The GOP has been packing the court for four years - Gorsuch instead of Merrick Garland and now ACB. The Dems, should they get power, should add 4 seats to the Court, creating a 7-6 liberal majority. 9 is not set in stone, nor the Constitution.
that's shooting way too low. There should be 19-23 judges on the SC. If they have the balls to open that front, then actually go for it. There is no logical reason to stop at 13 or even 15 judges other than gutlessness. Fuck a 7-6 majority, make it a 15-6 majority, and make it harder for a future R sweep of all branches to expand it again
You have to consider logistics. Lots of back and forth goes into creating a majority opinion. Some horse trading even. A great book about how the Court works is The Brethren by Bob Woodward. Your plan sounds very unwieldy to me. We need also consider that the GOP might do it again down the road if we do it. Lots to consider.
that's exactly why to do it big-time. If there were 21 judges, the R's expanding it to 27 isn't going to change the dynamic any but it won't matter because the D's will be gutless about this. Some are already waffling, including Biden the D's could win president and congress, pass legislation, and the SC will nullify like has happened in Michigan and Wisconsin. That's almost guaranteed to happen unless the D's expand the court
The question is if the Left packed the court what's to prevent the Right from doing the same in the future. Of course. seeing what we've seen, even if the Left doesn't pack the court what's to prevent the Right from packing the court in the future.
salon.com Watchdog group accuses Amy Coney Barrett of “unconscionable cruelty” in teen rape case Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has been accused of "unconscionable cruelty" by a watchdog group over her role in an appellate court decision overturning a district court which found a Wisconsin county liable for millions in damages to a woman who alleged she had been repeatedly raped by a jail guard. "After a 19-year old pregnant prison inmate was repeatedly raped by a prison guard, Amy Coney Barrett ruled that the county responsible for the prison could not be held liable because the sexual assaults fell outside of the guard's official duties. Her judgment demonstrates a level of unconscionable cruelty that has no place on the high court," Kyle Herrig, president of the progressive watchdog group Accountable.US, told Salon. "The only thing more concerning than the rush to confirm by Senate Republicans is what we are learning about Amy Coney Barrett's extremist record. It is hardly surprising that she has dodged question after question during her testimony." Barrett was one of the three judges on a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals panel which reversed a $6.7 million verdict against Milwaukee County in 2018 after a corrections officer was charged with repeatedly raping a pregnant 19-year-old inmate. Former corrections officer Xavier Thicken was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault in 2013 after the woman alleged that he had raped her during and after her pregnancy at a jail run by the controversial former Sheriff David Clarke. Those charges were dropped when he agreed to plead guilty to felony misconduct in public office in 2014. The woman later filed a lawsuit against Milwaukee County. In her testimony, she alleged that Thicklen had raped her in different parts of the jail when she was eight months pregnant and demanded that she perform oral sex on him after giving birth. A jury awarded the woman $6.7 million in 2017, which was upheld by District Judge J.P. Stadmueller before the Seventh Circuit Court overturned the ruling in September 2018. Barrett joined Judges Daniel Manion and Robert Gettleman in reversing the district court ruling against the county, though it upheld the judgement against Thicklen. Mannion wrote in the unanimous opinion that the county was not responsible for the guard's conduct. "Conduct is not in the scope if it is different in kind from that authorized, far beyond the authorized time or space, or too little actuated by a purpose to serve the employer," he said. "Even when viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to (the woman) and the verdict, we hold no reasonable jury could find the sexual assaults were in the scope of his (Thicklen's) employment," the opinion stated. "The evidence negates the verdict." Manion noted that the training materials stated guards were prohibited from having sex with inmates.
In other words if an employer rapes a worker or a teacher rapes a student or a priest rapes a parishioner, the company, school, church are blameless because rape wasn't one of the rapist's official duties
wrong question starting from an incomplete premise: the courts are already packed, and the R's did it. Packed with white men; packed with right wing zealots. Anything the D's do will start as unpacking the courts and there's a ton of unpacking to do and if the D's want to make it harder for the R's to match, then they need to abandon their pathological unilateral adherence to timidity. If you're going to expand the SCOTUS, then fucking expand it. Don't mess around at 13 judges. Go for 21 or 23.
" Why George Washington would want 26 justices: The original understanding of how to structure the court was that there should be two justices for each federal circuit court. There were three such circuits in 1789, which is how the United States ended up with six justices. Since there are thirteen such circuits today, we should have … 26 justices. Isn’t that right, Amy Coney Barrett?" https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...-seats-and-nothing-original-about-that-number
* "MYSTAL: Yeah, what Republicans are doing is about court STACKING. What Democrats are proposing is a little bit different. Look, I can make the "Vengeance" argument for court expansion all day long. They denied Garland a hearing. They're putting Amy Coney Barrett through during an election, they've nominated predominantly white, predominantly male judges for four years. I can make the "Vengeance" argument. But I favor court expansion because of its reform possibilities. I want a better Supreme Court, not merely a Supreme Court where I get to win sometimes. So, that's why I favor a court expansion of up to 20 new justices on the Supreme Court. People say, "Oh, that's 29 justices, that's unwieldy!" No, it ain't. That's exactly how many circuit judges the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals currently has on it. 29 justices is not unwieldy. It's diverse. The benefit of having more justices is that it fixes the problem that should be obvious to all of us by now. Our confirmation process is broken. It's broken because when one of these octogenarian dies, which is a thing that happens in the world, it presents an existential crisis for the party out of power. Each individual Supreme Court justice, is frankly, too important to our laws and our polity and our rights. If we had 29 justices, each individual death would be less important and it will allow us to get back to confirming judges based on qualifications as opposed to based on agendas. So, that's number one. Number two thing I just want to say, really quickly, most Americans say they want moderate mainstream opinions, right? Like, that we want the law to be stable and to know what it's going to be. Well, you know how you get there? If you have more judges. Because if I write an opinion, and all I have to do is convince my four arch-conservative buddies, it's going to come out one way. If I've gotta write an opinion that's gotta convince ten, 15, or 20 people, that's fundamentally a more watered down, more moderate, more mainstream position. I have just explained why Chili's is in business, why Olive Garden is in business, because watered down decisions are made for the benefit of the most people. Court expansion allows us to take down the temperature, literally depoliticize the confirmation battle. It allows us to have more moderate judges, more moderate opinions coming out of the courts. And, last thing, the way the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals works, and the way all of our lower circuits work is the case is initially heard by a three-judge panel chosen by -- wait for it -- random lot. That means that when go to court, you don't know the party of the judge you're getting. That would have such good effects on the appearance of impartiality in our court system. So, court expansion is just a way to fix it, and that's why Republicans don't like it, because they're afraid they'll lose. Hell, if we could do court packing, I would be happy to have Republicans, if Republicans want to play ball, I'd be happy to share some of the seats with them. But they don't want to fix it." https://crooksandliars.com/2020/10/elie-mystal-court-expansion-fixes-our
Being raped is not good for a pregnant woman. To put it mildly. Notice how little concern Coat Hanger has for her. She's low class, no doubt, and a Good Woman wouldn't care about That Slut.
This doesn't make sense. First you say Republicans have already packed the court and then you imply that Republicans could match any packing of the court that Democrats might do. My potential scenario was that if Democrats packed the court why couldn't Republicans follow suit as you correctly point out. Here's a thought, how about creating a new federal court between a court of appeals and the Supreme Court. That court could be large and take some of the load off the Supreme Court. Here's another thought, how about having federal judgeships approved by the full Congress, House and Senate, after nomination by the President.
Well, in any event, she wasn't alone in making that decision. https://www.wjiinc.org/blog/appeals-court-reverses-67-million-jail-rape-verdict "The undisputed facts and reasonable inferences point ineluctably to the conclusions that Thicklen’s abhorrent acts were in no way actuated by a purpose to serve County," (Daniel A.) Manion wrote. "He raped (the inmate) for purely personal reasons, the rapes did not benefit County but harmed it, he knew the rapes did not serve County, and the rapes were outside the scope." Manion expressed sympathy for the woman who, with the county's dismissal from the case, "loses perhaps her best chance to collect the judgment. But (the law) does not make public employers absolute insurers against all wrongs."
I believe the law says the county is charged with taking reasonable steps to see to it that employees don't violate the law while on duty.
I understand. There's never a guarantee that will happen (independent violations). My guess is, the judges went over every jot and tittle of the county's vetting process as a part of weighing into their decision.
if there were, for instance, 23 judges on the SC, the R's would have to expand it to 37 or more to overcome. It's just not a viable option for the R's. That's why I'm saying that the D's can't finesse this with a minor expansion; it has to be a major expansion that would leave reduction of the court as the only option for the R's. But that means that the D's, already embarking on a hardball path, have to fully commit to the strategy. That means first securing the majority, then doing exactly what the R's have done for years, and that's create a lawsuit that becomes constitutional legislation thru the back door. That would be the SCOTUS ruling that court expansion thru normal legislative process is constitutional, but court reductions can't be done except thru normal vacancies like death or retirement. yeah, this is the same level of fantasy as Olshey actually trading CJ, or AD signing with the Blazers, but hope dies hard
