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Lawyer's Who Worked Pro Bono Now Ask For 3.5 million

jmelvin

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It would be interesting to see what if any precedent there is for such a request. It is certainly only due to the District of Columbia's violation of the U.S. Constitution that the case was even necessary therefore it only makes sense that it should be held responsible for the potential payment burden of those involved.
 

cccook

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D.C. is getting off cheap. $3.5 million for thirty plus years of stomping on the Constitution. I'd like to see the Heller attorneys break it off in them.
 

RichB 99GTP

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I love it!! Make D.C. pay through the nose for thier trampling of citizen's rights! Maybe then they will learn that it is not in thier best interest to violate the rights granted by the second ammendment!

This will likely effect the decisions they make for the new "gun ban" law that they are currently deciding.
 

Tomahawk

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This isn't out of the blue. Gura was asked at the VCDL meeting if DC was going to have to pay anything, and he said, "Ah, they will."

And deservedly so. DC dragged their feet and resisted respecting Mr. Heller's rights for as long as they good, and did so with deep pockets. Pay up, losers. And get ready to pay again, because the lawyers aren't done with you yet.
 

LeagueOf1291

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I don't believe in having the government use taxpayer dollars to pay for defending the rights of citizens.

But I certainly don't believe in having the government use taxpayer dollars to deny them, either.

<sigh>
 

rodbender

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RichB 99GTP wrote:
I love it!! Make D.C. pay through the nose for thier trampling of citizen's rights! Maybe then they will learn that it is not in thier best interest to violate the rights granted by the second ammendment!

This will likely effect the decisions they make for the new "gun ban" law that they are currently deciding.
They don't care. It's not their money. Maybe we should have a law that says Mayors, Council members, Governors, and legislatorswould at least share a percentage of this. Now that wouldmake them think twice about making or defending such laws.
 

Doug Huffman

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rodbender wrote:
Now that wouldmake them think twice about making or defending such laws.
...make 'em think twice about making or defending any laws!

I doubt that a law can be 'fixed' with another law. That is how we got to where we are with >2 x 10^4 laws relating to guns alone. We are about to collapse under the weight and expense of jurisprudence and pro-activism.
 

Marco

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Every DC elected official going back to when these unjust laws were instituted 30+ years ago who supported, defended or helped these laws pass should have to foot the bill, not the tax payers.

With Fenty picking up the lions share for not conceding the issue when he lost the first time.


Elected officials that write or vote in favor of unconstitutional laws should be tried for treason.:D

Marco
 

rodbender

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Agent19 wrote:
Elected officials that write or vote in favor of unconstitutional laws should be tried for treason.:D

Marco
I think that's a bit much, but then that may be what it takes to get the politicians to look before they leap, so to speak.
 

unreconstructed1

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If anyone is entitled to a settlement amount, it's the citizens of D.C. who were punished due to the gun ban. since there is no accurate way to figure out exactly who was ACTUALLY punished by this ban, I believe that they should be forced to take the money and buy one XD for every home in D.C.

as far as the lawyers go, they should be entitled to whatever fee was decided upon at the beginning of the proceedings.

and as for the treason for unconstitutional laws:

every elected official is required to swear an oath to uphold and defend the constitution. if not treason, they should still be held liable in some criminal way for passing a knowingly unconstitutional law.



If you ask me, it would be a much better system if, instead of waiting for an unconstitutionallaw to be passed, waiting for someone to complain, waiting for a court date, etc. If SCOTUS's job was simply to review each law before it was presented on the floor, and signing of on the constitutionality of it THEN, which is what I imagine the founders probably had in mind in the first place.



one interesting thing to note, is in the fact that the constitution doesn't give the state this role of supreme law, interpeter of the constitution, instead that power was granted to SCOTUS by... SCOTUS.

the founders should have been a little bit more specific in their description of teh role of SCOTUS

Citizen, don't say to me what I know you are going to say to me.:(
 

Tomahawk

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unreconstructed1 wrote:
If you ask me, it would be a much better system if, instead of waiting for an unconstitutionallaw to be passed, waiting for someone to complain, waiting for a court date, etc. If SCOTUS's job was simply to review each law before it was presented on the floor, and signing of on the constitutionality of it THEN, which is what I imagine the founders probably had in mind in the first place.
I like Robert Heinlein's idea better: one legislative house makes laws, the other house may only repeal laws, and has no other power.

In any case, letting SCOTUS review every law before it goes to signing just turns the court into much bigger political battleground than it already is. Imagine confirmation hearings under such a system, and people lobbying justices.

Also, while the idea of prosecuting lawmakers for voting for unconstitutional bills is appealing, it has plenty of room for abuse. Whichever political faction is ascendant would stack the DOJ in order to prosecute or intimidate the other side, by declaring anything they don't like to be unconstitutional.

I guess there's no perfect system. No matter what you do to the technical workings of government, as long as the majority of the population holds certain anti-freedom beliefs you're not going to get a satsfactory result.
 

rodbender

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Actually, if you read the Federalist Papers, the role of SCOTUS was to interpret laws, not the Constitution. The Constitution was written for all citizens to understand, simple English. It plainly states in the Federalists Papers that the Constitution was written for the farmer and the scholar to understand.
 

Citizen

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unreconstructed1 wrote:
SNIP Citizen, don't say to me what I know you are going to say to me.:(

LOL!

I must be pretty well known on some points if someone anticipates my commenting.

Honestly, I didn't find anything to particularly disagree with.

Article III of the constitution is rather light on wording.

I can't argue with theidea that SCOTUS assumed the power to review laws for constitutionality. Its a historical fact.

What were you thinking I was gonna say? For the life of me, I can't guess it.
 

Citizen

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rodbender wrote:
Actually, if you read the Federalist Papers, the role of SCOTUS was to interpret laws, not the Constitution. The Constitution was written for all citizens to understand, simple English. It plainly states in the Federalists Papers that the Constitution was written for the farmer and the scholar to understand.

Watch out a little bit for the Federalist Papers. One has to take them in context. They are a promotional exercise designed to convince their readers to support the constitution.
 

rodbender

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Citizen wrote:
rodbender wrote:
Actually, if you read the Federalist Papers, the role of SCOTUS was to interpret laws, not the Constitution. The Constitution was written for all citizens to understand, simple English. It plainly states in the Federalists Papers that the Constitution was written for the farmer and the scholar to understand.

Watch out a little bit for the Federalist Papers. One has to take them in context. They are a promotional exercise designed to convince their readers to support the constitution.
OH, I know about taking things in context. It was, at the time, the way that they kept recordings of what the discussions wereaboutwhile writing the Constitution. Along with the diaries and notesof some of the writers.
 

Virginiaplanter

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"I like Robert Heinlein's idea better: one legislative house makes laws, the other house may only repeal laws, and has no other power."


The Colonial Virginia Legislature passed laws and all the laws were subject to expiring usually after three years unless they were once again voted on. I think this needs to be brought back across the country. The truly necessary laws will get acted upon while the unnecessary ones will die automatically because the part-time legislature won't have the time to re-up them all.


Should we renew Red Light Cameras or renew the Regulation of massage parlors? Let the Speaker of the House Choose.
 

Tomahawk

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Doug Huffman wrote:
Tomahawk wrote:
I like Robert Heinlein's idea better: one legislative house makes laws, the other house may only repeal laws, and has no other power.
Remind me of where, please.
It was mentioned by the Prof in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress when they were discussing the framework of the new lunar government, IIRC.
 

unreconstructed1

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Citizen wrote:
What were you thinking I was gonna say? For the life of me, I can't guess it.


actually, I wasalluding to a private message conversation that we had in which youstated many of the same things to me that I am now stating in my previous post, only at the time I was somewhat openly skeptical about teh great SCOTUS screw up that the founders left us with.

After that conversation, I dug a little deeper into a portion of constitutional history that I had only glanced at before



rodbender wrote:
Actually, if you read the Federalist Papers, the role of SCOTUS was to interpret laws, not the Constitution. The Constitution was written for all citizens to understand, simple English. It plainly states in the Federalists Papers that the Constitution was written for the farmer and the scholar to understand.
exactly. it was their job to determine the constitutionality of laws, not to "re-interpet" the constitution itself. I speak a lot regarding the decline of the Federal Republic, and the rise of he FED which has replaced it, and most times I specify that the process began with Lincoln. through these new studies, I have found that while Lincoln greatly increased teh size of teh FED beauracracy, it was SCOTUS that laid the groundwork.

Incredibly, SCOTUS is the first federal branch which vestednon constitutional powers to itself, and the other 2 branches merely played catch-up.
 
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