Supreme Court

Inspired by poot's comment in a prior thread, I went to FindLaw.com and did my own search.

All I was able to come up with were the following three cases:

United States v. Drayton et al
Florida v. Bostick
Florida v. Rodriguez

The thrust of which is that police can ask to search persons on public transportation, but that the passengers have a fourth amendment right to refuse the search. No surprise there. I honestly don't think that there is any precedent for whether refusing to submit to a search means that you can be denied access to public transportation.

In what is at least a partial victory for the rule of law and decency against George W. Bush, the Supreme Court ruled today that the Bush administration cannot deny terrorism suspects access to the legal system by labling them "enemy combatants" (ABCNews).

This is good news for the detainees in Cuba, as I don't doubt that many are innocent, but also good news for U.S. citizens, whom the Bush administration wants to trample:

The administration also must take extra precautions when it apprehends U.S. citizens and accuses them of being combatants. Those citizens are entitled to some rights like traditional criminal suspects.

So far, I have been too lazy to read the ruling in its entirety, but I would hope that this would mean that it is no longer legal for the government to secretly kidnap U.S. citizens without charging them or informing anyone of their whereabouts.

Which, you know, sounds like a step forward to me.

I'm sure everyone knows by now that the Supreme Court rejected Mr. Newdow's petition to have the words "under God" stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance.

I'm sure that everyone also knows that the reason had nothing to do with the merits of the case, the court instead decided that Newdow didn't have standing to file the case.

I think the justices of the Supreme Court are shirking their duties here. I don't even particularly care whether they decide that having "under God" in the pledge is constitutional or not, I just want them to stand up and decide.

Since when did the court let standing get in the way of making a decision it wanted to make? We don't have to look back any further than Bush v. Gore in 2000 to see that they don't let it get in the way. There is absolutely no legal way, no matter how twisted the language, that Bush had standing to file the case. And yet... Here we are.

The United States Supreme Court declined without comment to intervene in Massachusetts' issuance of marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples beginning on Monday (Boston Globe).

There's nothing really to add, other than it seems that only God himself could prevent the marriages from occurring at this point.

The court cases will be heard on the merits at a later date.