They haven't ruled on that yet.
Every other Court in the US firmly opposes it, but SCOTUS took the issue up anyway and is currently mulling it over.
SCOTUS news and opinions
- Thread starter Birdjaguar
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Every other Court in the US firmly opposes it, but SCOTUS took the issue up anyway and is currently mulling it over.
Lexicus
Deity
If the Court buys Trump's immunity argument Biden should announce he is having one justice assassinated each day until the Court reconsiders.
Now that's funny Lex 
What's there to mull over? How they can justify making Trump an elected god without ruining their reputations?
Lexicus
Deity
The bolded, specifically whether its worth it.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal By Former Official Banned For Jan. 6 Insurrection
He's the only elected official thus far to be banned from office in connection with the Capitol attack.WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a former New Mexico county commissioner who was kicked out of office over his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Former Otero County commissioner Couy Griffin, a cowboy pastor who rode to national political fame by embracing then-President Donald Trump with a series of horseback caravans, is the only elected official thus far to be banned from office in connection with the Capitol attack, which disrupted Congress as it was trying to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory over Trump.
At a 2022 trial in state district court, Griffin received the first disqualification from office in over a century under a provision of the 14th Amendment written to prevent former Confederates from serving in government after the Civil War.
Though the Supreme Court ruled this month that states don’t have the ability to bar Trump or other candidates for federal offices from the ballot, the justices said different rules apply to state and local candidates.
“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office,” the justices wrote in an unsigned opinion. The outcome of Griffin’s case could bolster efforts to hold other state and local elected officials accountable for their involvement in the Jan. 6 attack.
Griffin, a Republican, was convicted in federal court of entering a restricted area on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 and received a 14-day prison sentence. The sentence was offset by time served after his arrest in Washington, where he had returned to protest Biden’s 2021 inauguration. That conviction is under appeal. Griffin contends that he entered the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 without recognizing that it had been designated as a restricted area and that he attempted to lead a crowd in prayer using a bullhorn, without engaging in violence.
The recent ruling in the Trump case shut down a push in dozens of states to end Trump’s Republican candidacy for president over claims he helped instigate the insurrection to try to prevent Biden, a Democrat, from replacing him in the White House in 2020.
The accusations of insurrection against Griffin were filed on behalf of three New Mexico residents by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning group that also brought the lawsuit in Colorado to disqualify Trump. CREW has outlined the case for investigating several current state legislators who went to Washington on Jan. 6.
In Griffin’s 2022 trial in state district court, New Mexico Judge Francis Mathew recognized the Jan. 6 attack as an insurrection and ruled that Griffin aided that insurrection, without engaging in violence, contributing to a delay in Congress’ election certification proceedings.
Griffin’s appeal of the disqualification asserted that only Congress, and not a state court, has the power to enforce the anti-insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment by legislation, and it urged the Supreme Court to rule on whether the events on Jan. 6 constituted an “insurrection” as defined in the Constitution. It also invoked Griffin’s rights to free speech protections. “If the decision ... is to stand, at least in New Mexico, it is now the crime of insurrection to gather people to pray together for the United States of America on the unmarked restricted grounds of the Capitol building,” Florida-based defense attorney Peter Ticktin argued on behalf of Griffin in court filings.
At trial, Mathew, the judge, called Griffin’s free-speech arguments self-serving and not credible, noting that the then-commissioner spread lies about the 2020 election being stolen from Trump in a series of speeches at rallies during a cross-country journey starting in New Mexico, calling on crowds to go with him to Washington on Jan. 6 and join the “war” over the presidential election results. Mathew said recordings by a videographer accompanying Griffin outside the U.S. Capitol showed that the county commissioner “incited the mob, even after seeing members of the mob a short distance away attack police officers and violently try to break into the Capitol building.”
The New Mexico Supreme Court later refused to hear the case after Griffin missed procedural deadlines. On the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack this year, Griffin cast himself as the victim of political persecution as he spoke to a gathering in the rural community of Gillette, Wyoming, at the invitation of a county Republican Party. “God is really allowing me to experience some amazing days,” Griffin said. “Jan. 6 was a day like no other. It was a day where a type of patriotism was expressed that I’d never seen before, and I was honored to be there.”
In 2019, Griffin forged a group of rodeo acquaintances into the promotional group called Cowboys for Trump, which staged horseback parades to support Trump’s conservative message about gun rights, immigration controls and abortion restrictions.
While still a county commissioner, Griffin joined with Republican colleagues in refusing to certify results of the June 2022 primary election based on distrust of the voting systems used to tally the vote, even though the county’s election official said there were no problems. The board ultimately certified the election on a 2-1 vote with Griffin still voting no based on a “gut feeling.”
Griffin withstood a recall petition drive in 2021. After his disqualification from office, Griffin was tried and acquitted by a jury in his home county in March 2023 of allegations that he declined to register and disclose donors to Cowboys for Trump.
___
Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Riccardi reported from Denver.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal By Former Official Banned For Jan. 6 Insurrection
He's the only elected official thus far to be banned from office in connection with the Capitol attack.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
Divided Supreme Court rules no quick hearing required when police seize property
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that authorities do not have to provide a quick hearing when they seize cars and other property used in drug crimes, even when the property belongs to so-called innocent owners.By a 6-3 vote, the justices rejected the claims of two Alabama women who had to wait more than a year for their cars to be returned. Police had stopped the cars when they were being driven by other people and, after finding drugs, seized the vehicles.
Civil forfeiture allows authorities to take someone’s property, without having to prove that it has been used for illicit purposes. Critics of the practice describe it as “legalized theft.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the conservative majority that a civil forfeiture hearing to determine whether an owner will lose the property permanently must be timely. But he said the Constitution does not also require a separate hearing about whether police may keep cars or other property in the meantime.
In a dissent for the liberal members of the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that civil forfeiture is “vulnerable to abuse” because police departments often have a financial incentive to keep the property.
“In short, law enforcement can seize cars, hold them indefinitely, and then rely on an owner’s lack of resources to forfeit those cars to fund agency budgets, all without any initial check by a judge as to whether there is a basis to hold the car in the first place,” Sotomayor wrote.
The women, Halima Culley and Lena Sutton, filed federal lawsuits arguing they were entitled to a prompt court hearing that would have resulted in the cars being returned to them much sooner. There was no suggestion that either woman was involved in or knew anything about the illegal activity.
Sutton had loaned her car to a friend. Police in Leesburg, Alabama seized it when they arrested him for trafficking methamphetamine.
Sutton ended up without her car for 14 months, during which she couldn’t find work, stay current with bills or keep her mental-health appointments, her lawyers wrote in court papers.
Culley had bought a car for her son to use at college. Police in Satsuma, Alabama stopped the car and found marijuana and a loaded hangun. They charged the son with marijuana possession and kept the car.
The Supreme Court decision means months or years of delay for people whose property is taken, said Kirby Thomas West, co-director of the National Initiative to End Forfeiture Abuse at the libertarian Institute for Justice.
“Meanwhile owners of seized vehicles will scramble to find a way to get to work, take their kids to school, run errands, and complete other essential life tasks,” West said in an email.
Justice Neil Gorsuch was part of Thursday’s majority, but in an opinion also joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Gorsuch said larger questions about the use of civil forfeiture remain unresolved.
Noting that civil forfeiture has become a “booming business,” Gorsuch wrote the court should use a future case to assess whether the modern practice of civil forfeiture is in line with constitutional guarantees that property may not be taken “without due process of law.”
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-...ng-sotomayor-d1aafeb7a114d9774210342912e14f44
The D.C. police have 6 cars to seize.
Klaus Hergersheimer
Prince
I presume the only scope of the case was not whether civil asset forfeiture is legal, but whether a preliminary hearing is granted by the right to due process in such an instance.
It's not a satisfying outcome, but the door is clearly left open towards one...
It's not a satisfying outcome, but the door is clearly left open towards one...
Lexicus
Deity
Which one?
The last one in this thread.
Lexicus
Deity
Yeah Biden could go down in history as the hero who saved the American experiment but instead he's gonna go down as the man who stood aside and allowed Donald Trump a second chance to destroy everything we have built.
Don't forget to seize Harlan Crow's yacht(s) and beach house(s). They can seize the property, even if it does not belong to the person they are arresting/charging with wrongdoing, so long as they allegedly used it. Let's take a few years to sort out whether the bribes constituted wrongdoing or not.
At Justice Alito’s House, a ‘Stop the Steal’ Symbol on Display
An upside-down flag, adopted by Trump supporters contesting the Biden victory, flew over the justice’s front lawn as the Supreme Court was considering an election case.
A photo obtained by The Times shows an inverted flag at the Alito residence on Jan. 17, 2021, three days before the Biden inauguration.
- May 16, 2024
While the flag was up, the court was still contending with whether to hear a 2020 election case, with Justice Alito on the losing end of that decision. In coming weeks, the justices will rule on two climactic cases involving the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, including whether Mr. Trump has immunity for his actions. Their decisions will shape how accountable he can be held for trying to overturn the last presidential election and his chances for re-election in the upcoming one.
“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Justice Alito said in an emailed statement to The Times. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.” Judicial experts said in interviews that the flag was a clear violation of ethics rules, which seek to avoid even the appearance of bias, and could sow doubt about Justice Alito’s impartiality in cases related to the election and the Capitol riot. The mere impression of political opinion can be a problem, the ethics experts said. “It might be his spouse or someone else living in his home, but he shouldn’t have it in his yard as his message to the world,” said Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia.
This is “the equivalent of putting a ‘Stop the Steal’ sign in your yard, which is a problem if you’re deciding election-related cases,” she said. Interviews show that the justice’s wife, Martha-Ann Alito, had been in a dispute with another family on the block over an anti-Trump sign on their lawn, but given the timing and the starkness of the symbol, neighbors interpreted the inverted flag as a political statement by the couple.
Asked if these rules also apply to justices, the court declined to respond. The exact duration that the flag flew outside the Alito residence is unclear. In an email from Jan. 18, 2021, reviewed by The Times, a neighbor wrote to a relative that the flag had been upside down for several days at that point.
In recent years, the quiet sanctuary of his street, with residents who are Republicans and Democrats, has tensed with conflict, neighbors said. Around the 2020 election, a family on the block displayed an anti-Trump sign with an expletive. It apparently offended Mrs. Alito and led to an escalating clash between her and the family, according to interviews. Our politics reporters. Times journalists are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. That includes participating in rallies and donating money to a candidate or cause.
Learn more about our process.
Some residents have also bridled at the noise and intrusion brought by protesters, who started showing up outside the Alito residence in 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion. Other neighbors have joined the demonstrators, whose intent was “to bring the protest to their personal lives because the decisions affect our personal lives,” said Heather-Ann Irons, who came to the street to protest. The half-dozen neighbors who saw the flag, or knew of it, requested anonymity because they said they did not want to add to the contentiousness on the block and feared reprisal. Last Saturday, May 11, protesters returned to the street, waving flags of their own (“Don’t Tread on My Uterus”) and using a megaphone to broadcast expletives at Justice Alito, who was in Ohio giving a commencement address.
Mrs. Alito appeared in a window, complaining to the Supreme Court security detail outside.Turning the American flag upside down is a symbol of emergency and distress, first used as a military S.O.S., historians said in interviews. In recent decades, it has increasingly been used as a political protest symbol — a controversial one, because the flag code and military tradition require the paramount symbol of the United States to be treated with respect.
Over the years, upside-down flags have been displayed by both the right and the left as an outcry over a range of issues, including the Vietnam War, gun violence, the Supreme Court’s overturning of the constitutional right to abortion and, in particular, election results. In 2012, Tea Party followers inverted flags at their homes to signal disgust at the re-election of President Barack Obama. Four years later, some liberals advised doing the same after Mr. Trump was elected.
The longstanding ethics code for the lower courts, as well as the recent one adopted by the Supreme Court, stresses the need for judges to remain independent and avoid political statements or opinions on matters that could come before them.
“You always want to be proactive about the appearance of impartiality,” Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge and the director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, said in an interview. “The best practice would be to make sure that nothing like that is in front of your house.”
The court has also repeatedly warned its own employees against public displays of partisan views, according to guidelines circulated to the staff and reviewed by The Times. Displaying signs or bumper stickers is not permitted, according to the court’s internal rule book and a 2022 memo reiterating the ban on political activity.
Gori the Grey
The Poster
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- Jan 5, 2009
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When some historian tells the story of the demise of the USA, this might be chosen as the book-jacket photo.
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