28 Comments

That would sound very much like an unconstitutional application of the kind that SCOTUS explicitly held out the possibility of striking down once the actual interpretation of that section becomes clear. As I said elsewhere here, section 2 essentially reads "do this totally unconstitutional thing, in a totally constitutional way", and the court is waiting to see which half of that is emphasized before ruling further.

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Fetuses. Babies don't get rights.

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Jaywalking <em>while brown</em>?

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Presuming most illegal Hispanic immigrants are Catholic I can't understand how Scalia would object as his allegiance is more to the Vatican and Church than to the United States.

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'Nino' is a great friend of Arizona:<i> Arizona bears the brunt of the country’s illegal immigration problem. Its citizens feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade their property, strain their social services, and even place their lives in jeopardy. Federal officials have been unable to remedy the problem, and indeed have recently shown that they are unwilling to do so. Thousands of Arizona’s estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants—including not just children but men and women under 30—are now assured immunity from enforcement, and will be able to compete openly with Arizona citizens for employment.</i> <a href="http://s3.documentcloud.org..." target="_blank">" rel="nofollow noopener" title="http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/372493/scal...">http://s3.documentcloud.org...

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The court basically gave Arizona a warning: proceed with extreme caution, we're ready to slap you down again if you detain citizens for looking brown*.

There are allowable interpretations of the law that are constitutional, even if Arizona has shown that it cannot be trusted to stick to those interpretations without being closely watched over by someone with a big stick. So, "go on, but remember we're watching closely, and we have a big stick", is not an unreasonable thing for the court to say. In fact, the "canon of constitutional avoidance" more or less compels the court not to strike at this time.

* Translated into SCOTUS-speak, this came out as:

"Detaining individuals solely to verify their immigration status would raise constitutional concerns. ... And it would disrupt the federal framework to put state officers in the position of holding aliens in custody for possible unlawful presence without federal direction and supervision. ... The program put in place by Congress does not allow state or local officers to adopt this enforcement mechanism."

Kennedy also brings up jaywalking as a specific example of where it would not be constitutional to prolong a stop in order to complete an immigration status check.

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Nino is a bare-faced fucking liar.

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The good news was that Scalia, Thomas and Alito were outvoted in 2 out of 3 cases, and the court usually takes much longer to admit error than has passed since <em>Citizens United</em>, so the Montana case should not have surprised anyone.

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that implies this court showed some judicial restraint.

i find that confusing.

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Hasn't that been officially not-cool for a while now?

Still <em>totally</em> cool with Scalia, Thomas and Alito, of course: the more state-sponsored murders the merrier with those bastards.

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I won't be surprised if Mittens has a Excel pie chart that shows the percentage contribution of each of his large donors and where they will be sitting at the table during White House Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

I sincerely hope Pro Publica or someone looks at some of these big donors because I'm pretty sure overseas interests are funding this election. I remember it happened in GWB2 1st election. With Citizens United vs. FEC, the whole thing smells like a goat's ass.

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However the AZ courts apply this statute will be totally at variance with its plain language, since it's inherently contradictory ('do this thing that would be totally unconstitutional, in a totally constitutional way'... huh?)

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oh. i thought he was worried they were going for an alexandrian rhyme scheme or something

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Federal law already requires non-citizens to carry identification and proof of status at all times.

The part requiring people to produce it is potentially unconstitutional, but since that part of the law is basically inherently self-contradictory, SCOTUS declined to rule on it until AZ courts say what it actually means.

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right. now i can stick to my plan of teetotalling for at least a couple days.

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' the fuck you people have against the late 1800s?

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