Great allohistorical Supreme Court cases

Hitler v. Hopkins (1937)--The court holds it was not a violation of plaintiff Adolf Hitler's First Amendment rights for the WPA to fire him because he was chairman of a group called "Artists for Lemke." (Hitler later issued a pamphlet *My Struggle in Court* [private printing, Milwaukee 1938] in which he said that he had once intended to be a German politician, but that when he recovered his eyesight after being blinded in 1918, he took it as a sign from God that he should be an artist instead, and move to somewhere like America, where his art would be more likely to be appreciated than it had been in Vienna or Munich. In fact he claimed to have lost all interest in politics until he started listening seriously to Father Coughlin's radio program in the 1930's. BTW, you can still see some of the WPA murals Hitler worked on in the mid-1930s in Milwaukee.)
 
OOC: Each case would be each in a different universe than the next.

Scanlon v. Flynn (1992) - Held, that a Massachusetts law requiring a minor to parental consent for obtaining an abortion did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Also held as wrongly decided Roe v. Wade (1973), imposing a rational-basis test in place of Roe's strict-scrutiny standard. Rehnquist wrote the opinion of the Court, which was joined by A. Kennedy, C. Kennedy [1], Scalia and White. Marshall wrote the dissent, which was joined by Blackmun, Souter and Stevens. This case was notable for the fact that Marshall, who wrote the dissent, died two days after the decision was made; furthermore, in his memoirs the recently-retired Justice Kennedy reveals that he was of two minds of which opinion to join, and was considering writing a concurrence that would havd preserved the strict-scrutiny test in Roe. It also set the stage for a deepening of the long-standing, acrimonious debate over abortion, especially on the state level.
[1] Refers to Cornelia G. Kennedy.
--

Khan v. Bush (2005) - Held, that a United States citizen, where habeas corpus had not been suspended, could not be held indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay without legal counsel or an opportunity to challenge Presidential designation as an enemy combatant. It further held that in such cases, either the Petitioner was to be released or charged with treason or some other crime. Scalia wrote the opinion of the Court, and was joined by Sotomayor, Souter, Stevens, and Ginsburg. O'Connor wrote an opinion, joined by Rehnquist and Kennedy, concurring in part with the majority in that some sort of hearing process was needed to be able to challenge a designation as an enemy combatant, but dissenting with the majority as to requiring either release or jury trial in the absence of suspension of habeas corpus. Thomas wrote a dissent, holding that the broad warmaking powers of the Executive permitted the indefinite detentiom of the Petitioner in light of the "security interests at stake."
 
what is a rational-basis test ?

Basically that you have to be coming from a line of reasoning that a halfway sane person who isn’t simply being a bigoted asshole would agree with.

SCOTUS has three levels:

Rational basis - anything reasonable goes
Heightened or intermediate scrutiny - an important government interest outweighs the discrimination; typically seen in gender-discrimination cases and allows some things to get through but is still tough to beat
Strict scrutiny - must be narrowly tailored and necessary to achieve a compelling government interest, or in other words, the Court says “this better be fucking good and you have to have ALL the details ironed out.”

Strict scrutiny was born out of SCOTUS allowing internment in the Korematsu case - it was the Court saying, “Well, OK, but just this once,” and it’s nearly impossible to beat. The University of Michigan did it once with their admission practices that did not automatically give preference to minorities but favored them when candidates were otherwise evenly qualified.
 
Basically that you have to be coming from a line of reasoning that a halfway sane person who isn’t simply being a bigoted asshole would agree with.

SCOTUS has three levels:

Rational basis - anything reasonable goes
Heightened or intermediate scrutiny - an important government interest outweighs the discrimination; typically seen in gender-discrimination cases and allows some things to get through but is still tough to beat
Strict scrutiny - must be narrowly tailored and necessary to achieve a compelling government interest, or in other words, the Court says “this better be fucking good and you have to have ALL the details ironed out.”

Strict scrutiny was born out of SCOTUS allowing internment in the Korematsu case - it was the Court saying, “Well, OK, but just this once,” and it’s nearly impossible to beat. The University of Michigan did it once with their admission practices that did not automatically give preference to minorities but favored them when candidates were otherwise evenly qualified.
So in the case above, it would allow most kinds of abortion restrictions ?
 
So in the case above, it would allow most kinds of abortion restrictions ?
Essentially, yes. It's an ATL version of the Casey case, where Anthony Kennedy, but for the protestations of his law clerks, was about to side with Scalia's dissent (which would make it a majority opinion); ATL Rehnquist as Chief Justice writes the opinion due to a semi-strong tradition that where the Chief Justice is in the majoroty, he writes the opinion.
 
How did Sotomayor wind up on a Bush supreme court? Being a bit more conservative TTL or just luck of the draw?
 
Khan v. Bush (2005) - Held, that a United States citizen, where habeas corpus had not been suspended, could not be held indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay without legal counsel or an opportunity to challenge Presidential designation as an enemy combatant. It further held that in such cases, either the Petitioner was to be released or charged with treason or some other crime. Scalia wrote the opinion of the Court, and was joined by Sotomayor, Souter, Stevens, and Ginsburg. O'Connor wrote an opinion, joined by Rehnquist and Kennedy, concurring in part with the majority in that some sort of hearing process was needed to be able to challenge a designation as an enemy combatant, but dissenting with the majority as to requiring either release or jury trial in the absence of suspension of habeas corpus. Thomas wrote a dissent, holding that the broad warmaking powers of the Executive permitted the indefinite detentiom of the Petitioner in light of the "security interests at stake."

Not surprised that Scalia would side with the Constitution in this case; he was very conservative, but he was a Constitutionalist, IIRC...
 
Benton V the United States:
The 5-4 court with the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Joseph Lerner determined that the 1964 Civil Rights Act went beyond the scope of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and struck down all of its provisions relating to how private businesses could be operated. A limited view of the commerce clause as well as an expansive view of the liberty of contract is what the Lerner Court would be famous for due to its rulings this case as well as in many other cases such as Gomez v the State of Arizona, Ryan v Karey, and Dempsey v Guhp.
 
Huh ok. I was reading her wikipage and given her previous judicial history it seems sort of hilarious that she attracted a conservative firestorm given here "Generic mushy centrist kind of liberal track record".
 
Huh ok. I was reading her wikipage and given her previous judicial history it seems sort of hilarious that she attracted a conservative firestorm given here "Generic mushy centrist kind of liberal track record".
Three words: Roe, versus and Wade. It doesn't help she's nominally a Catholic, which makes her seem like a traitor to a lot of social conservative types.
 
(ASB)

United States vs Lofgren:

Held that the United States of 1919 had no authority to command, order, or otherwise commandeer the United States of America and the Solar System's time expedition, nor to make demands on any of its assets, including the Spaceship USS Mount Washington, its equipment, data and crew.

This ensued after other time travelers sunk the battleships based in Boston and shot up the city, and she defended them and shot down the attacker.

Interestingly, the court was faces with the fact that, if it was decided against the US time expedition, Captain Alex Lofgren would dimply leave, negating any chance of the USA working with her to build a better future.

The specific wording of her remit from the President on Cochrane Station played a part in it--as did the fact that the Constitution she'd sword tp preserve,, protect, and defend was not one that would be at all acceptable downtime.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Early v Virginia (1869)

SCOTUS ruled that former Confederate officers who were found to be "in a state of and having led armed insurrection against the United States" are not entitled to compensation for land seized from them and given to former slaves as back pay for their labor before 1865. The state of Virginia under a radical reconstruction government, with backing from the radical Republican congress and president Sumner, had passed laws to redistribute land from former plantation owners to freedmen based on payment owed for unpaid labor while they were enslaved. Former Confederate general Jubal Early challenged the law as unconstitutional, as an "act of attainder" violating Article 1 of the US constitution.

Though ruling was subsequently partially overturned in Hampton v South Carolina (1901), the redistribution of land was important in solidifying the economic and political status of newly freed slaves in most of the former Confederate states.
 
Last edited:
Murray Vs State of Maryland. The african american community of Maryland was awarded 400 million to equalize the separate schools.
 
Top