18, 1896): Fifth Amendment protections do not apply to Native American tried and sentenced to be hanged by tribal court

Flynt v. Ohio, 451 U.S. 619 (decided May 18, 1981): Supreme Court can’t review nonfinal state supreme court decisions (here, an obscenity prosecution where the Ohio Supreme Court had dismissed a defense of selective prosecution) where no federal policy is undermined by letting the litigation continue to final judgment

Amgen, Inc. v. Sanofi, 598 U.S. 594 (decided May 18, 2023): patent for antibodies to fight cholesterol invalid for lack of enablement (i.e., not specific enough to “enable a workman or other person skilled in the art” to make it; this is a quote from the Patent Act of 1790)

Dick v. New York Life Ins., 359 U.S. 437 (decided May 18, 1959): in a diversity case involving a life insurance policy, jury should have been allowed to determine whether death by gunshot was accidental or suicide; under North Dakota law death is presumed accidental and evidence of suicidal intent was not conclusive (the opinion has a lot of detail about prairie farm life in 1955, softening green ears of corn in bathtubs so that livestock will eat it, milking cows, making sausages, etc.)

McCaughn v. Hershey Chocolate Co., 283 U.S. 488 (decided May 18, 1931): Hershey Co. entitled to recover tax payments because chocolate was excluded from definition of taxable “candy”

[ThePublius]

Thank you, captcrisis! Much better than Josh's post. 🙂

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Can anyone fault a Republican for mentioning the most recent time an American could be proud to be a Republican?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

You sure got us beat. The last time I saw you mention how proud you were of the Democrats was when that topless trannie was running around the White House snorting Hunter’s coke in the White House library.

Oh, you also mentioned how proud you were to have a LGBTQP minority finally in the White House, child-sniffing & daughter molesting gets Slow Joe 2 stamps on the LGBTQP bingo card.

That’s much more recent than Lincoln!

edit:
I just remembered you also had talked about how proud you were for the Democrats saddling America’s young with massive student loan then waiting a decade to offer to bail them out when their suffering became too great because of Democrat inflation.

That’s classic government! Create massive suffering so you can yoke more dependents onto your plantation. Proud Democrat ideology in action!! The more plebians on the State teat = more pleabians controlled by the Globalist elites and wealthy. Huzzah! Utopia! The world is ruled by globalist elites! Finally! Heaven on Earth!

[Dan Schiavetta]

Muted

[Michael P]

Was it his screen name that suggested he might not have anything valuable to say?

On a somewhat meta tangent, should one discuss who is on one’s mute list? I try not to, for several reasons: I do change my mind and either temporarily or in the long term unmute people; declaring who I mute seems like a non-substantial way to signal virtue; and it makes things personal rather than about the topic at hand.

My mindset is colored significantly by having spent time on Fark, where discussing one’s mute list is one of many ways to get a comment summarily deleted. I disagree with a lot of their moderation policies, but I agree that it’s not “best practice” to say who one has muted.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Muted". Like anyone cares. Why the need to announce that you're a dipshit?

[Dan Schiavetta]

My time is valuable, and I think you will agree that the time I put in here is of some use. I also value constructive, interesting or funny comments. But my time is wasted if I have to read through juvenile, misogynist, racist shit.

Sometimes I come to this blog finding that I haven’t signed in and to my surprise someone I muted says something worthwhile. But that’s rare. There’s too much noise to signal ratio.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Wow, you're such a good netizen!

I'm so glad you signaled all your wonderful, glorious virtue, otherwise no one would know!

NCWNN!!

(that's 'Keep Changing the e-World, Noble Netizen' for you normies who don't edit wikipedia articles!!)

[Mr. Bumble]

"But my time is wasted if I have to read through juvenile, misogynist, racist shit."
...and why do you think you're "compelled" to read anything on this site.

[Estragon]

My only mute is BCD and the subsequent iterations, of which this is one. Bumble is getting close but I still like the comedy value of him trying to add something substantive every once in a while and stepping on his own dick. Plus, it’s usually not more than 2 sentences.

[Mr. Bumble]

Oh please, don't keep me in suspense. Go ahead and pull the trigger and mute me.

[Estragon]

Beclown yourself less often and I just might!

[Michael P]

Oh, I am not quibbling at all with your decision to mute that person. I make very similar ones. I'm only questioning whether it's helpful to announce who one mutes.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I know I’m looking like a fuddy duddy schoolteacher here but I think someone should know when he’s being admonished.

[Mr. Bumble]

He/she obviously doesn’t care.
I don't get muting when it is just as easy to ignore it but if it makes you happy then mute away.

[Estragon]

You don’t get muting because you’re a troll. Trolls never mute anyone. You’re not here to be informed.

[Mr. Bumble]

Who's is the troll? Back again and saying nothing.

[Estragon]

It’s awfully big words from someone who is here posting day in, day out, juvenile retorts of 1-2 sentences insulting other commenters. What percentage of the posts do you actually read? The attempts at substantive contributions have been laughable or clearly regurgitated. I would encourage you to engage in offline hobbies rather than making brain dead quips at people about child molestation because they mentioned the Boy Scouts

[Mr. Bumble]

...and yet you feel the need to read and comment on my comments. What does that say about you?

[Michael P]

I don't think you are being fuddy duddy at all. On the other hand, I think that a response like "Muted" is what trolls are looking for, whereas a short rejoinder like "That many tangential, personal attacks show you have no actual argument" is both an effective admonishment and more likely to sway anyone who fell for the specious ranting. I also don't think trolls deserve an indication that their misbehavior is effective, even if it was just to the point of getting people to mute them.

[Malika the Maiz]

How did Democrats "saddle America’s young with massive student loan (debt?)"? And haven't Democrats pushed for student debt relief before our current inflationary issues? And wouldn't the proper thing for someone who has "saddled" others with a burden be to act to remove said burden? I'm not in favor of most student debt relief policy I see proffered these days but there seems to be some coherency problems with your comment.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

I guess your ignorance looks like my incoherence.

Anyone whose been exposed to decision theory or strategy design would understand that a fundamental characteristic of a good strategy is if it's targeting the right problem.

The people in government created the student debt system. Made it unsheddable. Created the incentives to inflate tuition and burden young adults and then announced a big solution by socialismizing, w/e making it socialismtastic is what I'm trying to say, it in 2010.

Now given this greater context: Does a one-time election year hand-out solve the problem of fixing the system that creates crushing student loan debt? Or does it solve some other problem?

We should expect that the Democrat elites aren't as uninformed about things and stuff like you are, so let's assume they are competent and knowledgeable of policy and policy impacts.

They clearly wouldn't put out a huge hundred billion dollar proposal, and even circumvent the constitution and SCOTUS rulings to deliver, a solution that doesn't solve the nominal problem. So they are trying to solve some other problem.

What other problem might a lagging party and a disliked president be trying to solve by showering particular voter groups with billions of dollars in an election year?

[Krayt]

Easy loans are win win win! Students get loans. Pols get to brag on college participation rates, and universities get to jack up rates well ahead of inflation year after year, sometimes double digits.

What is outrageous as an up front increase seems little on a monthly payment plan.

This was unsustainable and headed for collapse and was predicted 15 or 20 years ago. Loan givers didn’t care because government guaranteed to pick up the pieces when the eventual collapse happens.

And here we are.

We are men and women of science! Theories which make predictions which come true decades later are proven out. We are men and women of science!

It took about 100 years for Einstein's prediction of gravity waves to be proven via detection. It took about 20 years for unsustainable easy debting to induce government to pick up the pieces, the plan all along.

[Krayt]

"That wasn't the plan all along!"

Yes it was. That was the prediction! We are men and women of science!

[Frank Drackman]

Problem with proving General Relativity(Special is easy if you had Junior High Geometry) is you’re measuring such small differences(ever seen the actual star photos from “Einstein’s Eclipse” who can tell what you’re looking at?) Gravitational lensing is close, but who’s got a Radio Telescope handy?

Frank

[Michael P]

It's not hard to indirectly prove general relativity with a smartphone: if the map shows a blue dot in the right place yesterday and today, then the clocks on the satellites are running at the speed predicted by general relativity (minus an offsetting change in speed predicted by special relativity).

https://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/pogge.1/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html

[bernard11]

I don't think putting the student loan problems into a political frame is at all helpful. In fact I think it's quite harmful, because it makes it more difficult to fix the problems, or avoid them in the future.

It seems to me that two things are likely to be true:

1. The program was badly managed, across the years, across Administrations, etc.

2. The program did a great deal of good by enabling people who could not otherwise afford it to attend college.*

How all that nets out I don't know, but I do suspect that significant improvements are possible, and that we ought to be focusing on that.

(Disclaimer - I myself had a "National Defense Student Loan" - a different program than the more recent ones - for college. Eisenhower - no fool - liked throwing the word "Defense" into the names of bills he felt were important.)

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yes, I was a NDSL recipient too.

[Frank Drackman]

Me to, spent 90% of it on a Motorcycle, Blaupunkt Stereo for my car, fast women, 4 Head VCR, other 10% I wasted on school stuff

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

You don’t want this topic to be politicized because it irrefutably demonstrates your politicians are downright evil.

They clearly acknowledge that the system is creating a national crisis level burden and harm on the citizens (not illegals, naturally, they work very hard to get their tuition paid). They admit and acknowledge that the system is in crisis.

What do they do to fix or reform the system.

Nothing. Literally nothing. They know you are suffering and they know future citizens are destined to suffer, but they won’t do a single thing to reform the system that's the cause of all those problems.

They will, however, pull out all the stops to give out some free Uncle Sugar gibs in the run up to an election.

They want your children and the next generation to suffer from crippling student loan debt so they will vote for them when they make fake actions in an election year to make you think you’ll get some relief.

That’s as cynical as it is evil. But that’s also the most obvious interpretation of their actions.

[BrotherMovesOn]

"You don’t get muting because you’re a troll. Trolls never mute anyone. You’re not here to be informed."

If this board trades Dr. Ed for this absolute cretin then there is a clear net loss here.
None of the arcana of 1960s railroad rolling stock coupling technology, the fantastic plageri ... "borrowing" of maritime escapades from Edward Rowe Snow, no more predicting long gun toting patriots manning the Piscataqua River Bridge, Snow plow backup. Hallucinating Boston landmarks. It was all free.
Now we have Bumble, with his GED, logging in to call practitioners " douches" and "dipshits" just because they support a different political candidate than he does.
His grandchildren must be so proud.

[Commenter_XY]

the opinion has a lot of detail about prairie farm life in 1955, softening green ears of corn in bathtubs so that livestock will eat it, milking cows, making sausages, etc.

This sounds interesting. Where do you guys link to old SCOTUS opinions?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Scotuslink.com will take you directly to a PDF of the case in the U.S. reports. You can either enter the cite on the site, or just put the volume and page number after slashes in the url.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks for this! Perhaps it's because my law school education was still mostly pre-computer, but there's still something about reading a decision in its original, official printed format.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I find the cases (and decide whether to post about them and look up if they’ve been overruled etc.) by using Westlaw, a paid research service we lawyers use in our work. Then I Google them to add information.

But if you just want to read the case, Google the case name and citation and it will show up on supreme.justia.com

[Frank Drackman]

Honest Abe, GOAT POTUS, and I say that as a Southerner who went to Jefferson Davis High School.

Frank

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Andrew Jackson and MVB and Polk and Lincoln and Sam Houston and FP Blair and Fremont and Benton were Founding Fathers 2.0…the Founders as they should have been.

[Syd Henderson]

I prefer yesterday's COTD decision to todays.:)

[NvEric]

Absolutely important !!!
"St. Louis I.M.&S.R. Co. v. Taylor, 210 U.S. 281 (decided May 18, 1908): it is not an unconstitutional delegation of Congressional power for the Interstate Commerce Commission (remember them? the first regulatory agency!) to set standards for height of railroad couplings[.]"

Imagine a lawmaker trying to figure something technical and extremely important as this. Not saying they're dumb, but our lawmakers do need help in understanding our technical world. Even so, technical people still get it wrong, as in the use of metric and imperial measurements for a Mars spacecraft which slammed into that planet.

However, regulatory agencies need better oversight and more conditional rules in their process of regulation making, such as, "Is it a good regulation?" Or, "Is it just busy work?" Or' "Are you guys out of your freaking minds?" kinds of friendly oversight, even to the question of "Is this necessary?" and "What are the financial impacts of the regulation?"

Relying on technology, to an excess, to where choke-points are formed is 'bad.' But, human societies are eventually self-regulating, after the decline and fall. There is that.