Crackers |
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Supreme Court Exempts Congress from Constitutional Limits
Hailey Filipelli Interstate commerce includes activities that take place wholly within the confines of one's personal property located in a single state said a Supreme Court majority in a recent ruling in the case of Gonzalez v. Raich et al. Defendants Angela Raich and Diana Monson were targeted by the Drug Enforcement Administration whose agents seized the marijuana plants they were using to alleviate nausea and pain associated with their respective inoperable brain tumor and degenerative spine disease. Justice John Paul Stevens opined for the majority that "Wickard [v. Filburn] thus establishes that Congress can regulate purely intrastate activity that is not itself “commercial,” in that it is not produced for sale, if it concludes that failure to regulate that class of activity would undercut the regulation of the interstate market in that commodity." He further wrote that "In assessing the scope of Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause, we stress that the task before us is a modest one. We need not determine whether respondents’ activities, taken in the aggregate, substantially affect interstate commerce in fact, but only whether a “rational basis” exists for so concluding." In a dissenting opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that "Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has never had a demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana," he wrote. "If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything"In the weeks leading up to the ruling and thereafter, members of Crackers' investigative staff went through the Supreme Court's trash and found several items which appear to be rough drafts and interoffice memos. One memo initialed "AS" and addressed "Attn: Liberal Loonies" said in part "Let's fudge this one under the commerce clause. It's not like it would be the first you've done something like that, and controlling the madness of the marijuana addiction that has our nation in its clutches outweighs the personal comfort of these selfish defendants. Plus, lunch is on me for all voting to uphold." Found in the same trash bin were torn up pages of an opinion holding in favor of the defendants that was clearly separate from the two dissenting opinions eventually issued and some fancy to-go boxes from a restaurant whose name was obscured by other trash. What may have been a rough draft of the eventual opinion issued by Justice Scalia was found in another trash bin. Scrawled in the margin was a barely-legible quote from a speech that Justice Scalia gave in March this year: "If we're picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience a 'new' Constitution, we should not look principally for good lawyers. We should look to people who agree with us. When we are in that mode, you realize we have rendered the Constitution useless." The quote was followed by several question marks and the initials CT. The margin notes were crossed out with black permanent marker.
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