Rogers v. Tennessee (2001) saw the Supreme Court rule that the Tennessee state supreme court did not violate the ex-posto facto or due process clauses of the Constitution when it overturned the state's "year and a day" rule regarding statute of limitations on murder charges. The plaintiff, Wilbert Rogers, stabbed a man named James Bowdery with a butcher knife on May 6, 1994. One of the knife thrusts went into Bowdery's heart. He underwent emergency surgery during which time he experienced cardiac arrest, but was revived. However, Bowdery suffered brain death from lack of oxygen and remained in a persistent vegetative state until passing away from an infection 15 months later.
Following his demise, a jury found Rogers guilty of second degree murder. The state's murder statute did not include the year and a day rule, which was an ancient vestige of English common law dating to the Middle Ages whereby a crime victim who sustained injuries and died more than a year afterward could not be considered a homicide victim on the grounds that it was impossible to prove at that point that the crime was in fact the cause of death. This rule had since generally been regarded as outdated with modern medical science. The state supreme court declared the year and a day rule outdated without first informing Rogers, who promptly appealed to the Supreme Court on the grounds that his ex posto facto rights were violated. The state supreme court ruled that since the year and a day rule was clearly obsolete, repealing it could not possibly count as an ex posto facto law.The Court only considered the due process clause in the case, not the ex-posto facto clause as that applied only to legislative and not judicial bodies. However, ex-posto fact actions are inherent to due process--in Bouie v. City of Columbia (1964) the Court had ruled that due process forbade applying a creative interpretation of South Carolina's criminal trespass statute to a defendant who was not informed that the statute might be read in a way adverse to him.
Justice O'Connor wrote the majority opinion for the Court's 5-4 ruling. If the ex-posto facto clause was applied rigidly, it would limit the courts' ability to interpret laws in a reasonable way consistent with modern society. O'Connor wrote that at the time when the Constitution was written, it was assumed and understood that the courts would practice evolving legal doctrines as the times changed and society evolved. Rogers should have been aware that the year and a day rule was inapplicable in the late 20th century--medieval medical science was not advanced enough to determine if someone who died more than a year after being stabbed during the commission of a crime had succumbed to complications of the stabbing or not.Justice Scalia wrote the dissent and argued instead that the state supreme court had altered the state's murder statute. If the state legislature had done so, there would be no question about it constituting ex-posto facto law and it was an "absurdity" to argue that this did not also apply to the courts. Scalia added that the state supreme court did not claim the year and a day rule to have been unconstitutional from the inception, but that it was simply an out of date law that could be disregarded. English common law had always understood that the legislature alone could modify laws--this was why the Constitution only forbade legislatures from ex-posto facto laws, since it had been recognized by all concerned at the time that courts cannot make or modify laws.
Scalia also did not believe Rogers was necessarily aware of the year and a day rule being obsolete--other common law crimes had outdated portions and a court could not claim they no longer existed because the original rationale for them had changed, asportation, as an element of common-law larceny, or "breaking the close" as an element of burglary, for instance. Further, if Rogers knew the rule was outdated, he didn't know it had ceased to exist without being informed. And although the rule might have had dubious status in Tennessee law, the Tennessee Supreme Court had explained that it was the law, and the Court typically takes such statements at face value. In the absence of any fair warning, as he saw it, Scalia concluded that Rogers's conviction for murder was not valid.He also added that although English common law was the basis of US law, it had been modified significantly for America's much different conditions and that 18th century judges were quick to reject portions of English law that were outdated, cruel, and medieval--William Blackstone, the great English jurist, had said himself that English common law applied only to the UK proper and not to the colonies, which were their own domain with their own laws and courts. Still, it had mostly been colonial legislatures that established the basis of US law and selectively chose the portions of English common law they liked and rejected what they didn't.
Justice Stevens agreed in summary with Scalia's dissent but disputed the idea that judges cannot make or alter laws--while this was a truism 300 years ago, it had ceased to be so by the 1990s. In a separate dissent, Justice Breyer added "I agree with the Court's basic approach. Justice Cardozo pointed out that retroactivity should be determined "not by metaphysical conceptions of the nature of judge-made law, ... but by considerations of convenience, of utility, and of the deepest sentiments of justice." Similarly, the Due Process Clause asks us to consider the basic fairness or unfairness of retroactive application of the Tennessee court's change in the law. That Clause provides protection against after-the-fact."
>>18509232>>18509229judicial originalists are literally insane. if you took that to its logical conclusion Jim Crow would still exist and the Bill of Rights doesn't even apply to black people at all because it didn't in 1789 and they weren't considered citizens or even people at all.
>>18509263>race out of nowhere in a case that had nothing to do with thatFuck off LBJfag.
Judicial review was a power John Marshall conferred on himself in Marbury v. Madison.
>>18509263>the Bill of Rights doesn't even apply to black people at all because it didn't in 1789 and they weren't considered citizens or even people at all.The constitution has been amended to provide equal protection.>>18509865judicial review is discussed in the federalist papers, and is clearly intended by the constitution.>the judges of the supreme court and inferior courts established by congress are given the mandate to decide "cases and controversies">laws are passed with a majority of both houses of congress and the signature of the president>the constitution however can only be amended by a 2/3 vote of congress, and 3/4 of all states agreeing to itSince the framers placed a higher requirement for changing the constitution than an ordinary act of congress, and required direct consent of the states, this is clear evidence they did not want congress to be able to pass laws that are contrary to the constitution. Instead the constitution has to be changed first, requiring greater consensus of legislators and the state governments. There would be no point of the higher burden to pass amendments if the constitution was merely an aspirational document, rather than binding law on a level superior to all others. And since that is so, if congress (or the executive) takes an action, and someone else believes that action is contrary to the constitution then this is necessarily a case or controversy, which is to be decided by the courts.
>>18509263The opinion that making black slaves citizens was a one-time exception that exclusively applies to people who used to be the legal property of US citizens.Nonwhites in general can not legally gain US citizen status, though grants have become possible. Last time this was openly declared by the supreme court was in 1945, when a Sikh man appealed over being denied US citizenship.
>>18509263>Jim Crow would still exist and the Bill of Rights doesn't even apply to black people at all because it didn't in 1789 and they weren't considered citizens or even people at all.Actually it wouldn't because laws were changed to extend those rights to black people. Originalism doesn't mean things should stay as they were in the 18th century. It means laws should be interpreted according to what the people who actually passed the laws intended.
>>18509221>ex posto factoIt's ex post facto, you retard.
>>18510047>The constitution has been amended to provide equal protectionTrue..but there are looneytoonarians who maintain that only the first 12 amendments of the Constitution are valid.
>>18510173This is untrueCongress has the power to set naturalization laws, through ordinary statute, and it set them in such a way in which many non-whites can be naturalized. Furthermore, the 14th amendment gives citizenship to everyone US-born except foreign diplomats' children and the like, regardless of race.
>>18510327The 14th has been controversial and is heavily contested, in case you didn't notice. The current Republican government and its originalist Supreme Court are rolling its application back wherever they can until such a point where they can repeal it.
>>18509229>and that 18th century judges were quick to reject portions of English law that were outdated, cruel, and medievalAt that time in England an army or navy officer could be put to death for dereliction of duty if a battle was lost. There was that one Royal Navy captain (forget his name) who was executed during the Seven Years War. So they still had some barbaric shit on the books.
>>18510352You may not realize this but the entire judiciary world, state and federal, is originalist and has been for at least a couple decades.
>>18510939>is originalist and has been for at least a couple decadesIt was a development of New Deal leftists that the Constitution could be creatively reinterpreted to support progressive cause of the month. That since the Nixon Administration there was a general move of the judiciary branch back towards the right.
>>1851097170s and 80s were still crazy times, and state courts take some time to catch up
>>18510987>and state courts take some time to catch upJimmy Carter didn't get to appoint a Supreme Court Justice, but plenty of his lower court appointees were making leftist rulings for decades.
>>18511034he tried to convince Thurgood Marshall to retire so he could appoint a replacement but Marshall refused
>>18510987and cf. stuff like Gus Hall's daughter sitting on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
>>18511034Carter appointed a record 262 Federal judges some of whom served into the 2010s.
