Here’s a pretty good summary:
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a nominee of President Reagan, wrote the 5-3 majority opinion that struck down several key provisions of the Arizona immigration law, known as SB 1070. Those provisions designated it a state crime to seek work without a work permit, fail to carry immigration registration documents or allow the arrest an individual suspected of committing a crime that could lead to deportation from the United States.
Kennedy was joined by President George W. Bush’s choice for Chief Justice, John Roberts, as well as Democratic selections Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.
[….]The court did not strike down the state’s right to permit police to routinely check the immigration status of people stopped for other reasons.
However, today’s ruling left open the possibility that this provision could be reviewed later if it is enforced in a discriminatory manner.
Baud
I did not know this (from the opinion):
BGinCHI
@Baud: Tell that to ET.
Baud
@BGinCHI: I always thought E.T. would have been better as a courtroom drama.
Violet
@Baud: It is (or was) called “out of status”. IANAL, but had to deal with immigration for a family member and that’s what we learned at the time from the immigration attorney.
reflectionephemeral
As I pointed out over at my place, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops invoked “religious liberty” in their brief in opposition to the law.
Shockingly, though, that issue didn’t come up in Justice Scalia’s dissent, even though he’s said in the past that “If I thought that Catholic doctrine held the death penalty to be immoral, I would resign. I could not be a part of a system that imposes it.”
I can’t stand that Republican positions are taken, in the media, to be by default the True Religious Patriotic Burkean positions, even when, as on immigration, they conflict with what churches say they want. And, given that the reason we care about the government is that it implements policies that affect people’s lives, it’s rather galling to see the no-policy party taken as the by-default Serious Grown-up party, when in fact they have abandoned empiricism and therefore patriotism.
Some of the fault lies with the Bishops– there wasn’t any Fortnight of Freedom about immigration because it’s not a GOP-friendly issue. And some of it lies with messaging on the left failing to amp up the point. But I really don’t like how terrible the media is at reporting the news, either.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: E.
T. phone lawyer.
Hal
What I love the most about this decision is the fact that Jan Brewer basically declared victory the minute arguments were over, based on the tone of the questions. Not to mention her finger in the Presidents’ face. A little rebuking is a good thing in her case.
Patricia Kayden
“The court did not strike down the state’s right to permit police to routinely check the immigration status of people stopped for other reasons.”
Darkies beware!
MattF
Sheriff Joe has a sad.
David Hunt
“If???”
shortstop
@Baud: That made me spew coffee.
kd bart
This is good news for McCain, right?
Punchy
TPM threw out a blurb about Fat Tony going excoriatic w/r/t this ruling. Anyone have a link to the bile he spewed? Any chance he invoked phrases like “burrito-eating” and “dishwasher mandate”?
Does this common-sense ruling actually mean Roberts has a brain and/or heart?
Violet
@Punchy:
Does he have high blood pressure? He doesn’t look like the healthiest of guys. Getting riled up like that can’t be good for his blood pressure. Would be a shame if something should happen….
Villago Delenda Est
No surprise that the fascist shitstain, Scallia, voted in favor of the AZ law. Of course his lawn jockey voted with him.
Baud
Kennedy’s no liberal, and he may shiv us on health care, but he’s on the court because Bork couldn’t get past the Senate. As bleak as it seems sometimes, we could easily have lost the Court and the legal system over 20 years ago.
Zach
A 4-4 ruling would’ve overturned stop-and-check as well (the part that was upheld pending evidence of racial profiling/harassment). In oral arguments, Kennedy didn’t seem so fond of that section of the bill (although I’m unfamiliar with his history on immigration law). I’m hoping that Roberts joining the decision (to make it 5-3 instead of 4-4) and upholding stop-and-check was his pound of flesh for joining a 6-3 majority on Obamacare (in addition to authoring the opinion). Two larger-than-needed majorities on politically polarized cases would go a long way to restoring the public and legal community’s esteem for the court, and in both instances Roberts’ presence would result in more conservative majority opinions (e.g. he might write in favor of Obamacare but come up with a clear limiting principle for the commerce clause).
Or maybe Kennedy traded Roberts’ in the AZ majority for a 5-4 decision overturning Obamacare. Seems like a very important compromise surrounded the two cases in one way or another.
pseudonymous in nc
I just scanned through Scalia’s dissent, and at times it reads like pure wingnut screed. A classic case of nth-generation white ethnic ladder-pulling with a dash of Articles of Confederation jurisprudence on top.
@Violet:
It’s subject to civil penalty. There are knock-on elements that fall under criminal statutes, but they’re separate from entering or presence.
NonyNony
@Punchy:
IANAL – but my understanding is that in the case of a “tie” on the court, the lower court ruling that comes to the court stands. If Roberts had been on the other side, it would have been a 4-4 ruling. So I think that to answer your question we’d need to know if the decision of the lower court was better or worse than what the SCOTUS just turned out.
Again, IANAL and could be completely off-base about this. I can’t find with my Google-fu any indication of what the lower court ruling that the SCOTUS was reviewing actually WAS in comparison to this decision.
Cassidy
Someone needs to come up with a liberal bill addressing immigration adn bring it to the floor during this Congress, before the election. Make these assholes own it.
burnspbesq
@NonyNony:
The District Court enjoined enforcement of the entire statute, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. If the Supremes had split 4-4, the injunction against Section 2(b) would have remained in effect; that’s the piece that got reversed.
WereBear
Ummm… I thought Catholic doctrine DID hold the death penalty to be immoral.
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
The interesting thing there is that they’ve basically issued a warning that the “Papers Please” part of the law may still be illegal if it’s shown to have discriminatory enforcement. So if Arizona does actually treat driving while brown as a reason for traffic stops (with attendant request for immigration papers) that part is likely to be thrown out, too. I’m mildly disappointed in that part of the ruling- I think “Papers Please” is very hard to enforce in a non-discriminatory fashion and the history of SB1070 shows discriminatory intent- but it’s nice that the Court has explicitly left the door open for a rehearing.
David Koch
PANIC!
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus:
you had me cracking up. and with this effing flu cracking up hurts! but so worth it.
Valdivia
Before I was naturalized and before I had my green card I was able to leave the country with a document called ‘Advanced Parole’. It made my feel like I was going to end up in jail at any moment.
eldorado
@Baud
that is correct. this in entirely a civil matter.
David Koch
No difference btwn Bush and Gore!
Elena Kagan is unqualified to be on the Court!
Roger Moore
@WereBear:
Yeah, but you’re not Fat Tony Scalia. He’s perfectly happy twisting the Constitution to fit his prejudices, so you shouldn’t be surprised when he does the same thing to Catholic doctrine.
Dork
@Hal: She declared victory even tho she largely lost.
Yeah, and there’ll be no spiking of footballs when they win the ACA ruling. Nope, none at all.
Jay C
HOWEVER: while the SCOTUS’ ruling on the Arizona immigration law is all very well and good, our High Court has also just pulled another fast one in the Right’s attempts to drag us all back to the Gilded Age: they struck down Montana’s campaign-finance controls (under the excrable Citizens United umbrella); IMO, a far worse blow to democracy in this country, and what seems (OK, IANAL disclaimer) to basically disallow ANY controls on political spending whatsoever on any level (Federal, State, local). FPer’s? A post, please??
Punchy
@NonyNony: I realized that too late. Indeed, Roberts didn’t help our cause, he did the opposite. Probably a good thing IANAL.
NonyNony
@burnspbesq:
Thanks. I kinda figured that if Roberts was along for the decision, it meant that what came out of the Court was probably worse than what would have happened if it was a 4-4 split.
I didn’t want to commit to it, because it was mostly based purely on the fact that if Roberts is along on I seem to like it almost always turns out that there’s an ulterior motive to “limit” the decision in some way. And while the knee-jerk assumption that he’s up to something no good is probably an okay heuristic to use while navigating politics, it isn’t something I want to leave in a blog comment without extra evidence.
Michael Scott
@Roger Moore: Translation: Just as with our labor “opt out/opt in” decision of last week, we want another crack at interposing brand-spanking-new procedural and evidentiary roadblocks to the inevitable lower-court finding of intentional discrimination in enforcement . . .
beltane
@Roger Moore: Scalia is the type of man who could be found in any local Fascist party headquarters in 1930s Italy. I mean this literally and not in a tongue and cheek sense. He is a real-life, honest-to-God, old-style Fascist. This person has no business sitting on the bench of any country’s judiciary, let alone that of the United States.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
I think they did it on Perry Mason: “The Case of the Ambling Alien.”
Dave
@Jay C: The Montana ruling was disappointing. But there was no way this majority was going to second-guess itself so soon after the earlier ruling by opening it back up.
Heliopause
Interesting how this is being headlined in different outlets. Most are along the lines of “key provisions struck down, one upheld”. Toobin says that both sides can take positives from this. Politico leads with “SCOTUS clears key part” of the law and says that Brewer and Arpaio are declaring victory. FOX News says “Supreme Court Reins in Arizona.”
beltane
@Heliopause: The lesson to be learned is that Politico is even worse than Fox News.
Zach
@NonyNony:
Scanning through the oral arguments, it’s not clear which way Kennedy would lean on the 2b issue. He posed a hypothetical that hurt the Federal argument, but he stayed out of the mess that ensued with Roberts/Alito/Scalia piling on. Like I said above, I’m hopeful that keeping 2b alive was part of a compromise orchestrated by Roberts to have larger-than-needed majorities on two consecutive, polarizing cases (AZ and Obamacare) in which Roberts gives supermajority legitimacy to cases (meaning they won’t be relitigated after the next moderate retires) in exchange for a somewhat more conservative ruling.
andrewsomething
@Villago Delenda Est:
Do we really need this racist shit?
Joseph Nobles
Shorter Scalia: Arizona’s state sovereignty must not be denied!
(meanwhile, Montana can go fuck itself)
David Koch
@Heliopause:
Politico is financed by a bankster who used to money-launder blood money from the Saudis, the CIA, and Pinochet.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2005/01/the_cia_and_riggs_bank.html
They’re evil.
gwangung
@andrewsomething: Really. Thomas is an idiot twit all on his own.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
@beltane:
Actually, I think the Fascists in Italy get too bad a rap. What Scalia is is a Falangist. Agree with your last sentence, though.
(From the establishment of the single-party state in 1928 to the downfall of the Fascist government in 1943, the number of people executed for political “crimes” was: 17. That’s 17 too many, but it compares very favorably with Spain and Germany, to name two.)
Villago Delenda Est
@andrewsomething:
Yes, we do, because Thomas is a disgrace to the human race.
jon
@andrewsomething: Seconded. Or thirded. There’s no place for comparing Thomas to a relic of racism when he’s a modern example of present-day evils.
dmsilev
Meanwhile, Brave Sir Romney couldn’t actually bring himself to either agree or disagree with the court ruling. He was sure that Obama is a poopy-head, so I guess that’s something.
gwangung
@jon: My take is that it’s a “disservice” to Thomas’ evil to palm it off as being a toady. His reasoning indicates a disconnect to reality that’s all his own.
Uncle Cosmo
@David Hunt: Better question: How would one go about proving it? Suppose that there’s some sort of data base the cops would have the dispatcher consult while they’re sitting there in the patrol car with the driver’s license & registration. Of course the state would claim they check everyone’s status as a matter of routine. The only way a driver could be sure his status had been checked is if he was hauled off for being in the country illegally.
I can only think of one way a case for discrimination in application might be made–a very tenuous one based on the length of the average stop for Hispanic drivers versus everyone else. Unless someone among the dispatchers rats them out.
Mojotron
The “lawn jockey” comparison isn’t funny or clever and it makes this place look like the Fox Nation message boards. I think Thomas is the worst justice hands down, but I don’t want a discussion of him here to read like an xbox chat session.
danimal
@Villago Delenda Est: Agreed, Thomas is a disgrace.
There is no need to disgrace yourself while making that point.
shortstop
@Villago Delenda Est: I join in calling that one way out of bounds. “Disgrace to the human race” does not = subject to unquestionably racist analogies.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Hal:
I am going to predict that
a) Health Care will be upheld in some 6-3, 5-4 way
b) the Right ignore the result, declare a major defeat for Obama and spike the ball.
c) The Village will agree Obama lost.
Valdivia
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I am with you on this. See for example a generally good post by Greg Sargent about the concerns of the immigration advocates about the ruling. The tone of it is–this is still a loss!
This is one of the reasons I just don’t get the people that say that Obama just didn’t sell ACA efficiently and that is why people don’t know about it. The media was never going to sell it no matter what. He did, and tried and had press conferences (remember when they would belly-ache about Obama taking their precious prime time away from them? now you have people saying he is worst than Bush and never lets the media ask him questions. Jerks.)
It’s Halperin’s universe all the way in which no matter what Obama always loses. I can bet that when he wins the election it will still be a terrible loss for him for some reason or another. If he wins by less than 2008 they will say it was a rebuke of him or something like that.
4tehlulz
Today, a Supreme Court justice accused a sitting president of selling out to Mexico.
And it’s only June.
OzoneR
I generally agree that if a person is taken in on accusation of a crime, say DWI, that its ok to check their immigration status at that point.
I do not agree that police could stop a brown 20 year old on the street and ask for his immigration status.
So the court’s opinion doesn’t infuriate me.
reflectionephemeral
@WereBear: As to the death penalty (and invasion of Iraq): The invasion of Iraq did not comply with the Church’s just war doctrine. John Paul II, March 16, 2003, “There is still time to negotiate; there is still room for peace, it is never too late to come to an understanding and to continue discussions.” Then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict: “reasons sufficient for unleashing a war against Iraq did not exist,” in part because: “proportion between the possible positive consequences and the sure negative effect of the conflict was not guaranteed. On the contrary, it seems clear that the negative consequences will be greater than anything positive that might be obtained.”
Now, it’s only fair to note that then-Cardinal Ratzinger also said: “There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.”
But it is also fair to say that Scalia does not appear to consider or mention the Church’s teachings (e.g., the USCCB on immigration, or torture) when they aren’t in line with the Republican Party’s platform.
(Nthing the criticism of the term used to describe Justice Thomas. Out of bounds, not cool, not called for, not even “accurate” for what it is given his even-further-out-there views than Scalia).
Keith G
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think it would be wrong to assume you harbor racist notions – maybe your emotions just got carried away, but typing shit like that shows some industrial grade stupidity.
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
Possibly relevant, for historical context: New on Project Gutenberg last night—Atrocious Judges: Lives of Judges Infamous as Tools of Tyrants and Instruments of Oppression.
Jamey
@Baud:
Feex’t.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Valdivia:
Yes, even *if* Obama wins by the bigger margins shown in the outlier polls the headlines will be “Administration at a Crossroads: Obama squeaks by in a nail biter. After only wining 60% of the popular vote is it time for Obama to reflect?” With the talking head shows claiming Obama’s 60% is disgraceful next to Reagan’s 58% in 1984.
Part of it seems to be the press wants drama and conflict for ratings, part of it is American culture seems to have going into this kind double speak because a lot of the elite don’t want live in the real world.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Keith G:
And we have Justice Thomas for that.
My impression is Thomas is he is less Scalia’s sock puppet and more like an idiot onto himself.
Darkrose
Scalia is really starting to remind me of my mother, as we realized that she wasn’t just old and crotchety, but that the paranoia and anger were actually signs of something more serious.
shortstop
@Darkrose: I’ve been wondering about that, too.
Valdivia
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I completely agree. i think we should call it right now that no matter what, Obama winning the election will be good news for Mitt Romney and President in Exile McCain
Rob
@Valdivia: Interesting point. So you’re saying a president from the right or the left is screwed no matter what from 2012-16?