Mock Court Term Thread VOTE FOR CHIEF JUSTICE!!!

[Classic Conservative]

Oh crap, sorry I forgot. Hope I can still participate in some capacity.

Sadly, we already have enough justices if one decides not to play you can play

[Classic Conservative]

Chief Justice Vote
This vote will last for 48 Hours or until everyone's voted
Candidates
Justice Antonin Scalia- Played by Classic Conservative
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor- Played by DKrol
Justice Hugo Black- Played by benecostine

[Classic Conservative]

I Justice Antonin Scalia cast my ballot for myself, Justice Antonin Scalia for the Office of Chief Justice.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Will there be a runoff if no candidate gets 5 votes?

[Classic Conservative]

Will there be a runoff if no candidate gets 5 votes?

Yes

[Donerail]

I, Justice Douglas, cast my vote for Justice Black.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I too vote for Justice Black.

[Barnes]

I join my colleauges in voting for Justice Black.

[PPT Spiral]

I, Justice Thomas, vote for Justice Scalia.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Justice Black

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I, Justice Posner, cast my vote for Justice Scalia.

[Mr. Reactionary]

4 votes for Black, 3 votes for Scalia, 2 abstentions.

[Antonio the Sixth]

OK, this definitely isn't gonna work with current levels of activity.

[/]

We Shall Prevail - Me

[Mr. Reactionary]

If Chief Justice Black would like to declare a quorum ... I can post my opening argument whenever.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Sounds like a plan. Go right ahead.

[/]

Sounds like a plan. Go right ahead.

[Barnes]

I'm still here and ready to go.

[Classic Conservative]

I'm so sorry I completely forgot I'm also here. Justice Black is the new Chief Justice.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court:

This case challenges a Texas law, which prohibits a woman from having an abortion under any circumstances short of an emergency, life-or-death situation. In this case, Jane Roe, is seeking that the court declare that this law unconstitutionally violates her fundamental rights. These rights are hard to shoehorn into categorical boxes but include her right to privacy, her right to control whether or not to bear a child, and her right to seek medical care. We seek a declaratory judgment that the Texas law is unconstitutional and a permanent injunction against future enforcement of the law. We base our request on two arguments. 1.) The fundamental right to privacy recognized by this court is broad enough to constitutionally preclude Texas’s criminalization of a matter as intimate and personal as deciding whether or not to bear a child 2.) There is a fundamental right to seek medical treatment which constitutionally precludes Texas’s overly-broad ban on nearly all abortions, including medically necessary ones. 

In regards to standing, this court routinely makes an exception for those cases which are capable of repetition but constantly evade review. (Southern Pacific Terminal Co. v. ICC, 219 U.S. 498 (1911)). Given that childbirth cannot be put on hold as a case slowly crawls its way through the appeals process, our case represents a situation where a constitutional violation affecting millions of Americans is incapable of review, thus meeting this court’s standard.

It is not controversial to say that there are some rights which are fundamental to ordered liberty despite not being written down in the bill of rights. This Court has routinely upheld the prospect of protecting such liberties through the 14th Amendment. This court has recognized such unenumerated fundamental rights as the right to buy insurance (Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165 U.S. 578 (1897)), the right to enter into contracts (Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905)), the right to instruct one’s son in a foreign language (Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923)), and to send one’s daughter to a religious school (Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925)), the right to travel (Kent v. Dulles, 357 U.S. 116 (1958)), the right to marry (Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)), and the right of couples both married (Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)) and unmarried (Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972)) to control the decision of whether or not to beget a child.

The 9th Amendment declares that, “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This amendment was ratified in response to fears that listing some pre-existing rights in the Constitution risked diminishing other pre-existing rights which were not listed. It is thus an important reminder that a Court may be dealing with a right which is entitled to the same constitutional deference as enumerated rights. Rather than announcing a particular affirmative right, the Ninth Amendment serves to protect those other rights inherent to citizenship in a democracy which are not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

This court has already recognized a fundamental right to privacy which is protected by the constitution. See Griswold. In Eisenstadt, which also recognized the right to privacy, this court clearly stated "If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child." Eisenstadt at 454, emphasis added. The choice Petitioner is seeking is clearly a decision about whether to bear a child, which makes a finding against Texas consistent with Supreme Court precedent.

Additionally, we argue as well that there is a fundamental right to seek medical care. We are not arguing that this right guarantees outcomes or even treatment; we merely argue that human dignity demands that a person not be made to abandon all hope for medical treatment in the face of sickness and suffering. Abortions can be medically necessary in cases other than just when the mother is in imminent danger of dying. Texas’s law eliminates all access to valid medical treatment, even when there is a doctor available. Texas’s law is thus overly-broad and should struck down.

We recognize that this is a sensitive issue. In terms of balancing rights, we contend that we have the stronger argument. The 14th Amendment clearly begins “All persons born …” which precludes the argument that there are constitutional protections for fetuses on par with those of persons. That does not mean there is an unlimited right to an abortion on demand. Clearly as the fetus approaches viability the philosophical questions become difficult. We don’t ask that the Court decide the question to an exact science. We only ask that the Texas law be struck down for eliminating access to abortion at even the earliest of weeks in the most serious of cases.

If the Court wants a standard at which to draw some lines for when an individual’s rights may be curtailed, our position is that the Court accept that science is constantly evolving.  Rather than using a static trimester framework, we propose a focus on things which can withstand scientific advances. This means looking at regulating individual medical procedures, or measuring viability, or an individual’s circumstances. This Court in Skinner v. Oklahoma, 318 U.S. 535 (1942) decided that strict scrutiny was appropriate in case regulating reproduction. By any standard however, the Texas law is unconstitutionally restrictive of Petitioner’s fundamental rights to privacy and to seek medical treatment. These rights fall within the concept of liberty protected by the 14th Amendment, and the 9th Amendment commands the Court to remember that some fundamental rights are not listed in the Constitution.

   I will now accept your questions.

[Classic Conservative]

Sir,
If a fetus isn't a human being than what is it, a bunch of cells together or is it a human who is not yet born, I would like Ms. Roes position on this matter before we decide.

[/]

Are the associate judges allowed to ask questions to the people involved?

[Classic Conservative]

Are the associate judges allowed to ask questions to the people involved?

Yes we are.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Sir,
If a fetus isn't a human being than what is it, a bunch of cells together or is it a human who is not yet born, I would like Ms. Roes position on this matter before we decide.

Of course Justice Scalia,

This is a question whose full answer will bewilder scientists and philosophers for years to come. Our position is not that a fetus is completely divorced from humanity. In terms of DNA, a fetus has human genes. A fetus has the chance to become a person, although it is certainly not autonomous. It does not have a consciousness.

For this case, our position is that this court should look more at the stage of development. Stem cells have human DNA as well, and like Fetuses, human stem cells react to environmental stimuli and then grow into something new. But we don't attach any rights directly to the stem cells that will become a donor liver. Referring back to the 14th Amendment, our Constitution places value on the stage of human development that occurs at birth. Citizenship attaches at the moment of birth, not the moment of conception. We don't assume that a person is French just because their American parents honeymooned in Tahiti. And similarly, we don't assume that corpses are anything less than human. They have human DNA. They have rights as well. Otherwise wills would not be enforceable, and lawyers could reveal privileged information if a client dies. "Life" in the abstract sense is not the metric that has been used to assign rights to humans. Birth, and thus actual, physical independence of a being, is.

Our position is not that a fetus has no rights. Rather, that whatever limited rights a fetus may ultimately be found to have, are not so great as to overly burden the fundamental rights of citizens. And in this case, justifying an absolute ban on any procedure at any stage of development on behalf a fetus which the Constitution plainly denies is a citizen, is not proper.

 

[Barnes]

Mr. Justice Warren

I am intrigued by your finding of a right to receive medical care.  Are you establishing this as a right derived from the Constitution itself, or as a part of the compact between a physician and their patient stemming, for example, from the Hippocratic Oath?