The Betrayal of America
Vincent Bugliosi, former LA County prosecutor whose most famous trial was the Charles Manson case, has made the prosecutorial case here that the Supreme Court underminded the Constitution and chose our president. The "Supremos" committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate
for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law. They
stole an election from the people and delivered it as the spoils of power to the
new king, thereby violating the laws the Justices swore to uphold and thereby
reducing themselves to common thugs.
Bugliosi is not your knee-jerk, anti-government, anti-establishment citizen. His chances of being named Sweetheart of the Year by the ACLU are damn slim. So, when he calls the decision a "judicial coup d'etat", it's worth notice.
- Under Supreme Court rules, a stay is supposed to be granted to an applicant only if he makes a substantial showing that in the absence of a stay, there is likelihood of "irreparable harm" to him. Scalia had presupposed that Bush had already won the election, when the election had yet been decided. Scalia stated that "Bush has a substantial probability of success" - but neither side had even submitted briefs yet.
- Unsigned and anonymously written "per curiam" opinions, as was done for Bush v. Gore are usually reserved for unaminous (9-0) opinions in relatively unimportant and uncontroversial cases. Neither was the case here.
- More proof that equal protection argument had no merit - the Supreme Court denied review on November 24, refuting Bush's equal protection clause argument, but then contradicted themselves on December 12.
- December 12 was not a hard deadline. 1960 Hawaii contradicts this "Supremo" opinion. A recount could have gone on right up to the last day of Congress "joint session" on January 6.
- Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist are ardent supports of states' rights. They completely departed from what they would have done in 99 of 100 other cases.
- Total lack of legal stature they reposed in their decision. The court cited
four of its previous cases as legal precedent. But not one of them bears the
slightest resemblence to Bush v. Gore.
- Gray v. Sanders - Georgia had a system where the vote of each citizen counted for less and less as the population of his/her county increased.
- Moore v. Ogilve - Illinois residents of smaller counties were able to form a new party to elect candidates, something residents of larger counties could not do.
- Reynolds v. Sims - an apportionment case
- Harper v. Virginia - involved the payment of a poll tax as a qualification for voting.
- Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar stated the five Justices "failed to cite a single case that, on its facts, comes close to supporting its analysis and result".
- Vanderbilt professor Suzanna Sherry said "There is very little way to reconcile this opinion other than they really wanted Bush to win."
- 500 law professors from around the country took out a full page ad in the NY Times denouncing the stay order. No corresponding stance has been taken by conservative law professors supporting the stay order.
- It is difficult to find even conservative legal scholars who supported the decision - Berkeley law professor John Yoo, former law clerk for Thomas, wrote that "we should balance the short-term hit to the court's legitimacy with whether it was in the best interest of the country to end the electoral crisis". In another words, if the election is close, it's better for the Supreme Court to pick the President, whether or not he won the election, than to have the dispute resolved in the manner prescribed by law.
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