Judgment: Affirmed, 5-3, in an opinion by Justice Kagan on June 20, 2019. Justice Kagan announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor joined. Justice Alito filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Gorsuch filed a dissenting opinion, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Thomas joined. Justice Kavanaugh took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Issue: Whether the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act’s delegation of authority to the attorney general to issue regulations under 42 U.S.C. § 16913 violates the nondelegation doctrine. Case Details
Related
6/20
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/justices-uphold-sex-registration-requirements
https://reason.com/2019/06/20/a-troubling-supreme-court-decision-on-non-delegation/
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105675
https://floridaactioncommittee.org/gundy-what-does-it-mean-for-us/
6/21
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/us/politics/supreme-court-sex-offender-registry.html
And here you go. This is why the left side of the Supreme Court is not our friend. Even Alito had to do a judicial Mary Lou Retton to explain his separate concurrence, which at least had some semblance of rationality though disappointingly lacking in all the facts, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, the plaintiff in this case was probably the reason the left side went against him. They tend to look less at the plaintiff than they do to their shifting interpretation of the Constitution. Gorsuch was spot on in his dissent.
This is why it is VITAL that we have plaintiffs who aren’t abjectly the worst case scenarios for presenting our case. A huge loss, in my opinion.
It seems our only hope here in California is if Newsome follows in the steps of Brown and we see the state recognize that a blanket registration for all regardless of offense or risk is simply ludicrous, punitive, and counter productive. As we are seeing states going against the federal government and the supreme court in marijuana and abortion, I hope states like California will take ownership and override this abusive insanity. We can clearly see that the supreme court is nothing more than the personal opinions of those on the bench and how they prefer the law to read. I am thankful we have Janice and ACSOL being a voice for us. I know from my three years in SO therapy and seeing probably 85 SO’s come and go that most of us are deeply regretful for the poor choice we made and that going back, we would choose differently. I met so many people with spouses and children and businesses that are just destroyed because of this, years and decades later still suffocating under this, and this supreme court won’t even take the time to investigate the truth. Do you think any of them actually have ever talked to one of us? And I see Kavanagh abstained obviously to avoid backlash, but he should be our advocate having experienced that total unmitigated wrath and hysteria surrounding even a suggestion of sexual impropriety. No, I think our only hope is in the right of the states to make their own decisions and govern themselves. I pray Newsome is a visionary and can understand our plight.
Wow. I have yet to read the Opinion, but “affirmed” says it all. So why do we even have a Congress? Why not just have Congress write a law saying, “we cede all our constitutional authority and obligations to the Executive and its various and sundry agencies, departments, and offices. Henceforth, Congress shall only hold hearings and posture on political topics.”?
The details of this case aside, it has put a whole new level of fear and disgust in me regarding where this country has gone and where it’s going. The Constitution just took a point-blank shot to its core. It’s more confetti than anything anymore.
But hey, as long as the Sheeple have their FB and new smartphones, who cares about any of that stuff, right? I’m truly stunned and saddened by the unfettered authority the Judicial just gave the Legislative. Time to redouble expat efforts and inquiries. This country’s pace of sliding into the sh!thole just increased….never mind the $21T debt, up “only” $1T just this year.
If I am understanding this correctly, Justice Alito wrote….
“If a majority of this Court were willing to reconsider the approach we have taken for the past 84 years, I would support that effort. But because a majority is not willing to do that, it would be freakish to single out the provision at issue here for special treatment.”
So he doesn’t agree, but will agree because most everyone else does?
This country has been on a wrong path for a very, very, long time. Today’s decision continues that trend. It confirms that the laws that define what is a crime and who may be prosecuted need not be made by duly elected representatives of the people. With a mere wink and a nod, Congress can authorize the Executive to indulge in whatever law-making it wishes. The absence of an explicit constraint to the Executive can be now be interpreted as consent to craft any law the Executive desires.
Seriously?? WTF SCOTUS!??
Now it’s going to be many more years before they will choose to hear another SO case.
😡 Angry 😡 & 😵 disappointed! 😵
This wasn’t a SO case, this was a delegation case. The person at the matter of the case didn’t matter. They decided congress can give power to the executive branch as long as they provide some direction. While I didnt see any direction, this decision is not surprising. A decision in the other direction would of gutted all Quasi Gov’t Agency’s such as the EPA, FTC, SEC, etc.
They didn’t decide SORNA isn’t punishment. They didn’t decide that SORNA it self is setup right. They just decided that the AG was properly empowered to make this decision. This was a very nothing case in our battle, and more a case in the battle of smaller gov’t vs larger gov’t.
Has they decided the other way, congress would of just changed that single line to say “and everyone whose ever been convicted”.
My thoughts:
Stare Decisis anyone? That is what I read with four certain votes and the fifth going along with the majority for now, until a later time, if a case is presented to consider he can preside over. The 300K regulations which appeared to be a concern are safe, but maybe not later.
I believe this is against what the framers had in mind for Legislative and Executive branches. The Legislature seeking help from the Executive branches to do their work (as noted in the majority opinion) is ludicrous given the Constitution. Do your job and quit grandstanding!
Gorsuch and Thomas make sense together while writing a great dissent IMO (one for the ages at 33 pgs which is 15 more than the majority opinion and schools the majority like Thomas did on Stare Decisis in Gamble v US earlier this week), but Roberts is odd, given his history on SO topic; however, he flips on big gov’t more than a jumping bean on a hot sidewalk.
I vote Gorsuch for CJ in due time. RBG lost favor from what she gained earlier this week in Gamble v US.
As a side note, this ruling keeps in place the SMART Office AG 2008 and 2011 Guidelines put into place before IML and keeps the travel exceptions in addition to 21 day travel notification in full implementation as noted in IML Dispatch detailing IML 2016.
If you’re 50 or over, I’m afraid help will come too late for you. Megan’s Law will be around for at LEAST another 30 years before SCOTUS finally deems it punitive.
This will be remembered as the day the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION was ignored by our country’s highest court, surprised i’m not.. We the Voters, WE the people still have a voice and we need to let it be heard call your Congress and demand they fix the constitutional violation’s of the SOR and the Violation’s caused by SORNA and the Adam Walsh act. Disappointed Yes, Hopeful Yes,…. gonna give up NO! We have had some good wins, and I know, there is more to come!
Not surprising. The left will always seek to be as powerful as possible. They will always vote to expand power over citizens. It is good to know that the conservatives are probably open to helping us.
“[It] purports to endow the nation’s chief prosecutor with the power to write his own criminal code governing the lives of a half-million citizens. Yes, those affected are some of the least popular among us. But if a single executive branch official can write laws restricting the liberty of this group of persons, what does that mean for the next? “
Why not just give a 21 day notice a couple years in advance. Then when the time comes due sneak across the border into Mexico and cruise off into the sunset. That gives you a couple years to save. Nobody is really keeping a tight guard on people going the other way. Or buy a boat and give you 21 day notice saying destination unknown. You can buy a seaworthy boat that will get you anywhere in the world for $30K or less. The only reason we don’t get into most countries is because of the advanced warning. The key is saving enough to be able to start a life wherever you end up.
There should be a law against Pandering Pussies in Politics.
This is absolute BS. BS!!!!!! I am deeply upset and it goes to show.
The ONE *uking chance we all had was shot down by weak judges.
Am going back to my living in a fort in the backyard.
Cheers.
From Slate (The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Are Ready to Take a Wrecking Ball to the Entire Federal Bureaucracy – article link in the post) – this nails it:
“Gorsuch’s fuzzy new rule would work a revolution in federal law. Hundreds of statutes task the executive branch with some broad goal, then let agencies fill in the details. The Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, has wide latitude to identify and restrict pollutants, because Congress doesn’t want to legislate every new regulation. Instead, it gives the EPA certain guidelines, then leaves it to the agency’s scientists to determine what rules would best serve the public. The same goes for the Department of Labor, whose experts are empowered to identify and remedy workplace abuses. Americans may complain about bureaucracy, but with Congress perpetually deadlocked, these agencies keep the government running—and, crucially, adapting to new challenges, exactly as lawmakers intended.
Now Gorsuch wants to stop all that. His vague standard would allow judges to strike down statutes that don’t give agencies sufficient direction. What laws does he have in mind? On Thursday, he limited his critique to SORNA. But soon Kavanaugh, a critic of the administrative state, will likely join his crusade, shoring up a conservative majority. At that point, it won’t just be sex offender laws that fall, but any statute that delegates too much power to agencies in the court’s subjective view. The result could permanently hobble the executive agencies that do the everyday work of carrying out the law.
I am not sympathetic to SORNA, and I find much to admire in Gorsuch’s criticism of the law itself. It does seem fundamentally unfair that the attorney general could impose stringent new restraints on the liberty of 500,000 people. But the deeper constitutional flaw here really lies in the court’s blessing of retroactive punishment for sex offenders. In 2003, SCOTUS ruled that the government may saddle convicted offenders with extra registration requirements without violating the Constitution’s ex post facto clause. Why? Because these requirements aren’t “punitive,” even though they’re extremely invasive and onerous.
Congress relied upon that legal fiction to justify the constitutionality of SORNA. Gorsuch’s fury may be misplaced: The real injustice lies in America’s draconian sex offender laws, which do not appear to work at all. SORNA is a symptom of a deeper disease, one that Gorsuch misdiagnosed. The problem isn’t Congress’ delegation of power. It’s American lawmakers’ eagerness to subject even minor sex offenders to a lifetime of retribution and humiliation.
Halleluja! Everything starts and ends with Doe v Smith. Anything else is chickensh!t.
What a bad ruling and written under the false premise to protect the public. Instead California 290 registration effectively doubled revidivism in the last ten years or so. They should br held responsible for creating the risk both the muders and attacks on SO’s and the increased revidivism
Sad but True ! The system will fall one day soon … They can not keep supporting these unconstitutional unjust laws and not expect to reap what they sow . Its only a matter of time until its their son, father, brother, uncle, nephew , in law , friend , neighbor , because 500,000 and counting , It will hit home if not today one day very soon .
Folks,
This ruling was not upholding SORNA. It just stated that the US Attorney general had the right to decide if it could be applied retroactively. If they had ruled for Gundy, many organizations such as EPA, etc would’ve came tumbling down. Also, congress would’ve just fixed the law to apply it to EVERY offender, as retaliation.
This ruling does NOT put a stop to all the recent sex offender court victories that have been occurring lately. Please stop freaking out.
From NPR comes this on Gundy:
Is The Supreme Court About To Give Haters Of The ‘Deep State’ What They Want?
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/21/732178487/is-the-supreme-court-going-to-soon-give-haters-of-the-deep-state-what-they-want
“It could depend on how Justice Kavanaugh would decide.”
A sitting full bench would be interesting on this topic.
Justice Neil Gorsuch joined with the Supreme Court’s liberal bloc to deal victory for criminal defendants Monday, striking down a federal law that punishes gun crimes as unconstitutionally vague.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/24/gorsuch-liberals-gun-crimes/
Really reccommended reading.
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
― James Madison, Federalist Papers
“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
― James Madison
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. … The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.”
― James Madison
It is very sad to see SCOTUS in a position so distant from the learned wisdom of our forefathers. Politics ought be an instrument in maintaining and granting liberty, not etching away at it. The entire purpose in our succession from the crown was to escape the servitude decisions like Gundy enforce.
“If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.” Barack Obama
Politics aside, comments like this give great insight into what this country has become accustom to its expectations from Government. I do not think the constitution mandates any responsibility or demand by the people for government to “protect us”. Certainly, not by taking away the liberty’s outlined in the same document that grants them power. Promote Common Welfare, well yes thank you for shackling Registrants with your common welfare flags held high. Nazism, expressed the idea of a “people’s community” …I dont think that turned out well.
More Gundy here…
Justice Gorsuch Wages War for the Constitutional Order
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/06/justice-gorsuch-wages-war-for-the-constitutional-order/
The New Yorker article on the Gundy decison:.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-supreme-court-is-one-vote-away-from-changing-how-the-us-is-governed
Hmmm 🤔 So it appears that Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who favors “originalism” and “textualism”, will be confirmed to the SCOTUS. But how would she have weighed in on Gundy?? I would think that “textualism” would require her to decide in favor of Gundy that the AG of the USDOJ was overstepping his authority by making registration retroactive.