r/facepalm • u/Loud-Ad-2280 • 4d ago

Yeah they probably should have been charged with treason not just obstruction 🇵​🇷​🇴​🇹​🇪​🇸​🇹​

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u/Chaosrealm69 4d ago edited 4d ago

They caused the session of Congress to be disrupted by their attack on the building, requiring Congress members to leave to safer locations, and the Supreme Court says that charging them with obstruction of an official proceeding is wrong?

But because the SCOTUS narrowly looked at the law used, and thought it was specifically meant to charge for destruction of evidence alone, they decided that it didn't apply to the Jan 6th insurrectionists.

Edit: missed the last part of the thought I was posting.

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u/DelirousDoc 4d ago

Ignore the fact several Justices have shown support for the cause of January 6th and one Justice's wife literally helped organize it.

I am sure they were able to be impartial and weigh the facts without bias...

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u/LuchaConMadre 4d ago

How is this not being challenged based on that weird old lady’s flags? He’s still on the court right?

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u/theblindbandit1 4d ago

Challenged to whom? The Supreme Court is the highest court. There’s no one to challenge their rulings

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u/Jace_Te_Ace 4d ago

The Senate. But they agree with the insurrectionists too. Voting matters.

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u/suckitphil 4d ago

They aren't immutable. We could impeach them?

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u/theblindbandit1 4d ago

With this congress? 2/3s majority of the same senate that stuffed the court?

I agree but it's broken.

We couldn't remove trump after he was impeached for inciting an insurrection to overturn the election.

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u/theblindbandit1 4d ago

With this congress? 2/3s majority of the same senate that stuffed the court?

I agree but it's broken.

We couldn't remove trump after he was impeached for inciting an insurrection to overturn the election.

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u/Formulafan4life 4d ago

Can anyone please explain to me why in the US the judges of the supreme court are politically motivated? What kind of fucked up system do you have that makes them not neutral? And why do other countries not have these problems? (Or atleast not on this scale)

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u/International-Wish50 4d ago edited 4d ago

Not so much politically motivated as it is financially motivated—though these days both are one and the same. What makes our system fucked is that we the people don’t actually have much say in what goes on—we rely on elected officials to get what’s needed done. Unfortunately, we don’t have a way of holding them to their word nor is there a system in place in the gov to do that for us, and they are well aware of that so they’re basically free to just lie to the general public and scheme with each other to screw over as many people as possible while also pocketing dark money from corporate/fascist puppeteers.

We Americans aren’t actually as important to the US government as US propaganda often says (at least those of us who aren’t wealthy white straight christian men), and most of us common folk are kept in the dark about a lot of what goes on in both the state and federal governments because our needs are drowned out by the lust for money and power that the wealthy have.

TLDR: Americans get very little say in what the government does, because if we did it would mean that the reactionary, wealthy elite wouldn’t get to screw everyone else over.

As for why other countries don’t seem to have the same issues with a rogue judicial branch, it’s probably complicated and most likely has something to do with their culture, history, and/or age (how long they’ve been around to develop their governments)

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u/gordojar000 4d ago

They have ruled that they can accept bribes for rulings. Since there's no higher court, they get away with it by making bribes legal for only themselves. Since it's a uniquely lifetime position, they only have to worry about getting elected and then can fuck the American people left right and center.

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u/thisistuffy 4d ago

the judges are corrupt and greedy. The lower courts hare ethics standards that they must adhere to but the Supreme Court doesn't have those.

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u/I_Frothingslosh 4d ago

The decision would have been the same even had Thomas and Alito recused themselves, because it was the usual 6-3.

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u/Havarti-Provolone 4d ago

Our country is fucked

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u/MTB_Mike_ 4d ago

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was part of the majority opinion. This wasn't a partisan divide. If you actually read the opinion it makes sense.

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u/Status_Basket_4409 4d ago

Interesting, this is news to me. Seems the cult mind runs deeper than we feared

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u/Delicious_Put6453 4d ago

Have you been living under a rock?

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u/AliveAndThenSome 4d ago

I looked long and hard at the use of 'otherwise' and the punctuation and all that, and never in all my years would I have come to the conclusion that SCOTUS did. To me, it's crystal clear that interfering with the process of certifying the vote (e.g. the Jan 6 riot/storming the chambers) is just as serious as damaging the documents themselves. It comes down to intent and success in interfering, period.

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u/Dansk72 4d ago

Just like Justice Clarence Thomas' corrupt and utterly stupid logic in proclaiming that a bump stock is not an illegal machine gun because it doesn’t make the weapon fire more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger.

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u/ExternalPay6560 4d ago

His wife should be charged with insurrection

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u/Steppy20 4d ago

He's pretty obviously corrupt, but in that specific case he's right.

The legal definition of a machine gun is any gun which fires more than one round from a single use of the trigger. Even if that trigger is electronic instead of mechanical.

A bump stock doesn't change the trigger, so by definition it's not a machine gun.

Should the definition be updated? Possibly. But by letter of the law he's right.

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u/Zulraidur 4d ago

Someone inclined to disagree might argue that actually the function of the trigger is the users physical input to the gun not the internal mechanism that fires the bullet. In that case a bump stock does modify how the gun is triggered. Instead of one pull shooting one bullet, one long press of the trigger(in the right position with the correct amount of shoulder pressure) releases several bullets.

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u/Steppy20 3d ago

But even with your definition a bump stock still wouldn't be a machine gun.

It literally doesn't change the trigger mechanism. All it does is move the user's hand backwards and forwards for them using springs. The trigger is still reset because otherwise the rifle wouldn't fire again. Therefore it's not a single user input.

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u/Zulraidur 3d ago

The mechanism without a bump stock is you pull the trigger release and pull again. Afterwards the mechanism is you pull the trigger and keep shoulder tension and the gun in your hand continues shooting for as long as there is ammunition.

(Of course this requires that the triggering mechanism is not understood to be the technical machinery that ejects the bullet but the mechanism by which the shooter uses the gun)

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u/Steppy20 3d ago

The mechanism with a bump stock is that you pull the trigger, the rifle moves backwards, you release the trigger, and then the rifle moves forwards which allows you to pull the trigger again if you want.

By legal definition Clarence Thomas is right and is applying the law correctly.

Should the legal definition be updated? Possibly. But this isn't the way that should be done. The SCOTUS has way too much power as is without then being able to change laws like that without any proper input from anyone.

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u/Intelligent_Pilot360 4d ago

It sounds like perfect logic based on the definition of a machine gun.

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u/QuickPassion94 4d ago

That’s the legal definition. Theres nothing stupid about that logic.

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u/mechapoitier 4d ago

Right, as if it’s the armpit that’s the more dangerous part of the weapon.

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u/AlphaThree 4d ago

That is factually accurate though. A bump stock does not allow a weapon to fire more than one round per trigger pull. It allows you to pull the trigger faster. The definition of an automatic rifle is one which fires more than one round per trigger pull. Therefore a bump stock does not turn a weapon into an automatic rifle. It really isn't that hard. If you're going to call out Thomas's poor legal takes try the case which was 8-1, Thomas dissent. The bump stock case ain't it though.

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u/WealthSea8475 4d ago

We understand the wording, you're misunderstanding that the definition is inherently and logically fucked. It needs to be changed, bc wording is the only possible way they are not equivalents. Aside from the wording of the law as written, they are demonstrably functional equivalents from a firearm perspective, you twit.

Save yourself the mental gymnastics next time.

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u/AlphaThree 4d ago

Calling someone a "twit" inherently makes your argument false via the Ad Hominem fallacy.

Regardless, the job of the court is to use the wording of the law. Congress can change the definition if they don't like it. Separation of powers is a beautiful thing.

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u/WealthSea8475 4d ago

You're so damn smart. Thank you for blessing me with your intelligence.

Back to work, scrub!

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u/GOMADenthusiast 4d ago

It’s not his job to change the words though

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u/JoseSaldana6512 4d ago

That's consistent with firearms law though. 1 pull of trigger 1 bullet is semi automatic. 1 pull of trigger more than 1 bullet is automatic and machine gun with heavier regulation.

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u/Dansk72 3d ago

Except the shooter is not pulling the trigger multiple times, the bump stock is causing the rifle to move through a large enough backward and forward cycle, allowing the trigger to release and fire over and over without the person's trigger finger moving or pull more than once.

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u/Nofnvalue21 4d ago

By definition, he is correct...

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u/AntelopeFlimsy4268 4d ago

But it doesn't fire more than 1 round per trigger pull. Maybe watch a video of it in action and then watch a video of a fully automatic machine gun to see the difference. It still goes through the 8 cycles of fire for every shot, hence not a machine gun.

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u/Dansk72 3d ago

Yes, the trigger is being pulled once for every round, but not because the shooter is repeatedly pulling the trigger; because of the bump stock, the rifle if able to move backward and forward far enough to reset the trigger without the shooter ever having to pull the trigger more than once.

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u/Odinshand 4d ago

It is by definition not a machine gun, if you’ve never fired a full auto … you wouldn’t understand. Plus you can get the same result using a rubber band to force reset a trigger … the concept is upholding the constitution .. not randomly changing the definition of a blanketed law

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u/SrgtButterscotch 4d ago

The SCOTUS has become a political sock puppet, no way around it

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u/1JoMac1 4d ago

It's seriously baffling. Congress, I assume, could only carry out their session while a crime was not being actively committed on the premises. Every instance of trespass, if it came to that, was a crime disrupting Congress. But I'm not a professional legal cherry-picker, so what do I know.

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u/Mateorabi 4d ago

According to the supreme court if the law says you cannot do X, to include Y and other things. Y is the only thing that matters, the fact that congress said "and other things" was just congress faffing about. X=Y according to the court now.

There's a legal concept that is "congress doesn't just add unnecessary words to faff about, if there are more words there they probably were trying to mean something" that the SC just waltzed past.

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u/Additional-North-683 4d ago

I have a feeling the opinions would’ve changed it was the Supreme Court getting taken over

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u/Chaosrealm69 4d ago

They don't like it when citizens are using their 1st amendment rights to protest legally outside a Justice's property and not committing a crime.

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u/BradTProse 4d ago

Can't harass SCOTUS but you can to Congress, idiots.

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u/Responsible-Lemon257 4d ago

They were charged under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act which is for corporate finance and record keeping crimes.

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u/dont-fear-thereefer 4d ago

They are following the letter of the law, not the spirit. I hope that the DoJ finds a more appropriate law to charge them with and those that are imprisoned stay behind bars.

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u/Dottsterisk 4d ago

Not even that.

They’re actively and intentionally choosing the narrowest read that lets Trump’s insurrectionists off the hook. They didn’t have to. They could have taken the rational stance and a broader reading.

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u/periwinkle_magpie 4d ago

No, they pick and choose to follow the letter, the spirit, or a made up historical interpretation depending on what they need the result to be.

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u/Chaosrealm69 4d ago

Yes that is what you do when you apply the law to criminals.

It is when people decide to work out what the 'spirit of the law' is supposed to be that you run into problems.

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u/ExtinctLikeNdiaye 4d ago

How do you determine what the "spirit of the law?" How do you prove the "spirit of the law?"

If its based on the context in which the law was passed then addressing situations like Jan 6th definitely does not qualify as being part of the "spirit of the law."

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u/Khanman5 4d ago

You typically understand spirit of the law by looking at the previous rulings on it and the authors words around it. Not rocket science. Not even controversial.

It's just difficult for idiots.

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u/ExtinctLikeNdiaye 4d ago edited 4d ago

Fair enough.

So remind me, what were similar situations where they've charged people with this law that would suggest that it applies in this situation?

Also, the authors' intentions for this law (specifically the Sarbanes-Oxley Act) are fairly clear based on the Act's preample:

To protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities laws, and for other purposes

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-107publ204/pdf/PLAW-107publ204.pdf

Unless I'm wrong here, there were no corporate disclosures involved nor did this involve any securities laws.

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u/Khanman5 4d ago

Before we carry on with this conversation, I want to point out that in the supreme courts ruling, they acknowledge that all of the parties fully agree on the spirit of the law.

(1) section 1512(c)(1) describes particular types of criminal conduct in specific terms. The purpose of (c) (2) is, as the parties agree, to cover some set of "matters not specifically contemplated" by (c) (1).

So the spirit of the law is not in question at all.

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u/owmyfreakingeyes 4d ago

All that says is that the spirit of the law in (c)(2) is to do some undefined thing that is different than (c)(1). That's not an agreement on what the spirit of the law is.

The entire disagreement is on whether spirit of (c)(2) is to broadly cover any type of act that could generally be considered obstructive, or instead to specifically fill in the gaps of things not covered directly by (c)(1) but of the same general type.