Friday, September 24, 2004
“Wholly Without Merit”
... My favourite legal phrase. Basically means the petitionner is full of it and wasting the court's time. It was used in one of the dissenting opinions of the US Supreme Court in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case which decided the election.
From MetaFilter comes this interesting article: The Path to Florida A long Vanity Fair article (part one and part two, both PDFs) about the experiences and reactions of US Supreme Court clerks during the 2000 election and Bush v. Gore [PDFs hosted at SCOTUSblog; via Intel Dump]
Which brings me to the decision of the court itself, which as far as I can tell, was taken by a straw poll of the judges who then went off and wrote the concurrence and dissent respectively. They don't even agree on whether the court should have even heard the case.
The dissenting opinions in Bush v. Gore are actually quite readable and concise.
Stevens - This one even contains the phrase "wholly without merit."
Souter -- "The State Supreme Court was therefore required to define it, and in doing that the court looked to another election statute, §101.5614(5), dealing with damaged or defective ballots, which contains a provision that no vote shall be disregarded “if there is a clear indication of the intent of the voter as determined by a canvassing board.” The court read that objective of looking to the voter’s intent as indicating that the legislature probably meant “legal vote” to mean a vote recorded on a ballot indicating what the voter intended."
Ginsberg -- "Surely the Constitution does not call upon us to pay more respect to a federal administrative agency’s construction of federal law than to a state high court’s interpretation of its own state’s law."
Breyer -- "Despite the reminder that this case involves “an election for the President of the United States,” ante, at 1 (Rehnquist, C. J., concurring), no preeminent legal concern, or practical concern related to legal questions, required this Court to hear this case, let alone to issue a stay that stopped Florida’s recount process in its tracks."
Being a law clerk in the US Supreme Court while all this was happening would likely have been the ultimate disillusioning experience for any optimistic young lawyer lucky enough to catch a glimpse of how the system works at its highest and most refined level.
George Bush is Not the Legitimate President of the United States
by Chris Bowers
Never forget what happened in 2000, because it was illegal and illegitimate and possibly the most important event of your lifetime. As long as you live, never forget that a Presidential Election was stolen in your lifetime. As an American who will never leave America, who will never disavow his citizenship and who will never hide his patriotism no matter what happens, it still disgusts me that this happened in my country. Far beyond 9/11, far beyond the end of my engagement, far beyond even my mother's aneurysm, the theft of the 2000 election remains the most disturbing event of my lifetime. It is still hard to believe that our Democracy was so utterly subverted. Blame Nader or a supposedly crappy Gore campaign all you like, but the fact of the matter is that illegal and intentional disenfranchisement of minorities, partisan legal manipulation, crappy ballots, mob rule, and an aristocratic family junta all led to a candidate who clearly received the second most votes becoming the President of my country.
Let this anger drive you over the next 39 days while you work on the turnout Jerome writes about. And if you are not angry, or have forgotten what happened, make sure you read the upcoming Vanity Fair article that details the theft in full. Part one is here (PDF), and part two is here (PDF). And don't just read it, but buy the magazine and too. It is utterly breathtaking, and you are going to want to own something like this on more than just your hard-drive.
Misc :: Fri Sep 24th, 2004 at 12:42:56 AM EST :
