Today in Supreme Court History: January 14, 1780

1/14/1780: Justice Henry Baldwin's birthday.

Justice Henry Baldwin

 

Comments

[apedad]

O/T

Jack Smith's report.

He sent it to Trump's team for review and they also responded.

https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/76c2c1e8fe2e5ae7/d2d77a9c-full.pdf

[Commenter_XY]

The next 4 years will be a political roller coaster. 🙂

[apedad]

And why is the next four years any different than the past 260+ years?

[Jerry B.]

The hills and loops will be scarier?

[Mr. Bumble]

...and in other special counsel news,but mostly ignored, David Weiss released his report on the Hunter Biden investigations and prosecutions.

[David Nieporent]

That's half of Jack Smith's report; the other volume is not being released at this time. (And since Trump is corrupt, it will almost certainly never be released.)

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Trump's second term will be a big obstruction of justice exercise.

[Mr. Bumble]

Define "justice".

[Drewski]

Calm down, Socrates.

[Dan Schiavetta]

He has already, several times, gotten away with greater obstructions of justice than that which forced Nixon to resign. We can except almost weekly instances now.

[apedad]

[Commenter_XY]

Hot take on emerging ceasefire agreement with hamas....if all Americans are not returned in the first round of repatriations, the deal is not worth doing.

[Mr. Bumble]

From this reporting it doesn't seem like a deal worth doing:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/01/such-a-deal-7.php

[Bob from Ohio]

"deal is not worth doing"

Illustrates the folly, once again, of Israel not having the death penalty for convicted terrorists. Encourages hostage taking for zero benefit.

[Martinned2]

Because an organisation that uses suicide bombers would be deterred by the death penalty?

[Malika the Maiz]

This antisemite doesn’t care about Jewish lives.

[Commenter_XY]

True to form, hamas is busy trying to kill the agreement.

[Martinned2]

Hamas already signed up: https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-01-14-2025-a1495c0f4f13102903ce31a862c49baa

[Commenter_XY]

And is trying to change the deal before the ink is even dry.

[A Japanese Student]

In another Japanese court news (something Prof. Orin Kerr might be interested in), today a judge has acquitted a Yakuza boss of computer fraud. Prosecutors sought 18 months in prison.

The crime? Using your wife's toll-colection card to obtain discounts (of 1140 yen, or about $8.50 back then). Prosecutors argued that this violated the contract with the card company, which prohibits sharing the card with others, and does not offer its service to members of organized crime groups. The judge apparently said that this crime is too minor to warrant a conviction. However, other courts have convicted and sent people to prison for this exact conduct.

It appears that the United States is not alone in interpreting its fraud statutes in absurdly expansive ways.

https://www.asahi.com/articles/AST1G3RL8T1GPTIL00QM.html?ref=rss

[A Japanese Student]

2001 House of Councillors Election Malapportionment Case (Grand Bench, decided January 14, 2004): in 9-6 vote, holds that malapportionment of up to 506% did not exceed legislative discretion; each prefecture constituted one district for House of Councillors election (along with nationwide PR district) and had even number of seats (as HoC elections are staggered). Plaintiffs sought the election to be voided - because that is the only way to bring a malapportionment claim (injunctive reliefs are unavailable). Notably, this case had an unusual number of concurrences and dissents:
Concurrence 1 (5 justices): Allowing odd number of seats as plaintiffs suggest would raise constitutional issues (as it would prevent some, but not all, voters from voting in every other cycle); merging rural prefectural districts would be contrary to goals of local autonomy (the Diet did adopt this in 2016.) Concurrence 2 (4 justices): The Diet must do its job. Also, why are precedents balancing Constitutional interests with administrative interests? Concurrence 3 (Justice Kameyama): As a member of the majority in prior cases, I must clarify that I do not support the process they employed. Concurrence 4 (Justice Yokoo): We should start ignoring prefectures that would not be entitled to 2 seats when dividing population by total seats.
Dissent 1 (6 justices): 506% is obviously bad and single paragraph is enough to explain this. Dissent 2 (Justice Fukuda): I'm long an advocate for Wesberry v. Sanders standard. Dissent 3 (Justice Kajitani): I agree. Dissent 4 (Justice Fukasawa): In addition to all that, we should start nullifying elections to punish the legislative branch. We still have half of the members anyway. Dissent 5 (Justice Hamada): I see no reason why odd numbers are bad. In the future we could issue judgment voiding elections conditionally. Dissent 6 (Justice Takii): 200% is the line. Dissent 7 (Justice Izumi): Legislative branch shouldn't be given discretion to dismantle democracy, for it is the prerequisite of the discretion.

[John F. Carr]

When an election is voided, does one district have to rerun the election or does the entire elected body have to stand for election? Is it possible for an elected body to lack a quorum because members' terms have expired and the election of their successors was voided?

[A Japanese Student]

With a caveat that this has obviously never happened: it appears that the entire body has to be re-elected. This is technically fine for the House of Councillors, as it uses staggered election and the quorum is one third of all members. If this were to happen to the House of Representatives, it would become a constitutional crisis - because elections are usually triggered by dissolution rather than term expiration, there are zero Representatives to pass a remedial law or amend the Constitution.

In fact, malapporionment in the House of Representatives was so bad that the Court actually ruled the elections unconstitutional twice (in 1976 and 1985). In both cases, the Court declined to void the election for this precise reason, even though there was no statutory basis for such inconsistency.

[Martinned2]

For comparison, the last German federal election was re-run only in specific polling stations in Berlin: https://www.bundeswahlleiterin.de/en/info/presse/mitteilungen/bundestagswahl-2021/01_23_wahlwiederholung-in-berlin.html

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Have partisan gerrymandering issues been raised in Japanese courts?

[A Japanese Student]

Probably not, because partisan gerrymandering is close to impossible. There is no official party registration (or for that matter, voter registration) that would provide the data. Election returns are usually reported per city, so that wouldn't help either. There is no sizable group of racial minorities that would vote in the same way, say, Black people do. The continued tolerance of malapportionment, ironically, means that they can draw almost all districts using city/town bounds without any adjustment. And finally, although districts are established by law, they usually follow the recommendations of an independent commission.

[A Japanese Student]

If the question instead is "whether the election laws in general favor one party", I'd say yes. Strict limits on electioneering favor the incumbents. As left-wing parties are forever split between the center-left party, the Communist, and some other minor parties, first-past-the-post system becomes a major advantage for the right-wing "Liberal Democrats" (which has governed Japan almost continuously since its formation in 1955).

That said, the LDP dominance only occurs because voters want them. I don't expect them to fail in the near future unless they score another own goal.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (decided January 14, 1963): the leading “fruit of the poisonous tree” case, where statements made after unlawful entry as to drug sale were excluded, as well as heroin seized; but voluntary confession made when defendant went to police station several days later was admissible because the “taint” was sufficiently “attenuated” (facts too complicated to summarize here)

Mississippi ex rel. Hood v. AU Optronics Corp., 571 U.S. 161 (decided January 14, 2014): defendant can’t automatically remove class action brought by State suing on behalf of its citizens (alleged illegal price-fixing as to LCD screens) because citizens are not specifically named; Class Action Fairness Act (allowing removal) requires at least 100 named claimants

Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117 (decided January 14, 2014): The Court here to everybody’s surprise all but obliterates traditional general (or “doing business in state”) jurisdiction, departing from the International Shoe “fairness” standard and in effect striking down dozens of state jurisdictional statutes. It holds that it’s a violation of Due Process to sue a business anywhere except 1) its state of incorporation, 2) its main place of business, or 3) where the conduct sued upon happened (in other words, only where it’s “at home”). Here, former Argentina citizens alleged that Daimler (actually its subsidiary, Mercedes Benz, but the Court treats them as the same) delivered labor leaders up for torture by reporting them to the Argentina dictatorship. Sotomayor concurs as to lack of jurisdiction but on the grounds that there are obvious better forums, such as Germany (following the Court’s standard reasoning in such situations since Asahi, 1987) and points out that the Court went beyond the arguments presented to it and its holding is a gift to big business. (I.e., if something you buy in Oregon injures you due to the Virginia manufacturer’s design defect, you have to go to Virginia to sue.) Opinion by Ginsburg.

Oregon v. Ice, 555 U.S. 160 (decided January 14, 2009): not a Sixth Amendment violation to have a judge (not a jury) find facts necessary to impose consecutive (instead of concurrent) sentences (here, finding that there were two incidents of burglary and sexual abuse of 11-year-old girl)

Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135 (decided January 14, 2009): evidence found during arrest was admissible even though warrant for the arrest had been recalled; the arresting officer due to a recordkeeping error had not been told about it

[SRG2]

Herring encourages not informing officers that a warrant has been recalled. In general such rulings provide incentives for police to err, at the arrestee's expense.

[Noscitur a sociis]

It provides an incentive for the police to act reasonably. That seems like an appropriate and socially beneficial goal.

[SRG2]

How does letting stand a search unsupported by a warrant (owing to police error) incentivise reasonable behaviour?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Because the mistake is excusable only if it’s reasonable. If it’s not reasonable to rely on the database, then the search wouldn’t be justified. On the other hand, if the database is reliable enough that it is reasonable to rely on it, applying the exclusionary rule does nothing except encourage the police to be unreasonably cautious about trusting it.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The dissent (by Clark) in the first case argued that "The Court has made a Chinese puzzle out of this simple case involving four participants: Hom Way, Blackie Toy, Johnny Yee and "Sea Dog" Sun."

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Justice Henry Baldwin replaced the long serving Justice Bushrod Washington (George's nephew). He was a mercurial character:

Baldwin may have suffered from mental illness, and Justice Story wrote that "he is partially deranged." He was subject to episodes of boisterous and offensive behavior, and his relationship with the other justices was often strained. In his final years he was even violent on the bench and could not be controlled. He was so deeply in debt when he died that his friends had to take up a collection to pay for his burial.

https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/supremecourt/personality/robes_baldwin.html

He thought about retiring early but President Jackson talked him out of it. Baldwin repeatedly had separate opinions and dissents clashing with his colleagues. He wrote about his views in "A General View of the Origin and Nature of the Constitution and Government of the United States," disagreeing with Joseph Story's commentaries on various points.

[not guilty]

Is Bushrod Washington the First Cousin of his Country?

[Dan Schiavetta]

His brother Pushrod was a mechanic.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and you two nimrods.

[Syd Henderson]

The Nephew of His Country.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"He was so deeply in debt when he died that his friends had to take up a collection to pay for his burial."

"Will you donate a dollar to bury a lawyer?"

"Here's two dollars - bury two of them."

[Mr. Bumble]

..or as Moms Mabley said:
He's dead. Good.

[Syd Henderson]

I don't know if it's appropriate in Justice Baldwin's case, but my choice phrase is "He left the world a better place."