U.S. Supreme Court on voter ID

The Federalist Society keeps us updated.

On April 28, 2008, in Crawford v. Marion County, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a constitutional challenge to an Indiana law requiring all voters who cast a ballot in person to present a photo ID issued by the United States or the State of Indiana. The Court held that such a law does not unduly burden a citizen’s right to vote.

Former Federal Elections Committee commissioner, Hans Von Spakovsky, discusses the case. You can listen to the SCOTUScast here.

A swing around the dance floor to Institute for Justice

Score one for reasonableness

And a wild “Yahoo!” to Pinal County Superior Court Judge William O’Neil. In a ruling yesterday the judge ended a nearly two-year legal battle over dancing at San Tan Flat, the family owned restaurant located south of Queen Creek.

Amazingly, the Pinal County Board of Supervisors and a county hearings officer found father and son, Dale and Spencer Bell, in violation of a 1960s dance hall ordinance subjecting them to a $700 fine for every day someone dances there. The ruling overturned their decision, the East Valley Tribune reports.

Ninth Circuit approves border searches of traveler’s laptops

Leave home without it

In a ruling that’s likely to come as a disappointment for privacy rights advocates, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held this week that customs officers need no reasonable suspicion to search through the contents of any individual’s laptop, cell phones and other electronic devices at the country’s borders, ComputerWorld reports.

The ruling has little to do with averting terrorism. The appeal was part of the ongoing trial of a vacationer who returned from the Philippines and had his laptop examined by customs officers. They alleged that images of child pornography were found on the laptop, later arresting him.

Travelers with sensitive, legal or confidential information might want to consider storing it elsewhere or simply leaving it at home.

On all too many issues, the dictum has been: As California goes, so goes Arizona

Let’s hope this lunacy is not emulated here

Parents of an estimated 166,000 children in California are eagerly awaiting a state appellate court ruling on whether they have a constitutional right to home-school their children without a teaching credential.

That question sprouted unexpectedly on Feb. 28, when a panel of three judges ruled that parents or tutors of children who are home-schooled must be certified by the state, basing their ruling on a rarely enforced state education law. Few parents knew the law existed.

The Washington Post has more on this matter here.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has gone on record as saying the “outrageous” ruling should be overturned and Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent of public instruction, assured parents they will still have the right to home-school.

The unelected and unanswerable judges have ruled from on high. What is the parental recourse?

“Do you think we are going to supply you with a translator all of your life?”

.Bravo! Judge Olszewski gives defendants the best advice of their lives

A Pennsylvania judge known for creative sentencing has ordered three Spanish-speaking men to learn English or go to jail.

The men, ranging in age from 17 to 22, facing prison for criminal conspiracy to commit robbery, can remain on parole if they learn to read and write English, earn their GEDs and get full-time jobs, Luzerne County Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. said.

Luis Reyes, Ricardo Dominguez and Rafael Guzman-Mateo, plus a fourth defendant, Kelvin Reyes-Rosario, all needed translators when they pleaded guilty Tuesday, Fox News reports.

“Do you think we are going to supply you with a translator all of your life?” the judge asked them.

Wouldn’t it be nice to hear those words repeated in Arizona courtrooms?

Sheriff Joe Arpaio loses appeal to the US Supreme Court

Manricopa County sheriff resisted transporting inmates for elective abortions

A Round in the Chamber

District of Columbia v. Heller and the Future of the Second Amendment

A new shot will be fired in the development of constitutional law this term when the U.S. Supreme Court decides the meaning of the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller. Although the Court has only touched upon the Second Amendment in a few dozen cases, only once has the Court even begun to address its meaning. But the question presented in Heller requires a clear statement about its meaning. The Court will have to choose between three competing interpretations of the Second Amendment, a task made more difficult by a profoundly disappointing brief filed by the Justice Department in the case. What it does, and does not, decide will likely forever shape the future of Second Amendment jurisprudence and gun rights in America.

The excellent article, co-authored by Arizonan Sandra Froman and Kenneth Klukowski, for the Federalist Society, continues here.

A Stanford University graduate with a law degree from Harvard, Tucson lawyer, Sandra Froman is the immediate past president of the National Rifle Association.

Pinal County’s accelerated growth harbors problems

Population increase will signal an end to judicial accountability as elections are replaced by appointments

New figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show Pinal county’s 299,246 residents as of July 1, 2007, represent an 11.5 percent increase from the same time a year earlier. And since the 2000 census, the population is up 65 percent. The Arizona Daily Star covers the explosive growth.

Bur, there is much more at stake in the stark realities underlying this news. Seeing Red AZ carried a revealing look at merit selection last year. As of the 2010 census, Pinal county voters will have their ability to elect judges wrenched from them and awarded to a panel of their hypothetical stand-ins.

The process of merit selection of judges incorporates a population threshold of 250,000. Arizona’s two most populous counties, Maricopa and Pima, have their superior court judges selected by panels of lawyers and citizens presided over by a voting Arizona Supreme Court Justice, ostensibly representing the voters. A similar panel interviews judicial applicants for the Arizona Supreme Court and the state courts of appeals. A list of not more than 2/3 of one political party is then sent to the governor, who makes the final selection to fill vacancies or new judicial divisions. Check out the link above for an indication of how the system functions.

Voters are told they still have a voice on the judicial ‘retention’ ballot. What they are not told is that no judge has been ousted through that process in over thirty years. Merit selection simply conceals its very political nature with a series of overlays that protect the coveted system.

The vast majority of Arizona counties—thirteen out of fifteen, continue to elect their judges. This practice has produced a quality bench, where judges actually are accountable to, and interact with, the people, rather than assuming the role of an untouchable elite.

Inexplicably, all of the biographical information and photos of Maricopa County’s Superior Court Judges have recently been removed. Yet all other officials have their information available. The Governor, Attorney General, Maricopa County Attorney and Sheriff are easily located. Such information is even accessible for Arizona’s Supreme Court Justices.

Voters will be told that accepting campaign money from lawyers who appear before judges is unethical. There are numerous ways to circumvent that. However, such an argument does cast a dark cloud over the fine judges currently elected in the vast majority of Arizona counties.

Wanna get mad?

What would be spent if we weren’t in a budget crunch?

Despite an unprecedented economic downturn and increasingly burdensome property tax rates, Maricopa County is going ahead with plans to build a new court tower carrying a price tag of $360 million dollars. Expect that to grow, of course. What project ever stayed within the initial cost projections?

Felony caseloads are projected to increase by more than 40 percent over the next decade, according to Maricopa County Superior Court figures

“People will look at the price tag and say, ‘My goodness, that’s a huge number,’ and it is,” said David Smith, county manager. “But the value in that building for the next 30 to 50 years is in the billions of dollars.”

The plans include a jury-assembly room for the entire criminal-court complex, state-of-the-art technology, and separate waiting rooms for victims and witnesses.

The tower would include judges chambers and restorative justice services, in which people try to repair the harm caused by crime by working in the community.

The First Avenue Jail, now home to the Sheriff’s Office’s 911 center and criminal lab, would be knocked down to expand the court complex. The supervisors agreed to spend an additional $14 million to move those operations to a new building within the county’s Durango Complex in south Phoenix. Have budget projections been revealed for the jail constriction project?

An additional $3.4 million would go to remodel office space for other sheriff’s operations affected by the work.

A million here, a million there—pretty soon we’ll be talking about real money.

Shootout at the SCOTUS Corral

  

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments today in the most important Second Amendment case in generations. The last time the high court has ruled on the protections to keep and bear arms was in 1939—sixty-nine years ago.

Heller challenges the District of Columbia’s strict ban on handguns, imposed in 1976.

The Heller case has even split allies such as Vice President Dick Cheney and the Bush Justice department.

Rick Moran, writing for American Thinker, describes the magnitude of the case. This is definitely one worth watching.

In the meantime, check out the facts and background provided here.