Remember these thieving bitches?

One of them just got three years in the slammer!

Saying she is "an out-of-control drug user," a juvenile court judge on Wednesday ordered Girl Scout cookie-money thief Stefanie Woods confined to a high-security facility for up to three years in order to address substance-abuse and mental-health problems.

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Baker convicted Woods on May 13 of petty theft and two counts of violating probation after a nonjury trial for her role in the stealing of $168 from 9-year-old Girl Scout Gracie Smith outside a Winn-Dixie in suburban Boynton Beach. In a letter to the judge, Gracie urged him to sentence Woods to community service in the form of cleaning up a Girl Scout camp.

Woods was a juvenile at the time of the misdemeanor offense. A girlfriend, also a juvenile, took an envelope containing the cookie sales money and got into a car that sped off with Woods at the wheel. The next day, Woods and her friend boasted and showed off for television camera crews and found themselves making national news.

Woods will remain in a secure juvenile detention facility locally until there is a bed available at a state-run facility at the second-highest security level, as ordered by Baker. That could be a month or two, a Juvenile Justice worker told the judge.

She eventually will be in a prison-like setting where she will undergo a psychological assessment - she's been diagnosed at least once as bipolar - and individual and group therapy. "It is the hope that once and for all, she will address her substance abuse issues," Baker said.

Based on reports he receives, the judge will decide whether Woods remains confined for three years or is released earlier.

She may get out of juvenile detention briefly next week. That's when she's due back in adult court to be sentenced for a "dine-and-dash" incident for skipping out on a Denny's without paying a $25.84 check she incurred with the same friend from the cookie-money theft.

You have to read the string of outrageous claims made by Baker and her lawyer to try to get her leniency -- something which backfired in a big way. Here's hoping that her next court appearance -- on that charge from Denny's -- nets her some additional time.

What a pair of scummy, scuzzy wenches!

Posted by: Greg at 10:42 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I was stunned when I read these words this morning.

Protecting employees from retaliation makes sense, but it is not the province of judges to create such protections on the basis of their own beliefs of what is right or wrong, or even on the basis of their intuitive sense of what Congress meant to do or should have done. And those who today praise the outcome shouldn't be upset if in the future justices read into the law new principles that lead to results they may find less acceptable.

There is a term for what the Washington Post is criticizing – judicial activism. In the past, the paper has been loath to criticize it. Did I miss some major earthshaking event that allowed this editorial to make it into print – or is their editorial page going conservative?

What next -- a call for strict constructionalism and the jurisprudence of original intent?

Posted by: Greg at 09:25 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So far, there has been only one, something that contrasts with the early pattern of the Roberts Court. But with only half the cases decided and many high-profile cases yet to come, will there be more? Or has the addition of two more top-flight legal minds helped to swing more liberal justices to conservative opinions?

Something is happening, clearly. The question is what. The caveats against drawing any hard conclusions at this stage are obvious. For one thing, the term is functionally only half over, with 35 cases down and 32 to come. And it is common for the hardest-fought decisions to come at the very end. The District of Columbia gun control case, the latest case on the rights of the Guantánamo detainees and a case on whether the death penalty is a constitutional punishment for raping a child are yet to be decided.

Still, there is a clear pattern in the cases the court has already decided this term. The court upheld KentuckyÂ’s method of execution by lethal injection by a vote of 7 to 2. It upheld IndianaÂ’s law requiring photo identification at the polls by a vote of 6 to 3. The justices voted 7 to 2 on Monday to uphold the latest federal effort to curb trade in child pornography.

All were major cases, all plausible candidates for 5-to-4 outcomes. All were government victories, hardly surprising coming from a conservative court. But even Justice John Paul Stevens, the leader of the courtÂ’s beleaguered liberal bloc, voted with the majority in all three cases. The surprise was that the government side won each so handily.

It would be too simplistic an explanation to say that the liberal justices, at least some of them, have simply given up. Something deeper seems to be at work. Each of those three cases might have received a harder-edged, more conclusively conservative treatment at the hands of the same five-member majority that controlled the last term.

Instead, the lethal injection and voter ID decisions hewed closely to the facts of each case. KentuckyÂ’s lethal injection protocol passed muster, but the court left open the possibility that another stateÂ’s practice might not. The voter ID challenge reached the court on a nonexistent record, so perhaps a stronger case could be made at a later time. Justice Antonin ScaliaÂ’s majority opinion in the child pornography case construed the statute so narrowly as to allay the First Amendment concerns of Justices Stevens and Breyer and win their full concurrence.

So perhaps there was a bit of movement on both sides — not simple liberal capitulation, but liberals using their limited leverage to exact some modest concessions as the price of helping the conservatives avoid another parade of 5-to-4 decisions.

I'd argue there is some truth to the last point. That said, though, the justices have produced opinions that are undeniably conservative, but well-grounded in precedent. And it is the stability of the law (consistent with the dictates of the Constitution, of course) that has been a point of importance for both sides in their recent discussion of the role of the court. If the justices have found a way to accomplish that end, it bodes well for the nation.

Posted by: Greg at 10:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The question of judges is one of the biggest reasons I back John McCain this year, despite my strong criticism in the past. A lot of other conservatives are doing so on the same basis.

Prominent conservatives and activists are indicating they will put aside their differences with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and rally their supporters to his side because of one issue: federal judgeships.

In big gatherings and small, in e-mails and one-on-one conversations, conservative opinion leaders fear a Democratic president, especially Sen. Barack Obama, will use the presidential power to appoint federal judges who will remove references to God and religious symbols from public places.

They predict the incoming president likely will fill more vacancies on the federal bench over the next four years than at any time in recent memory, giving a Democratic administration the power to shape the courts to reflect a liberal worldview.

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ACLU general counsel Peter J. Ferrara, a former Reagan White House aide, said, "McCain said he'd appoint people like [Supreme Court Chief Justice John] Roberts and [Justice Samuel] Alito. Obama is saying he'd name people like [Justices Ruth Bader] Ginsberg and [David] Souter."

So as you can see, there are some seriously different views out there on Supreme Court nominees. Which would you prefer – Justice Janice Rogers Brown, or this?

It's likely that the next president will face at least one Supreme Court vacancy. Obama should promise Hillary Clinton, now, that if he wins in November, the vacancy will be hers, making her first on a list of one.

Obama and Clinton have wound up agreeing on nearly every major issue during the campaign; at the end of the day, they share many orthodoxies. Unless the Supreme Court were to get mired in minuscule details of what constitutes universal health care, Obama could assume that he'd be pleased with most Clinton votes, certainly on major issues such as abortion.

Obama could also appreciate Clinton's undeniably keen mind. Even Clinton detractors have noted her remarkable mental skills; she would be equal to any legal or intellectual challenge she would face as a justice. The fact that she hasn't served on a bench before would be inconsequential, considering her experience in law and in government.

If Obama were to promise Clinton the first court vacancy, her supporters would actually have a stronger incentive to support him for president than they would if she were going to be vice president. Given the Supreme Court's delicate liberal-conservative balance, she would play a major role in charting the country's future; there is no guarantee that a Clinton vice presidency would achieve such importance.

Think about it, friends – Hillary Rodham Clinton on the US Supreme Court for the next couple of decades. Doesn’t that notion leave your stomach churning? After all, she clearly has no interest in upholding precedent or exercising any interest in judicial restraint if she doesn’t like the ideological outcome of a case – and like Earl Warren, this natural-born politician would be a phenomenal arm-twister in pursuit of a majority. Would you like to bet that 5-4 decisions would peachy to all the liberals when she cobbled together a majority?

Posted by: Greg at 09:25 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In a decision that appears to be rooted in common sense, common decency, and decades of historical precedent, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that made it clear that promoting child pornography is not constitutionally protected speech.

And while some offer slippery-slope arguments about classic literature and artistic movies, the reality is that both the law and the opinions make it clear that attempts to ban non-pornographic works of artistic merit will not fly.

The Supreme Court yesterday upheld an expansive federal law that punishes people who peddle or seek child pornography, saying Congress's remedy for a growing problem on the Internet does not violate free-speech guarantees.

In its 7 to 2 vote, the court also concluded that the law that criminalized "pandering" of real or purported child pornography online or through the mail is not unconstitutionally vague.

The majority dismissed what it called "fanciful hypotheticals" that the law might make movie reviewers or even unsuspecting grandparents subject to its standards.

"We hold that offers to provide or requests to obtain child pornography are categorically excluded from the First Amendment," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote.

He said that "child pornography harms and debases the most defenseless of our citizens," and that the law was "carefully crafted" to respond to child pornography "proliferating through the new medium of the Internet."

I don't see where most Americans with a moral compass would have any objection to this ruling, given that it simply criminalizes speech that is directed at engaging in illegal conduct. Change "child pornography" to "heroin" and see if you would find the logic of the ruling offensive.

But what I found striking in the coverage is the way in which some MSM sources were more interested in offering the pro-kiddie porn view before actually delving into the court's ruling.

Posted by: Greg at 10:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I suspect this one will end up helping John McCain in a number of states in the fall – after all, we know that Barack Obama will select judges who will follow the California reasoning if elected.

Gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in California, the state Supreme Court said today in a historic ruling that could be repudiated by the voters in November.

In a 4-3 decision, the justices said the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates the "fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship." The ruling is likely to flood county courthouses with applications from couples newly eligible to marry when the decision takes effect in 30 days.

The ruling set off a celebration at San Francisco City Hall. As the decision came down, out-of-breath staff members ran into the mayor's office where Gavin Newsom read the decision.

I find it rather shocking that, given the pending vote on a state constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage, the justices (and I use that term loosely) didn't stay the decision until the people had the opportunity to speak on the issue in November.

But even more worrisome in my book is that there is some real slippery language in this opinion – that “fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship” could just as easily morph into the reasoning that supports overturning laws defining marriage as a monogamous institution. After all, there is no logical basis for denying such marriages if such a “fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship” exists – and given that there is significantly more precedent for it in Western society AND at least one major world religion that still practices polygamy today, there is even less of a rational basis to allow that limitation under the Constitution.

Posted by: Greg at 11:04 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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