Today in Supreme Court History: September 29, 2005

9/29/2005: Chief Justice Roberts takes oath.

Chief Justice John Roberts

 

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Smith v. Richey, 89 S.Ct. 54 (decided September 29, 1968): Another soldier challenging callup to active duty as violating the Ready Reserve Act, for which Douglas notes there are “substantial and unresolved questions”. Smith was going to be shipped out the next day “to the Asian theater” and Douglas “hesitates to act” but since the Ninth Circuit had denied a stay, Douglas grants it, keeping the soldier at Hamilton Air Force Base. (No information on what happened to this case, but the Ready Reserve Act, a/k/a the Military Selective Service Act, 50 U.S.C. §451 et seq., amended in 1967 to narrow the conscientious objector exception, has always passed Constitutional muster.)

Chamber of Commerce of U.S. v. Legal Aid Society of Alamada County, 423 U.S. 1309 (decided September 29, 1975): The last decision by the stroke-felled Douglas, who embarrassed himself at oral argument of an application two weeks previously by being “out of it” but apparently was on the ball for this one. Here he refuses to stay a protective order, noting that disclosure of demographic information on federal contractors collected by the EEOC is prohibited by statute and cannot be disclosed by another agency that ended up with the information.

Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (decided September 29, 1958): full Court refuses to stay Little Rock desegregation order; Governor and state legislature are bound by decisions of District Court

[Frank Drackman]

Love how Douglas pulled a George Constanza, continuing to show up after he'd quit, until they changed the locks.

[Estragon]

At least Costanza knew he was fired. The more apt comparison is to Fred Trump.

[Kleppe]

TDS is a serious condition. Seek antipsychotics.

[Estragon]

Bite me

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Douglas on the other hand did "decide" things later on:

On this list, he had some votes at least as late as October 14th, including a statement summarizing his views.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/years/1975

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thanks.
His last opinion (a concurrence) was on November 12, the day he retired. I’ll post my comment on it when the day rolls around.

[verochkax]

He's a huge piece of shit. He has done nothing to rein in the left's abuses of the Constitution.

[MoreCurious]

Your first sentence is okay, but I've fixed the second sentence for you: He has done nothing to rein in the right's abuses of the Constitution.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Why can't it be both? Do you fix partisanship with more partisanship? Do you believe racism in the name of anti-racism is not racism?

[AmosArch]

We have an Supreme Court appointed overwhelmingly by ‘far right worse than 10 trillion hitlers combined republican presidents’ and what we’ve ended up with is a body that sometimes rules with the left and sometimes rules with the right to the point where its handed the left some pretty considerable victories. Seems pretty gaslighty or delusional to act like the Dems haven’t walked out of losing the Supreme Court battle to such an extreme extent pretty well and its Handmaiden’s Tale 10x in real life just because an overwhelmingly Republican SC doesn’t rule the way they want 100% of the time.

Given the Dems track record I doubt we’d be seeing mushy left moderates in the vein of Roberts, Kav, Barrett who would give any conservatives the time of day on a leftwing Court.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Justice Stewart’s famous line about knowing it when he sees it recently was referenced. He later provided a bit more teeth to defining hard core pornography.

But he was largely right the first time. And his interpretation works for multiple legal tests. How exactly does one determine “beyond a reasonable doubt” if not by a certain gut feeling, which sometimes is obvious one way or the other?

The film was the Jeanne Moreau classic “The Lovers,” and to call this obscenity (roughly a “dirty film”) is ridiculous. It is a French art film with only one brief risqué scene.

If you want daring, check out Peyton Place or God’s Little Acre. The second book particularly has some dirty scenes. Never saw the film but unless they cut a lot, it must have too.

The Supreme Court already said that portrayal of adultery was acceptable. Multiple Hollywood films were sexier and naughtier than this one. The dissenters didn’t explain otherwise except for one reference to some advertising about how “frank” and “daring” the whole thing was.

I watched the film again. Jeanne Moreau is beautiful as was the B&W print. The film itself is a tad boring — like her life before quite suddenly she falls in love, perhaps since the guy wasn’t a phony asshole like the two guys she was with before.

Notable too, perhaps, that Moreau didn’t shave her armpits. That sort of thing might get you in trouble in Japan.

[Dan Schiavetta]

My comment on June 22:

Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (decided June 22, 1964): The obscenity case wherein Potter Stewart says, “I know it when I see it.” He is referring to “hard-core pornography”. But at issue here is a 1958 French film called “Les Amants” (“The Lovers”). (It’s on youtube at www. youtube.com/ watch?v=_WMb1V4bhA8. There’s no nudity or sex, though at 49:08 we see the lovers waking up in bed. Maybe the supposed obscenity is in the dialog -- I don’t speak French. The film seems mostly set in Algeria; see it just for the cinematography, which is beautiful.) Anyway, the Court (including Stewart) holds it to be not obscene.

P.S. Unshaved armpits was the norm for women when I went to college (late 70's). Nobody thought it was gross.

[TwelveInchPianist]

From Potter Stewart's concurrence:

I have reached the conclusion, which I think is confirmed at least by negative implication in the Court's decisions since Roth and Alberts, that, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The film is set in France.

Near the end of the montage, there was implied lovemaking (probably less than a minute) & nudity in a bathtub (quick). You do not truly see anything though if you squint you see the top of her breasts.

For possessing and exhibiting this, he was fined “$500 on the first count and $2,000 on the second, and was sentenced to the workhouse if the fines were not paid.” This is not exactly chump change today, more so in the early 1960s.

I don’t think body hair was as much the norm in early 1960s America, at least for a well off wife of someone running a newspaper. It likely was more normal in France.

It worked on her.

[ducksalad]

Started college in 1979. It was never "the" norm, but it was somewhat less rare sight. Probably had more to do with the prevalence of tube tops than the percentage of razor users.

But then you probably went to school up someplace up north.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yes, and I hung out with Women’s Studies types. Leg hair too.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The other Justice Roberts:

https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/owen-roberts/

[Dan Schiavetta]

He burned all his papers. What was he hiding?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

His stripper income.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The REAL reason why he switched in time to save nine.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Maybe he was just out of kindling.

[not guilty]

R.I.P. Kris Kristofferson.

A great songwriter.