All the laws on controlled substances are injected with politics as they go through Congress.
Yesterday, a woman in Detroit living in public housing was evicted at the same time she had an operation. She died and her son took her body and dropped it off at the 36th District Court. Even the mundane principles of capitalist summary process have political dimensions.
I agree with John Mage, that if the 9C could fix its mouth to write a decision finding a medical marijuana exception in the statute, then there is no way there is no f'ing way that the statute could be interpreted that way, i.e. it is a close case that could be decided either way. None of the Circuits are so radical as to make a decision wildly deviating from any plausible interpretation of the statutes.
CB
>>> jkschw at hotmail.com 05/16/01 05:17PM >>>
OK, take the medical marijuana decision. I think that a court's job in
statutory interpretation is to track the intent of the legislature. Do you
think Congress intended there to be an unexpressed, implicit exception to
the prohibitions in 21 USC about controlled substances, in the case of
marijuana, where there are express exceptions in the cases of morphine or
methadone, for example? Not a fucking chance. This isn't political. The 9C
wasn't dumb; it was a respectable opinion. But it was wrong. This isn't
politics. It's law. --jks
>
>wojtek wrote:
>
> > It is only at the
> > strategic junctions when they are unfair because they succumb to
>political
> > expediency. Therefore, you need to show me that at such strategic
> > junctions, the US system was above political expediency - and that I am
> > afraid would rather difficult to do.
>
>In fact, impossible. This is precisely correct.
>
>I knew well many of the lawyers (and the handful who are still alive I
>know to this day) who had to deal with the Federal Courts during the
>1948-1954 McCarthy period, when the First Amendment was thrown out the
>window by the Federal judiciary one and all. As Victor Rabinowitz, who
>knows more about this than anyone, said - as far as resisting the
>nationwide political repression of the McCarthy period was concerned,
>the Federal judiciary were useless.
>
>They know when they have to toe the line, and they do so. A good friend
>of mine tells the story of his first day clerking for the late Judge
>Vance (murdered because he was a good judge) & being given a drug
>importation case with the comment from his judge that "here we have what
>we call the 11th Circuit exception to the Fourth Amendment."
>
>As the crits explained long ago, most all cases in the appellate courts
>and all cases in the Supremes are overdetermined. Multiple decisions for
>either side can be crafted in accordance with Justin's "internally
>consistent principles--the meaning of statutes and the constitutional
>language,[and]respect for precedent."
>
>Thus when Justin says in reference to medical marijuana "[f]or what it
>is worth, I think the SCt's opinion is probably right in tracking
>Congress' intentions, although the 9C opinion that was overturned was a
>tolerable reading of the text" he is acknowledging that both opinions
>are OK by his "internally consistent principles" but refusing the clear
>conclusion - that the decision (including *his* decision as to what is
>"probably right") is therefore political.
>
>john mage
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