SCOTUS impeachment

[A18]

That was the correct ruling.

[A18]

Um, I'm sorry, but I don't go around signing petitions to impeach judges just because they disagree with me on one ruling. There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits a state from taking private property for commercial development.

The dissenters are better on most issues, anyway.

[A18]

The congress does not have the power to impeach Supreme court justices.

Yes, they do, just like any other judges.

[A18]

http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

[A18]

I'm sorry, but treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors do not qualify as good behavior.

Samuel Chase was charged with eight articles of impeachment. In fact, the Jeffersonian Republicans impeached a whole slate of Federalist-appointed judges.

[A18]

I actually didn't see that last sentence of her post. First she says judges can't be impeached, then she admits they can.

Note that the requirements she lists are the exact same requirements as for any other federal official. There is no difference.

Failure of a judge to faithfully interpret the Constitution is no different from the failure of a president to faithfully execute the laws of the country. Both are an impeachable offense, as is supported by precedent.

[A18]

The fact that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land is not relevant, because the Bill of Rights is an exclusively federal feature. By your logic, "The Executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States" would mean that the president was the executive of each state.

Not a single justice argued that the fifth amendment itself applies to the states. They say that it falls under substantive due process, which is a joke that dates back to Dred Scott.

[A18]

I said:

Not a single justice argued that the fifth amendment itself applies to the states.

Incorporation is a (fraudulent) indirect result of the fourteenth amendment. It is purely a modern phenomenon, not used in any volume until the New Deal Court.

[A18]

1. The argument that the 5th amendment doesn't apply to the states is absurd. While most amendments deal with the powers of the government, the language of the amendment makes it perfectly clear that it deals only with the right of the individual. The rights listed in the 5th amendment are rights that all people have and cannot be deprived of by any level of government, federal, state, county, or local. If the amendment in question were the 1st amendment, which is clearly prefaced with "Congress shall make no law regarding...", I would be forced to agree with A18 that the amendment doesn't apply to the states (in fact, Massachusetts had a state church well into the 19th century).

Look, you can make stuff up all you want, but the fact of the matter is that the fifth amendment does not and has never been applicable to the states by its own capacity. These are rights individuals have, yes—against the federal government.

The Supreme Court has said as much. Ignore Barron v. Baltimore at your pleasure.

[A18]

Boy you really want to dig up the whole cemetery don't you. There is an old adage: "Be careful what you wish for."  Before you ditch the protections of the Bill of Rights you might want to consider; Does your state constitution provide all of the protections you are ready to throw away? Does it say you have a right to own guns? or that a search warrant must be obtained to search your home? or that you cannot be forced to testify against yourself? or that you have a right to a jury trial if you are accused of a crime? Or that the state cannot prosecute you over and over again for the same crime until they get a conviction? Does it protect you from cruel and unusual punishment?

Actually, it does all that and more. http://legis.state.va.us/Laws/search/Constitution.htm#1S1

[A18]

2. However, the key passage in amendment 5 is "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." One could argue that in this case, the property was being taken for private use rather than public, and is thus not under the jurisdiction of the 5th amendment. The only answer to this argument is that the right is found in the 9th amendments "other [rights] retained by the people." I'm inclined to agree that the right is found in the 9th amendment, otherwise common standards of justice would be set back several centuries.

No, that's absurd. The ninth amendment is a rule of construction, ensuring that the federal government has only the powers enumerated.

It was a response to Hamilton's argument that a bill of rights would be dangerous:

It has been several times truly remarked, that bills of rights are in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince. Such was Magna Carta, obtained by the Barons, sword in hand, from king John....It is evident, therefore, that according to their primitive signification, they have no application to constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the people, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing, and as they retain every thing, they have no need of particular reservations. 'We the people of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.'

Here is a better recognition of popular rights than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our state bills of rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government....I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?

I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power.

Why does the fifth amendment's takings clause refer only to public use? I suppose because everything the federal government is allowed to involve itself in is public.

[A18]

I would argue that most of the Bill of Rights does apply to the states as well as the federal government. The 1st amendment says; "Congress shall make no law..."  Congress specifically applies to the legislative branch of the federal government. So the First Amendment is clearly aimed at the federal government. But the 5th amendment contains no such qualifier. It protects property rights from all governments.

Article I, Section 9.
Clause 3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Article I, Section 10.
Clause 1: No State shall ... pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or ...

[A18]

Try reading that again:

Article I, Section 9.
Clause 3: No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Article I, Section 10.
Clause 1: No State shall ... pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or ...[/b]

Both are in Article I. By your laughable standard, the second is reduced to redundency.

The lack of a "Congress" qualifier is irrelevant. There is no qualifier in the text above either.

Although this isn't relevant at all (as each amendment is stated in its own way), the first two amendments were procedural in nature.

Now, if one follows your logic, why do we stop at governments? There's no qualifier stating that the amendments apply on to governments. It simply states, for example, that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. If I steal your gun, have I violated the second amendment? Can I be tried in court for violation of your second amendment right?

[A18]

Here's the preamble to the Bill of Rights:

The Conventions of a number of the States having, at the time of adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added, and as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution;

The intent is quite clear. http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/funddocs/billeng.htm

[A18]

The first eight amendments have been applied against the states not by themselves, but by the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause.