Understanding &quot;Statement of Justice Thomas respecting the denial of certiorari&quot; In the matter of &quot;Standing Akimbo, LLC, et al., v. United States&quot; (https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/062821zor_6j37.pdf at around page 28), Justice Thomas attached a statement to a denial of certiorari. Not a lawyer, I'm just trying to understand exactly what this statement is/means/represents. As I understand it, the appellate decision was that the IRS is permitted to compel state authorities to surrender information it wants on this marijuana dispensary. The writ of certiorari then was an attempt to get SCOTUS to overturn that, correct? Which they have denied, hence effectively supporting the government's stance on cannabis. So, with that in mind, this statement is kind of a rant (totally righteous IMO, FWIW) on why the US position toward cannabis is incoherent and inconsistent. Assuming all that is correct, what is the function of the statement? Is it a &quot;yeah, this sucks and the US position is ridiculous but you're stuck with it&quot;? Or a &quot;dissent&quot; from the denial of certiorari? And is it normal for there to be a statement associated with a denial of certiorari?
I'd say it's more like a concurrence than a dissent. Justice Thomas isn't saying the Court should have taken the case; he's just raising question about the (implicit) reason the Court isn't taking the case. Most experienced observers will read the statement as a signal that he is open to reversing Raich and hoping that someone will bring the right case in which to do that. But in the end, t amounts to pure commentary and has no legal effect. The practice of filing these types of statements is not &quot;normal,&quot; as the Court rejects probably more than 95 percent of the cases that come to it, and it does so without comment. But it is hardly unprecedented to see these types of statements, and I assume that every justice (except perhaps Barrett, given her recent arrival) has made similar statements. From a quick search, I can find statements from Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, from Roberts, and from Breyer.
I have not found a case directly on point, but there is a case in the right neighborhood. In Flordia v. Carter 364 So. 2d 1249, Carter was charged with perjury for making a false statement under oath. He recanted his testimony in a letter to the defense attorney the next day. Subsequently he was charged with perjury: the trial judge dismissed the case based on his having recanted (which is a defense to perjury). The judge said (quoted in the appeal below and citing a relevant precedent Brannen v. Florida 114 So. 429) It matters not whether Carter knew his original testimony was false or whether he was merely mistaken. "The law encourages the correction of erroneous and even intentionally false statements on the part of a witness, and perjury will not be predicated upon such statements when the witness, before the submission of the case, fully corrects his testimony." The lower appeals court rejected the trial court's dismissal, saying Recantation is a defense to an allegation of perjury only where there is an acknowledgement of the falsity of the original sworn statement, a voluntary retraction of that statement, and a new statement which discloses the true facts. It is not a viable defense where the perjured testimony has substantially affected the proceeding or it has become manifest that such falsity has been or will be exposed. Otherwise, one could rest on his lie, allowing it to substantially affect a proceeding, and never retract unless the falsity had been exposed. This would provide no inducement or encouragement to tell the truth. That court basically felt it was based on the threat of being discovered, and felt that a particular state statute had taken away the recantation defense, so they reinstated the charge. The appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, Carter v. Florida 384 So. 2d 1255 basically declared that the appeals court was wrong about the statute (they officially held that recantation is a defense to perjury). They concluded that Carter gained nothing by recanting (that was a distinguishing feature in a precedent that the lower court favored). The dissent in this decision opined that It may be that the false deposition testimony by Dr. Carter was inadvertent and without criminal intent.... These, however, are factual issues and should be resolved by a jury rather than by the trial court on a motion to dismiss. What unifies all opinions on the matter is that a false statement made under oath must be recanted. The reason why Carter was not convicted was that he (possibly) was unaware that his testimony was false and he did recant when he became aware of the facts.
Law does not have an all-encompassing syntax and structure that, if not followed, makes it null and void. If a reasonable person could determine that (in the example of the sign you have) you are required to get written permission from any or all of the Paulding County Commissioners, then the sign is enforceable. I honestly don't see anything wrong with the sign you are displaying, it is reasonably clear. If, for example the notice contains an ambiguity or unclear phrase, the &quot;spirit&quot; of the law or sign is upheld. If the sign had said something to the effect of &quot;No trespassing without permission&quot;. It doesn't say who you need permission from, but you can reasonably ascertain that you must have permission from somebody in control of the land. There is no line in the sand here. Often when a dispute in a contract comes up where it could be interpreted more than one way, it is often interpreted in favor of the person who did not write the contract. &quot;Offer ends October 30 or while supplies last&quot; Isn't really &quot;ill-phrased&quot; either. I assure you that those statements are vetted by highly paid lawyers from many jurisdictions. I'm not sure what &quot;nonsense&quot; you would be referring to in there. If the vendor runs out of promotional materials the promotion ends... If they had said &quot;free hats to the first 100 customers on December 31st&quot;, you can't show up as the 101st customer and demand a hat, nor could you show up on January 1st (even if there were not 100 customers the previous day) and demand one either.
There is no such law mandating this layout, nor is there any law permitting the defendant to demand a change to it. The arrangement seems most likely to have been driven by security concerns when courts began removing "the dock" and letting the defendant past the bar to sit with his attorneys. One court has also concluded that it was meant to assist the government "because it bears the burden of proof." It's of course impossible to prove a negative like this, but I'll note that Kenneth Lay's attorneys raised the issue in the Enron case, and they were unable to cite a single case saying that the defendant has the option to sit closer to the jury. If they couldn't find it, it probably doesn't exist. Meanwhile, the government was able to find several cases saying that the defendant does not have the right to demand a change, though it did not have any cases saying that the layout is mandatory. Instead, it described itself as "traditionally" having a right to the table. In that case, the judge ended up splitting the baby. Saying that there was "no law" to inform his decision, he sat the government next to the jury during its case, and it sat the defense next to the jury during its case. That was quite a bit more generous than the Seventh Circuit, which has rejected the jury-proximity argument as frivolous. So there are some cases addressing the issue, but I don't know of any case where a court has actually looked at the issue and given any real consideration to the due-process implications of the substantial empirical evidence suggesting that the party closest to the jury enjoys an advantage.
Yes Deciding a case on a basis the parties have not raised is a denial of natural justice (or procedural fairness) and invalid. The reason is very simple, the parties have not had the opportunity to produce evidence or make submissions about C or D that might have changed the judge’s mind about them. Notwithstanding, to successfully appeal, the aggrieved party must show there were arguments that could have been raised which could reasonably have altered the outcome. That said, it’s the judge’s courtroom and they can say “That’s interesting but what about C and D?” and then the parties can make submissions about them. They do have to be circumspect and make sure that they do not become one party’s advocate - one party might be well aware of C and D and don’t want them brought up because they damage their case and they are hoping the other party misses that - and then the bloody judge come charging in with his bloody duty to wider interests of justice. Non-judicial decision makers like arbitrators, adjudicators and other tribunals need to be even more circumspect because they generally don’t have a duty to anyone but the parties. Unlike in civil law systems, the role of the judge is to decide the dispute between the parties as a referee, not to determine some objective”truth” as an investigator. To keep things simple: if the plaintiff contends that the light was red and the defendant contends the light was green then, assuming there is no evidence opening the possibility, it is not open to the judge to find that the light was amber. Similarly, if the parties agree that red means go and green means stop, it is not the judge's role to tell the parties they are wrong (I'm sure questions would be asked but if the parties are adamant ...): since there is no dispute over this issue the judge would be wrong to agitate one. Now, a judge is free to apply the law that was argued as a whole - if arguments centred on Section 14 of the Relevant Act 1875 but Section 15 is applicable and germane the judge is not wrong for applying Section 15. However, they are on shakier ground if the bring in Other Slightly Relevant Act 1956.
First, the relevant term is "precedent". You have misstated the nature of "precedent". Precedent is simply the addition of further information about what the law is. A legislature may set forth a law that say "If A, then (if you B, you will suffer consequence C)". But it is not self-evident in a given instance whether A is true, or B is true, or what exactly C refers to. In addition, law is an integrated system, so Law #39 may seem to contradict Law #12: does that mean that Law #39 doesn't apply, or is it that Law #12 (if #12 is a Constitutional provision, #39 is just wrong – laws exist in a hierarchy). Therefore, laws must be interpreted. "Precedent" refers to the creation of a rule of interpretation, one which is logically consistent with existing rules of interpretation (which are arranged in some logical hierarchy). If the Supreme Court establishes a rule that laws penalizing "hate speech" contradict the First Amendment (R.A.V v. St Paul) and therefore cannot be a law in the US, then any similar law is, by rule, also not actually a law. Creation of precedent itself follows rules, though ones that are harder to discern – this is what "jurisprudence" is about. For example, some justices believe that they should appeal to an inherent feeling of justice; others believe that a law should be interpreted according to perceived legislative intent; still others focus on the wording of the legal text (statute, usually). This does not involve appeal to popular sentiment. It does mean (usually) that law is seen to be a system of rules, and not case-by-case feelings.
My research has turned up no instances of anyone successfully advocating these ideas in court. These are crackpot pseudo-legal theories that have no legal validity whatsoever. And are also a bit troublesome and problematic for the rest of us. They are mostly advocated by people who: don't want to pay taxes or otherwise conform to laws they don't like; are conspiracy-minded; and have come across a pseudo-legal theory that helps them justify their position. For example, an author of this Wikipedia article explains: &quot;Freemen&quot; believe that statute law is a contract, and that individuals can therefore opt out of statute law, choosing instead to live under what they call &quot;common&quot; (case) and &quot;natural&quot; laws. Under their theory, natural laws require only that individuals do not harm others, do not damage the property of others, and do not use &quot;fraud or mischief&quot; in contracts. They say that all people have two parts to their existence – their body and their legal &quot;person&quot;. The latter is represented by the individual's birth certificate; some freemen claim that it is entirely limited to the birth certificate. Under this theory, a &quot;strawman&quot; is created when a birth certificate is issued, and this &quot;strawman&quot; is the entity who is subject to statutory law. The physical self is referred to by a slightly different name – for example &quot;John of the family Smith&quot;, as opposed to &quot;John Smith&quot;. In 2013, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington tried and convicted Kenneth Wayne Leaming for retaliation by making false claims and wrote: Defendant [Kenneth Wayne Leaming] is apparently a member of a group loosely styled &quot;sovereign citizens.&quot; The Court has deduced this from a number of Defendant’s peculiar habits. First, like Mr. Leaming, sovereign citizens are fascinated by capitalization. They appear to believe that capitalizing names has some sort of legal effect. For example, Defendant writes that &quot;the REGISTERED FACTS appearing in the above Paragraph evidence the uncontroverted and uncontrovertible FACTS that the SLAVERY SYSTEMS operated in the names UNITED STATES, United States, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and United States of America . . . are terminated nunc pro tunc by public policy, U.C.C. 1-103 . . . .&quot; (Def.’s Mandatory Jud. Not. at 2.) He appears to believe that by capitalizing &quot;United States,&quot; he is referring to a different entity than the federal government. For better or for worse, it’s the same country. Second, sovereign citizens, like Mr. Leaming, love grandiose legalese. &quot;COMES NOW, Kenneth Wayne, born free to the family Leaming, [date of birth redacted], constituent to The People of the State of Washington constituted 1878 and admitted to the union 22 February 1889 by Act of Congress, a Man, &quot;State of Body&quot; competent to be a witness and having First Hand Knowledge of The FACTS . . . .&quot; (Def.’s Mandatory Jud. Not. at 1.) Third, Defendant evinces, like all sovereign citizens, a belief that the federal government is not real and that he does not have to follow the law. Thus, Defendant argues that as a result of the &quot;REGISTERED FACTS,&quot; the &quot;states of body, persons, actors and other parties perpetuating the above captioned transaction(s) [i.e., the Court and prosecutors] are engaged . . . in acts of TREASON, and if unknowingly as victims of TREASON and FRAUD . . . .&quot; (Def.’s Mandatory Jud. Not. at 2.) The Court therefore feels some measure of responsibility to inform Defendant that all the fancy legal-sounding things he has read on the internet are make-believe...... Paper Terrorism One particularly problematic &quot;successful&quot; tactic employed by these individuals is the filing of false liens. They take advantage of the fact that property liens are not vetted prior to being recorded. These false liens illegally cloud the title to real property and adversely affect the sale of property by adding unnecessary time and expense to the process.
What does one do if, a party at trial denies having made a statement in a published article? A combination of a) and b). The plaintiff should gather other evidence with which to disprove the denials of authorship, or at least to question the reliability the publisher's testimony. The jury needs that evidence in order to discern who is credible. Whether decisive or not for credibility purposes, any material inconsistencies the plaintiff is able to point out from the witness's testimony(-ies) tend to guide the fact-finder (i.e., the jury) on matters of credibility. Whenever possible, the evidence should include admissible documents from when the events took place. For instance, records reflecting the submission &amp; editing process of that article. Those documents typically are obtained by subpoenaing the publisher and/or relevant non-parties, accordingly. That will reduce the chances of testimony deficiencies, whether these stem from witnesses' perjury, lack of memory, inability to clearly articulate what they know, or inability to testify at all (due to witness's illness or death by the time the matter goes to trial).