A Nation of Lawlessness
The matter of Chrysler’s bankruptcy seems to have rendered quaint our system of checks and balances. President Obama is breaking the law and the other two branches are letting him get away with it. One can probably understand how a smitten public might casually allow this president a stipend of unconstitutional acts, since he doesn’t scowl like Nixon or stutter like Bush. But, even a popular president (in particular, a popular president) must be held in check by the legislative and judicial branches.
And that’s not happening.
On Tuesday at 4:00 pm, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “stayed pending further order” the bankruptcy-related transactions of Chrysler, giving hope the Supreme Court might hear the appeal filed on behalf of certain Indiana state pension and construction funds, who claim that their property rights as secured creditors were violated by the forced sale and that the use of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to support Chrysler and facilitate its restructuring was illegal. Only 28 hours later, the Supreme Court decided against taking the appeal, despite the seemingly compelling issues at hand.
Just as the Bush administration was telling Congress last September that there was no time to debate the merits of a financial bailout and that the only course was to give Treasury Secretary Paulson carte blanche immediately to spend $700 billion, the Obama administration was telling the Supreme Court this week that time was of the essence and that Fiat would walk away from the Chrysler deal if it wasn’t allowed to proceed right away. Was that the decisive factor in the Supreme Courts rejection of the appeal? It seems to me the appeal contains some serious constitutional issues worthy of judicial consideration (consideration that goes beyond merely rubber-stamping the Obama administration’s pre-packaged, politically-driven bankruptcy plan for Chrysler, which is what Judge Gonzalez appears to have done).
But it’s now a done deal, possibly facilitated by illegalities.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties; Trade and Immigration
Should Judges ‘Have the Back’ of Police Officers?
Vice-president Joe Biden says we should rally behind the Supreme Court nomination of Sotomayor because she will “have the back” of the police. Biden is a lawyer, a senator, and former chairman of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, so he should know better than to pull a political stunt like that to curry favor with law enforcement groups. The Constitution places limits on the power of the police to search, detain, wiretap, imprison, and interrogate. The separation of powers principle means that judges must maintain their impartiality and “check” the police whenever they overstep their authority. To abdicate that responsibility and to “go along with the police” is to do away with our system of checks and balances.
As it happens, The New York Times has a story today about one Jeffrey Deskovic. He got caught up in a police investigation because he was “too distraught” over the rape and murder of his classmate. When there was no DNA match, prosecutors told the jury it didn’t really matter. Does Biden really want Supreme Court justices to come to the support of the state when habeas corpus petitions arrive on their desks and the police work is sloppy, weak, or worse?
On a related note, Cato adjunct scholar Harvey Silverglate fights another miscarriage of justice in Massachusetts.
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