Post by Warrigal on Apr 17, 2018 21:10:42 GMT -5
Justice Gorsuch has demonstrated that his loyalty is to the Constitution and to ensuring that laws passed by the legislature are in line with this document. This is the very reason why there is this separation of powers of the executive. legislative and judicial branches of government.
From the NY Times:
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a law that allowed the government to deport some immigrants who commit serious crimes, saying it was unconstitutionally vague. The decision will limit the Trump administration’s efforts to deport people convicted of some kinds of crimes.
The vote was 5 to 4, with Justice Neil M. Gorsuch joining the court’s four more liberal members to form a bare majority, which was a first. Justice Gorsuch wrote that the law crossed a constitutional line.
www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/us/politics/supreme-court-deportations-trump.html
From The Hill:
Gorsuch sided with court's four liberal justices in favor of the immigrant, James Garcia Dimaya, who the government sought to deport after his second first-degree burglary conviction in California.
The Justice Department argued his first-degree burglary conviction constituted a crime of violence, which is an aggravated felony that results in deportation under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
However, the court said Tuesday that the law’s definition of a crime of violence is too vague.
In delivering the opinion of the court Justice Elena Kagan relied on a 2015 ruling in which the court said a similar clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) that defined a “violent felony” was unconstitutionally void for vagueness.
Kagan said that like the ACCA provision, the INA provision defining a crime of violence “requires a court to picture the kind of conduct that the crime involves in ‘the ordinary case,’ and to judge whether that abstraction’ presents some not-well-specified-yet-sufficiently large degree of risk."
As a result, she said INA’s provision produces, just as ACCA’s residual clause did, “more unpredictability and arbitrariness than the Due Process Clause tolerates.”
In a concurring opinion, Gorscuh said vague laws invite arbitrary power.
thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/383512-supreme-court-invalidates-law-requiring-the-deportation-of
This should be a wake up call to Congress. SCOTUS is not a rubber stamp for sloppy legislation. Less rush and more care is needed when drafting bills, especially those that affect people's rights.
Gorsuch just validated his own nomination and appointment by his commitment to the Constitution and to good legislation.
Congress will just have to try again and try harder.
