What a disastrous day for American citizens across the United States and the people of New York because of aunqualified far right wing Supreme Court justices.
Today, the radical right wing Supreme Court stripped American citizens of their Miranda warnings and struck down the New York law banning concealed weapons. This disastrous ruling opens the door for people in New York to carry concealed weapons when gun violence is at an all time high. Right wing Republicans are cheering these rulings because they are absolute idiots. The Supreme Court took away our guaranteed rights and Republicans think it's fantastic. The radical right continues to push America towards fascism.
The Supreme Court Strips Us of Miranda WarningsToday, Justice Alito ruled that you have constitutional rights, but no right to know what they are.
In 1966, the Supreme Court created the now famous “Miranda warnings,” in the seminal case Miranda v. Arizona. The Constitution had arguably always protected the right against self-incrimination in the Fifth Amendment, but the white men who wrote the Constitution never provided practical protections of that right. In Miranda, Earl Warren invented, out of whole cloth, a set of instructions the government would be required to give people in order to protect their rights against self-incrimination, and their right to an attorney (which is found in the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution). Everybody has heard of these warnings:
“You have right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”Before the decision in Miranda, police would routinely arrest people and bully them into making incriminating statements without allowing them to talk to an attorney. Ernesto Miranda himself was questioned at his home, “voluntarily” taken to the police station, placed in a lineup, and eventually convinced to sign a confession, without his ever once talking to a lawyer. The idea was to end the practice of law enforcement tricking people out of their constitutional rights.
Today, in a case called Vega v. Tekoh, the Supreme Court rejects that idea. According to the conservative majority, the Constitution still protects people from incriminating themselves. But now, if cops trick or coerce or threaten or brutalize people into giving up their constitutional rights without telling them they have a right to make the intimidation stop, there’s no way to sue the government for the failure to inform victims of their rights. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for a 6-3 conservative majority, might as well have channeled Agent Smith’s famous line from The Matrix: “What good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?”
In Vega, Alito argues that the failure to give Miranda warnings does not result in a Section 1983 cause of action against the government. Section 1983 is the main vehicle for people to sue the government when government actors violate constitutional rights. Alito argues that the Miranda warnings are not a constitutional “right”; they’re just a thing cops can say if they feel like it. If cops violate constitutional rights under the Fifth or Sixth Amendments, victims can still sue the government (if they can somehow prove a violation occurred), or move to have the evidence unconstitutionally obtained against them at trial excluded. But Alito rejects Miranda’s presumption that constitutional rights are violated if law enforcement fails to give the warning. Essentially, Alito argues that you have constitutional rights, but no right to know what those are.
I couldn’t invent a better example of the difference between a Supreme Court controlled by conservatives versus one controlled by liberals than the one given by the court in its decisions in Vega versus Miranda. People often forget that the Miranda case itself was a 5-4 decision over conservative objections. Here, Vega is 6-3, functionally overturning Miranda with all the conservatives in lockstep. If you want robust protections of people’s rights, there is simply no substitute for having liberals control the court. If you want robust protections of gun rights and corporate rights and Jesus rights, by all means, continue allowing the current conservative majority to rule over all.
Now, most people reading already understand that the current court is more conservative and reactionary than the court in 1966. But the opinion in Vega shows how radical and extremist conservatives are even compared to the conservative court of the 2000s. That’s because Vega also functionally overturns Dickerson v. United States, a 2000 case that upheld Miranda warnings. That case was decided 7-2, by the very same court who would go on to anoint George W. Bush as president of the United States later in the year. Ultraconservative William Rehnquist even wrote the majority opinion defending Miranda warnings.
Oh, Rehnquist only grudgingly upheld Miranda. He didn’t give Miranda a ringing endorsement. Instead, he upheld it simply because it was precedent, and that precedent was simply too popular to overturn. He wrote: “Miranda has become embedded in routine police practice to the point where the warnings have become part of our national culture.”
In her dissent in Vega, Justice Elena Kagan doesn’t spend as much time defending Miranda as she does defending Dickerson. “Dickerson v. United States tells us in no uncertain terms that Miranda is a ‘constitutional rule,’” she writes. Kagan points out that we know the Miranda warnings are part of the constitutional protections enshrined in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, because courts have turned back legislative attempts to weaken Miranda, including the federal attempt that was at issue in the Dickerson case.
But Alito and the conservative majority (which included Justice Clarence Thomas, who was one of the two dissenters in Dickerson) simply don’t care. Alito recasts the Dickerson opinion as upholding Miranda warnings as an option, not a requirement.
That is the essential difference between the conservatives on the court 20 years ago and the ones appointed this century. They used to do everything they could to bend or break the law toward the Republican Party outcomes they desired, but felt somewhat constrained by prior Supreme Court precedent and overwhelming popular will. Now, they push the law toward their preferred conservative outcomes without regard for past precedent or popular opinion. They have the votes, they have the power, to do what they want when they want to.
The practical effect of this decision will be to unleash already brutal American cops to use even more intimidation and coercion to secure (potentially false) confessions than they already do. Paradoxically, this ruling will do more to deny the constitutional rights of people who are innocent than to infringe those of people guilty of crime. That’s because professional criminals, for the most part, know their constitutional rights. They know they shouldn’t talk to the cops; they know the only word they should say to the police is “lawyer.” You don’t have to tell a street-level drug dealer what to do if he gets held by the cops; he already knows. And you don’t have to tell a banker or a person accused of “white collar” crime what to do either: Those folks have their lawyers on speed dial.
Alito and conservative legal media will hide behind the fact that the Fifth and Sixth amendments still exist. They’ll say people still have the right to remain silent. And that will be true for their rich friends and for people with enough “street smarts” to know how the system works.
But the whole point of Miranda is that constitutional rights should not be tied to whether you have the education and training to know they exist. My kids will know not to talk to cops, because I tell them that every time we see one (I warn my kids about the cops the way other parents warn their kids about taking candy from strangers). But what about kids who don’t have lawyers for parents? Do those kids get less Constitution than mine?
Alito and the conservatives say yes. They always say yes. They always rule in a way that provides constitutional protections to some people, but not all people. And they will continue to rule this way, as long as they are allowed to control the Supreme Court.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/supreme-court-miranda-rights/US supreme court overturns New York handgun law in bitter blow to gun-control pushBiden says ruling ‘should trouble us all’ as conservative majority strikes down law requiring ‘proper cause’ to carry guns in public
Gun violence survivors at a rally outside the supreme court in November. A leading progressive group called Thursday’s ruling ‘shameful and outrageousThe US supreme court has opened the door for almost all law-abiding Americans to carry concealed and loaded handguns in public, after the conservative majority struck down a New York law that placed strict restrictions on firearms outside the home.
The governor of New York, a Democrat, said the ruling was “not just reckless, it’s reprehensible”. Pointing to recent mass shootings in New York and Texas, a leading progressive group called the ruling “shameful and outrageous”.
Joe Biden said: “This ruling contradicts both common sense and the constitution and should deeply trouble us all.”
On the left, outrage is growing over the court’s rightward march. Earlier this week, the court handed down a ruling which attacked the separation of church and state. As soon as Friday, it is expected to undermine or remove the right to abortion, guaranteed since 1973, and to reduce the federal government’s ability to cut emissions contributing to the climate crisis.
The New York law struck down on Thursday required anyone wanting to carry a handgun in public to prove that they had a “proper cause” to do so. The decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen renders the law an unconstitutional violation of the second amendment right to bear arms.
In his ruling, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote: “Apart from a few late-19th-century outlier jurisdictions, American governments simply have not broadly prohibited the public carry of commonly used firearms for personal defense. Nor have they generally required law-abiding, responsible citizens to ‘demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community’ to carry arms in public.”
The New York law, Thomas wrote, also violated the 14th amendment, which made second-amendment rights applicable to the states.
Biden pointed to the longevity of New York gun laws and to past supreme court acceptance of the need to regulate gun ownership.
The president said: “Since 1911, the state of New York has required individuals who would like to carry a concealed weapon in public to show a need to do so for the purpose of self defense and to require a license. More than a century later, the United States supreme court has chosen to strike down New York’s long-established authority to protect its citizens.”
Biden added: “As the late [conservative] Justice [Antonin] Scalia recognised, the second amendment is not absolute. For centuries, states have regulated who may purchase or possess weapons, the types of weapons they may use and the places they may carry those weapons. The courts have upheld these regulations.
“I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line.”
The ruling has profound implications for the safety and conduct of up to 83 million people in New York and seven other states plus Washington DC with similar “proper cause” laws. They include heavily populated states, such as California and New Jersey, which account for roughly three out of every four Americans.
Just weeks ago, an 18-year-old carrying a legally bought assault-style rifle shot and killed 10 people in a racist attack on a supermarket in a majority Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York.
Ten days later, another 18-year-old broke into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and killed 19 children and two adults before being shot dead by law enforcement.
Democratic and Republican senators have since agreed a framework for gun reform. On Thursday Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said the proposals did not “lay one finger on the second amendment” and would make the country safer. But any gun legislation inevitably faces strong headwinds, with the potential to blow all the way to the court McConnell helped pack with conservatives.
In his dissent to the New York ruling, Stephen Breyer, a liberal justice soon to retire, wrote: “In 2020, 45,222 Americans were killed by firearms. Since the start of this year there have been 277 reported mass shootings – an average of more than one per day.
“Gun violence has now surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents. Many states have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence just described by passing laws that limit, in various ways, who may purchase, carry, or use firearms of different kinds.
“The court today severely burdens states’ efforts to do so.”
Rahna Epting, executive director of the progressive group MoveOn, lamented “a shameful and outrageous decision”, adding: “The conservative-packed supreme court, in concert with Republicans in Congress, is ensuring our schools, our grocery stores, and our churches will continue to be targets of violence and not the sanctuaries and safe places they should be.”
The court has steadily undermined gun laws, recognising a right to keep guns at home for self-defense in 2008 and extending that right two years later.
In the New York case, two men sued the state. Under the “proper cause” law, the men could secure unlimited permission to carry concealed guns in public only if they could demonstrate a special need for self-protection. Lawyers argued that carrying a firearm outside the home was a “fundamental constitutional right. It is not some extraordinary action that requires an extraordinary demonstration of need.”
Civil rights and gun safety groups attempted to sway the court. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued that lifting controls on guns in public places would harm first amendment rights such as assembly, association and speech. Gun control advocates warned that scrapping the law could hit relations between police and citizens because anyone in contact with law enforcement would be more likely to be legally armed.
On Thursday, the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, said: “The supreme court is setting us backwards in dealing with gun violence … This decision is not just reckless, it’s reprehensible.” Hochul also said she was “prepared to call the legislature back into session to deal with this”.
Letitia James, the New York attorney general, said she would not be deterred “from standing up to the gun lobby and their repeated efforts to endanger New Yorkers”.
A leading representative of that lobby, Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, joined Republicans celebrating “a watershed win” and said: “The right to self-defense and to defend your family and loved ones should not end at your home.”
But Keechant Sewell, the New York City police commissioner, warned gun owners: “If you carry a gun illegally in New York City, you will be arrested. Nothing changes today.”
Epting, of MoveOn, said: “It is hard to imagine a supreme court more out of touch with the people. Commonsense policies to reduce gun violence are supported by nine out of 10 Americans. This court … is now nothing more than the political arm of the most extreme elements of the Republican party.”
Pointing to McConnell’s unprecedented denial of even a hearing to Barack Obama’s third nominee – Merrick Garland, now attorney general – and the confirmation of three justices under Donald Trump, Epting said Republicans “stole seats and packed this court to enact what voters have repeatedly rejected at the ballot box.
“It is far past time we expand the court, reform it, and restore balance to our judicial system.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/23/us-supreme-court-new-york-law-gun-control
