I hate the outcome, but the majority made the right call on this one.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for many workers to sue their employers for discrimination in pay, insisting in a 5-to-4 decision on a tight time frame to file such cases. The dissenters said the ruling ignored workplace realities.

The decision came in a case involving a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., the only woman among 16 men at the same management level, who was paid less than any of her colleagues, including those with less seniority. She learned that fact late in a career of nearly 20 years — too late, according to the Supreme Court’s majority.

The court held on Tuesday that employees may not bring suit under the principal federal anti-discrimination law unless they have filed a formal complaint with a federal agency within 180 days after their pay was set. The timeline applies, according to the decision, even if the effects of the initial discriminatory act were not immediately apparent to the worker and even if they continue to the present day.

And you know what -- the dissenters were correct -- the ruling ignores workplace realities. however, so does the statute in question, and judges are supposed to be bound by the statutes they examine. They are not a super-legislature which corrects the bad judgement and faulty craftsmanship of the lawmakers.

Captain Ed puts it very well -- and I wish i had written these words.

And the response to that for the Court should be: Write better laws. It is not the job of the Supreme Court to rewrite poorly-constructed legislation. Congress obviously intended for a short window of opportunity for these complaints, for whatever reason they had. The Supreme Court follows the law, unless the law is expressly unconstitutional. Fine-tuning dumb laws and badly-written legislation isn't the purview of the Court, but rather the responsibility of Congress.

Obviously, Congress needs to revisit this piece of legislation. Thankfully, we now have a Court which forces America's elected representatives to do their job, primarily by refusing to legislate from the bench. This gives hope that the last fifty years of judicial legislation have come to an end.

I hope Congress revisits this statute quickly and corrects the flaw in it. That will allow justice in the future, though it cannot undo the injustice caused by their previous sloppy work.

UPDATE: Why am I not surprised that the New York Times wants the court to serve as a super-legislature?

Posted by: Greg at 02:39 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Louisiana Supreme Court upheld a death sentence for the rape of an eight-year-old girl yesterday, setting up a real interesting constitutional challenge.

Louisiana's Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a man may be executed for raping an 8-year-old girl, and lawyers say his case may become the test for whether the nation's highest court upholds the death penalty for someone who rapes a child.
Both sides say the sentence for Patrick Kennedy, 42, could expand a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that held the death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The high court said then that its ruling applied only to adult victims.
Attorney Jelpi Picou, director of the New Orleans-based Capital Appeals Project, said he will ask the Louisiana Supreme Court for a rehearing and, if rejected, will go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"As horrid as (rape) is and as harshly as we believe it should be condemned, death is inappropriate in this case," Picou said.
Louisiana law allows the death penalty for the aggravated rape of someone less than 12 years old.
"He's the only person in the United States on death row for non-homicide rape," Picou said.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. Given the 1977 ruling, which effectively held that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution had evolved to prohibit capital punishment for rape, the Louisiana statute and this decision would appear to be in direct contradiction of the controlling legal authority on the matter. However, as we all know, there exists the notion that the Constitution evolves and grows and changes over time, making it a rather fluid standard by which to determine the constitutionality of any state action. Indeed, that 1977 decision itself was a part of a series of “evolving standard” decisions related to the death penalty – for certainly the Framers of the Bill of Rights and those who ratified it did not view capital punishment as something to be reserved for homicide cases alone.

And therein lies the crux of the matter. If one concedes the legitimacy of the 1977 decision, then one must admit that the Constitution grows and changes over time. But if that is the case, then there is no legitimate basis for striking down the Louisiana statute and overruling the Louisiana high court. After all, one can legitimately argue that the Eighth Amendment has evolved again, and now allows capital punishment for some, if not all, sex crimes. After all, society’s attitudes towards and experiences with sex criminals over the last three decades have resulted in an entirely new way of viewing predatory perverts who sexually victimize children. A new consensus has emerged in our society about the need to harshly punish such individuals, and the Louisiana law is one example of that trend (at least six state have similar laws on the books or will shortly). If the standard can evolve and change in a liberal direction to protect violent child abusers from a just punishment, why can it not transform back to the original intent of those who wrote and adopted it? To argue that it cannot is to expose the illegitimacy of the “living Constitution” theory of “evolving standards” – and expose it as nothing more than legislating from the bench to impose liberal dogma that would never be accepted by We the People.

On the other hand, an originalist understanding of the Constitution and Bill of Rights would surely allow the state of Louisiana to impose death as a just punishment for violent pedophiles like Patrick Kennedy – and any other sex criminal as well.

In other words, there is no legitimate reason for the Supreme Court not to overturn the 1977 decision – other than a raw judicial arrogance that places the rights of rapists above justice for their victims.

Interestingly enough, Jonah Goldberg takes on the same philosophical issue in a pair of posts (related to a different context) at NRO’s The Corner.

Posted by: Greg at 08:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Louisiana Supreme Court upheld a death sentence for the rape of an eight-year-old girl yesterday, setting up a real interesting constitutional challenge.

Louisiana's Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a man may be executed for raping an 8-year-old girl, and lawyers say his case may become the test for whether the nation's highest court upholds the death penalty for someone who rapes a child.
Both sides say the sentence for Patrick Kennedy, 42, could expand a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that held the death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The high court said then that its ruling applied only to adult victims.
Attorney Jelpi Picou, director of the New Orleans-based Capital Appeals Project, said he will ask the Louisiana Supreme Court for a rehearing and, if rejected, will go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"As horrid as (rape) is and as harshly as we believe it should be condemned, death is inappropriate in this case," Picou said.
Louisiana law allows the death penalty for the aggravated rape of someone less than 12 years old.
"He's the only person in the United States on death row for non-homicide rape," Picou said.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. Given the 1977 ruling, which effectively held that the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution had evolved to prohibit capital punishment for rape, the Louisiana statute and this decision would appear to be in direct contradiction of the controlling legal authority on the matter. However, as we all know, there exists the notion that the Constitution evolves and grows and changes over time, making it a rather fluid standard by which to determine the constitutionality of any state action. Indeed, that 1977 decision itself was a part of a series of “evolving standard” decisions related to the death penalty – for certainly the Framers of the Bill of Rights and those who ratified it did not view capital punishment as something to be reserved for homicide cases alone.

And therein lies the crux of the matter. If one concedes the legitimacy of the 1977 decision, then one must admit that the Constitution grows and changes over time. But if that is the case, then there is no legitimate basis for striking down the Louisiana statute and overruling the Louisiana high court. After all, one can legitimately argue that the Eighth Amendment has evolved again, and now allows capital punishment for some, if not all, sex crimes. After all, society’s attitudes towards and experiences with sex criminals over the last three decades have resulted in an entirely new way of viewing predatory perverts who sexually victimize children. A new consensus has emerged in our society about the need to harshly punish such individuals, and the Louisiana law is one example of that trend (at least six state have similar laws on the books or will shortly). If the standard can evolve and change in a liberal direction to protect violent child abusers from a just punishment, why can it not transform back to the original intent of those who wrote and adopted it? To argue that it cannot is to expose the illegitimacy of the “living Constitution” theory of “evolving standards” – and expose it as nothing more than legislating from the bench to impose liberal dogma that would never be accepted by We the People.

On the other hand, an originalist understanding of the Constitution and Bill of Rights would surely allow the state of Louisiana to impose death as a just punishment for violent pedophiles like Patrick Kennedy – and any other sex criminal as well.

In other words, there is no legitimate reason for the Supreme Court not to overturn the 1977 decision – other than a raw judicial arrogance that places the rights of rapists above justice for their victims.

Interestingly enough, Jonah Goldberg takes on the same philosophical issue in a pair of posts (related to a different context) at NROÂ’s The Corner.

Posted by: Greg at 08:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm sure they will just love this guy in prison.

A man who was convicted last year of bringing two teenage runaways to Houston to work as prostitutes was sentenced Wednesday to nearly 22 years in federal prison.

Beaumont native George ``Unique'' Anderson III, 29, received a punishment more severe than the 15-year sentence prescribed under federal guidelines. U.S. District Judge David Hittner added seven years, bringing the sentence to 262 months.

Hittner considered that Anderson's recruitment of the girls exposed them to sexually transmitted diseases and that he was not prosecuted on allegations that he involved three other minors. After his release, he faces a lifetime of supervision and registration as a sex offender.

Anderson spent six years in federal prison for armed robbery before turning to the sex business.

He was accused of selling the sexual favors of a Florida girl and a Beaumont girl, ages 14 and 15, respectively. The girls were arrested on prostitution charges in 2005.

In the first federal conviction for child prostitution in the Southern District of Texas, a jury in September 2006 found Anderson guilty of two counts of sex trafficking of children.

The case was investigated by Project Innocence Lost, a special FBI unit in Houston that aims to rescue children working in the sex industry.

Those who victimize children sexually are scum -- and my great regret is that we have to pay for the care and feeding of this mutt for the next 22 years. A single shot to the back of the head on the courthouse steps immediately following conviction would have been a more appropriate punishment for this guy.

Posted by: Greg at 10:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This guy needs to be sanctioned, disbarred, and removed from the bench over this frivolous, vindictive lawsuit – asking for $67,000,000 over a misplaced pair of pants at the dry cleaners.

A Washington, D.C., dry cleaners says it's their business a longtime customer is taking to the cleaners.

A $10 dry cleaning bill for a pair of trousers has ballooned into a $67 million civil lawsuit.

Plaintiff Roy Pearson, a judge in Washington, D.C., says in court papers that he's been through the ringer over a lost pair of prized pants he wanted to wear on his first day on the bench.

He says in court papers that he has endured "mental suffering, inconvenience and discomfort."

He says he was unable to wear that favorite suit on his first day of work.
He's suing for 10 years of weekend car rentals so he can transport his dry cleaning to another store.

Oh, and by the way – the pants were found three days later, but Pearson has continued his persecution of the owners of the dry cleaning business, Jin and Soo Chung and their son. Oh, and by the way, the pants were found a week after they were dropped off – but Pearson refuses to accept them back, despite their having matching receipt tags and being the right size, color, and brand. Yet the suit continues.

Posted by: Greg at 10:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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