Supremes rule on Arizona immigration law, campaign spending, life in jail for children

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States:

• Killed most of Arizona's hated immigration act—but will still allow police to check immigration status while enforcing other laws. [CNN]

• Struck down a Montana law that limited corporate campaign spending. Corporations are people, my friend. [CBS]

• Ruled that states cannot require children convicted of murder to serve their entire lives in jail without parole. [USA Today]

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Diodeus

If corporations are people, how come none of them ever spend time in jail?
- nvlady
  
  You are assuming that actual people go to jail for what corporations do. Sure, you get one in 100 to throw the masses a bone, but for the most part, the people are also above the law.
  
  Ending corporate personhood would be the most healing thing this nation could do.
- Finnagain
  
  I’ll believe they are people as soon as Texas executes one.
- Ambiguity
  
  If corporations are people, how come none of them ever spend time in jail?
  
  We don’t currently have jails large enough to hold a modern corporation. But don’t worry: our privatized prison system will take care of that oversight soon enough….
  - Culturedropout
    
    House arrest?
http://neublek.tumblr.com Neublek

it’s amendment time.
- http://twitter.com/GideonTJones Gideon Jones
  
  Good luck with that given that they can drop billions in advertising to oppose it.
  - http://neublek.tumblr.com Neublek
    
    Yes, it’s hard and will require a lot. Including luck.
    Here’s somewhere to start: movetoamend.org
    - MrWoods
      
      Is there a link to the specific amendment being proposed. Love to sign, but I need to read the fine print.
      - http://neublek.tumblr.com Neublek
        
        http://movetoamend.org/amendment
        
        always a good idea to read the fine print ;)
      - Navin_Johnson
        
        http://movetoamend.org/other-amendments
    - http://twitter.com/GideonTJones Gideon Jones
      
      If every single person who signed that petition sent a $10,000 check along with their signature, you’d have about half the money corporations are lined up to spend this year to defeat Obama and ensure continued conservative control over the supreme court.
      
      Not that I’m at all pessimistic about things today or anything.
      - Charlie B
        
        If every single person who signed that petition sent a spent bullet casing along with their signature, you’d have a bunch of crying and caterwauling the likes of which you’ve never seen.
  - Aaron Cole
    
    I can’t wait until our government and big businesses stop pretending that they aren’t in collusion. It’s one thing to destroy our country, it’s quite another to think we’re too stupid to notice.
    
    I posted this comment elsewhere but, feel that it’s apt.
    - Thad Boyd
      
      The trouble is that a pretty solid chunk of us are.
      - Navin_Johnson
        
        Indeed, a key part of conservative argument is that there’s no collusion, just bad politicians/government. This is why so many people offer nothing other than cliches like “throw the bums out!” when the problem is that the system/policy itself is broken, citizen’s united being just one glaring piece of evidence of that..
http://twitter.com/GideonTJones Gideon Jones

It doesn’t allow police to check people’s immigration status, it requires it if they have a reasonable suspicion that a person is foreign born. Most of the rest of the laws provisions are only enforced against people already known to be here illegally.

It’s the “papers please” section that was retained that’s the worst to my mind, because it specifically impacts American citizens, and most egregiously because it impacts not just people suspected of a crime (no matter the seriousness), but also crime victims.

This is why the bill was “hated” and feared, especially by the very large and totally legal population of Hispanics in Arizona. It essentially demands the police engage in racial profiling, and does so in a state that’s largely run by racist old White retirees and their political picks.

No idea why people are trying to call this a victory or whatever. They killed the sections impacting people who are here illegally, and retained the section impacting those here legally.
- http://neublek.tumblr.com Neublek
  
  Exactly. This is the most extreme activist supreme court in my lifetime. The Arizona ruling is not a victory…. It’s an affirmation of racial profiling.
  - http://twitter.com/samari711 samari711
    
    Hardly. Because the court gutted the other 3 sections, the officer can’t arrest anyone on suspicion of being illegal immigrants. They’re compelled to ask about status can’t take any action other than report the person to ICE.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Lord/100001398346071 Steven Lord
      
      “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.”
      
      http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu
      
      Given all the old, outdated laws that most states (and the federal government) have on the books, I’m betting that everyone in the United States commits at least three misdemeanors over the course of their average days as Homer Simpson did in “The Seven-Beer Snitch.” That would give police the opportunity to ask just about anyone for their papers.
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven-Beer_Snitch
  - Thad Boyd
    
    It’s an affirmation of racial profiling.
    
    No, it isn’t, because they haven’t ruled on racial profiling AT ALL, because the Justice Department did not even try to pursue that argument.
    
    Justice argued the case on jurisdiction grounds, and SCOTUS ruled on jurisdiction grounds.
    
    This doesn’t stop any of the ongoing litigation against the state for racial profiling; it’s going to keep on wending its way through the courts, eventually get to SCOTUS, and THEN someone will say “Hey, can anyone come up with a way of determining ‘reasonable suspicion’ that somebody is a Mexican without considering race?”
    
    I mean, I’m pretty friggin’ cynical about this Supreme Court, but they didn’t rule decisively in favor of racial profiling on this one, they just kicked the can down the road a few years. And I can’t even really say it’s their fault, because they failed to rule on an argument that the Justice Department failed to make.
    - http://neublek.tumblr.com Neublek
      
      i stand corrected
  - schutz
    
    It will not be racial profiling if the authorities dedicate themselves to eradicate all the illegal Irish, German or Greek immigration in Arizona. “Hey güerito, papers please!”
  - CLamb
    
    Use of race, color, or national origin as the sole determination is prohibited by section 11-1051 paragraph B 0f the law. I would urge everyone to read the law for themselves instead of relying on the news media redaction of it. You can see it online at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/05/full-text-arizona-illegal-immigration-law-jan-brewer.html . One question which comes immediately to my mind is why does the Arizona legislature write laws in all caps?
- http://twitter.com/samari711 samari711
  
  This appeal was actually for the initial injunction against implementing any of the law. So 3 of the 4 are definitely preempted and the “papers please” statue could still be overturned but the SC wants the litigation to proceed further on it. (IANAL, etc.)
- Marc45
  
  It seems to me that if the purpose is to find illegal immigrants then using cops is a least effective way to do so. Instead, if every time you register for any sort of government program, visit an emergency room, submit payroll census to the labor department, etc. an automatic check of legality is done. This way there’s no profiling and no “your papers please” gestapo tactics.
  
  This assumes you actually do want to find illegals which I totally doubt the government and corporate America want.
http://johnstonsigns.blogspot.com/ dejoh

The USA should do what Australia does. Visit them, have a great time, when time is up you get your ass out of their country. If you don’t they find you and put you on a plane. All in a matter of days.
Sounds like it works for them.
- Bart
  
  Who’s going to pay for those millions of plane tickets? Australia has the benefit of not sharing any land borders with other countries.
  - http://twitter.com/regnad_kcin regnad_kcin
    
    Wait until SB-3978 authorizes construction of The Great North American Moat
- Cynical
  
  “50 sew up lips in hunger strike, detainees claim”
  http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/27/1023864626046.html
  
  This article is from 2002, but a quick search for “Australian detention hunger strikes” will bring up a whole raft of similar stories spread out over the last decade or so since Autralia launched its policy of putting asylum seekers in internment camps, with and without lip-sewing.
  
  But I guess “works for them” really means “works for the bigots and xenophobes who are the only people who really benefit from tough immigration policy, and the people being detained/abused because they dare to want to live in a foreign country can go fuck themselves because they’re illegals”, right?
Fef

States can *suggest* that children convicted of murder serve their entire lives in jail without parole.
— SCOTUS
http://www.jimdraws.com Thorzdad

It’s just past 4:30pm (eastern time) and SCOTUS has yet to drop the big shoe…The ruling on the AHCA.
- http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones
  
  I believe that announcement will be on Thursday morning, at the earliest.
  - malindrome
    
    Or rather, at the latest, since Thursday is the last day of the term. But yes, probably on Thursday.
ThatHollie

I think the American Hockey Coaches Association ruling is scheduled for another day.
- Culturedropout
  
  Probably out of respect for Jerry Sandusky…
http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

Ruled that states cannot require children convicted of murder to serve their entire lives in jail without parole

Whoa now, what’s with all this heavy-handed progressivism
- Navin_Johnson
  
  It is progressive!*
  
  * for the 19th century…
inness

I’m feeling rather cynical today, but I believe that in the future our grandchildren will look back at the Citizens United (the very title is Orwellian) decision as the first overt act of what will become the increasingly rapid destruction of our democracy by the military and global industrial complex.
- mccrum
  
  They would look back if they knew about it. I have a sneaking suspicion that by the time they go look back it will be similar to the Chinese trying to learn about 1989 Tiananmen Square.
  - Finnagain
    
    Ha. Everyone knows that’s just a myth!
    - mccrum
      
      Which part, 1989 1989 Tiananmen Square or how the Chinese might look for information about it? :)
      - Shashwath T.R.
        
        All three…
        
        The un-people who tried to find more information about an incident that did not occur in an un-year are hereby declared traitors and will be executed. Now, this judge rules the courtroom to be tainted by traitorous fictional information and that every person in this room, including the judge, is hereby deemed to be fictional and scheduled for execution.
Teller

A 17-year-old is not a child. A 7-year old is a child. Good ruling, tho.
- DrunkenOrangetree
  
  A 17-year-old cannot vote, cannot drink, can only drive under limited conditions, must have his or her parents’ permission to enlist in the service, cannot sign a contract, and must have a cosigner for a loan.
  
  Yet if that 17-year-old commits a crime he or she is an adult. Only in the United States.
  - Wreckrob8
    
    You will be pleased to know that in England and Wales the age of criminal responsibility is 10 and until very recently in Scotland the age was 8 and is now 12.
  - Marc45
    
    There are different ages where you can get married, become legally emancipated, drink, drive, vote, etc. 18 is not a black line in determining adulthood. Puberty seems like a good defining line but how do you determine that…
- OriGuy
  
  The case in question was about two 14-year-olds.
- http://twitter.com/abelinone Abe Lincoln
  
  1 thing that I have never understood about trying children as adults is why the court doesn’t immediately emancipate them? After all, the reasoning is that they’re adults and should be so tried. So if they’re acquitted why aren’t they emancipated?
http://twitter.com/Skyhawk1 skyhawk1

People are corporate property my friend. Don’t like it? Get out and vote Nov. 2012. also sign the petition – movetoamend.org
- trees123
  
  Voting in a two party system hasn’t worked for the last 230 years. Why might we expect it to now?
Velocirapt42

I was wondering about the italics. States can… politely request? Toss around the idea? Obliquely bring it up during lunch?
- http://boingboing.net/ Rob Beschizza
  
  Judges may apply it; states cannot require them to.
jhertzli

The belief that only human beings can have rights is unfair to robots.
- Charlie B
  
  And plants, and sewage.