Category Archives: legal news

legal news

Keeping faith in AG

You have read on this blog that I trust Attorney General Merrick Garland implicitly to carry out his duties as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.

Now that I have reaffirmed that trust, I feel compelled to say the following: I will place my trust that the AG will follow the law in its strictest sense and will make a determination on whether to prosecute Donald Trump based solely on what the law allows him to do.

Put another way: I will accept, albeit with gritted teeth, a decision to forgo a criminal indictment against the former president.

I happen to believe fully in our federal legal system. It’s not that I don’t recognize flaws in prosecution when I see them. Bear in mind, though, that I am the farthest thing imaginable from a lawyer. My mind isn’t trained in the legal intricacies of criminal or civil investigation.

So, when a top-tier lawyer — such as Merrick Garland — goes through the rigorous process of determining whether a former president of the U.S. should be prosecuted for crimes, I am left only to accept whatever decision the AG has reached.

I suppose I should stipulate that my layman’s noodle has concluded that Trump has committed crimes against the government. He bullied the Georgia secretary of state to “find” enough votes to steal the state’s electoral votes from Joe Biden; he knew of plans seat fake electors on 1/6; Trump incited the insurrection that sought to “hang Mike Pence”; Trump knew all that he sought to do was illegal, but he insisted on pursuing The Big Lie.

The question for Merrick Garland, as near as I can tell, is this: Can we convict this guy? The attorney general cannot afford to let Trump slither away should he indict him. Indeed, the nation’s governing process cannot afford to have Trump hanging around out there, sowing discord and distrust in our electoral system.

I believe Donald J. Trump is guilty of high crimes against the government. However, I am not pursuing this. The AG, a learned man of impeccable character, is riding in the hottest seat imaginable.

I hope he reaches the correct conclusion. If he decides to go another way, well, he will put my faith in our federal system to a stern test.

It will remain strong.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

City facing stern court test

My cheap-seat perch has enabled me to weigh in on a matter involving a community where I lived for 23 years and remains a place where I maintain a deep affection.

Amarillo City Hall is going to trial Tuesday to face a lawsuit filed by a local businessman over a city effort to foist a $260 million debt on property owners to build a new Civic Center. I use the term “foist” understanding what it implies.

The city is foisting the debt on taxpayers because those very city residents said “no” to a bond issue in November 2020 that would have done what the city wants to do without voter approval.

There is something fundamentally wrong with that approach.

Businessman Alex Fairly wants the 108th District Court in Potter County to slow the process down just a bit to enable all parties — I’ll presume Fairly intends for the city to be included — to present their cases more thoroughly. The city, according to Fairly, wants to fast-track the decision to a quick verdict.

Fairly is contesting the legality of the decision to issue those “anticipation notes.” He argues that the city didn’t give proper advance notice to residents and did so without going through the entire process he says is required.

I won’t argue that case. What does seem wrong is the timing of this effort by the city.

To be clear, if I had a vote in the matter, I likely would have voted “yes” on the money to build a Civic Center; the one they have is no longer adequate. However, most voters turned thumbs down on the project. I tend to respect the view of the majority … you know?

The City Council’s response has been tantamount to sticking its finger in the eye of electorate, telling them: We don’t care what you think. We need to do this anyway and we’re going to go around you … no matter what.

Therein lies what I believe is the crux of the argument that Fairly is trying to make.

This legal challenge represents a significant departure from the way city government has operated in Amarillo for practically as long as I have been acquainted with the city and its leadership.

This can be a healthy challenge to the city’s power structure. I want it to be a constructive one as well.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

The Fifth implies guilt

You know what? I am going to agree with an assertion that Donald J. Trump made on the 2016 presidential campaign trail.

The Republican Party nominee for president declared that those who use the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination usually have something to hide; they imply their own guilt by pleading the Fifth to the U.S. Constitution.

Of course, all of that changes when it’s your friends and supporters taking the Fifth, which Trump hasn’t spoken about in recent weeks while the House select committee examines the 1/6 insurrection against the government.

Former short-term national security adviser Michael Flynn, for instance, hid behind the Fifth more than 100 times when he faced questions from the committee. His response, for example, to a question from Rep. Liz Cheney about whether he believes in the “peaceful transition of presidential power”? He said: “Fifth.”

We’re going to hear a lot more of that kind of gamesmanship from Trumpkins summoned to testify before the panel. The cultists can avoid being indicted for contempt of Congress by showing up and then refusing to answer direct questions by hiding behind one of the founders’ civil liberties … which they are entitled to do.

However, none of it passes the smell test.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Handcuffs in Trump’s future?

I have known this gentleman for 22 years. We met in Greece in 2000 at a conference of journalists from around the world. He lives in Australia. I haven’t seen him since we parted company all those years ago, but we have stayed in touch during that time.

He has told me many times over the past, oh, five years or so that Donald J. Trump would be hauled off in handcuffs and leg irons when the feds arrest him for the myriad crimes he has committed.

I kind of laughed off my friend’s belief. I am not laughing now.

It is impossible to predict what Attorney General Merrick Garland is going to do when the House select committee finishes its examination into the 1/6 insurrection. I have my hope for what I believe should happen, which is that Garland is going to obtain a grand jury indictment against Trump for knowingly inciting the assault on our Capitol that day.

Do I believe that will happen? I am thinking each day that the likelihood is increasing that Garland will do what he must to keep his pledge to us to hold “anyone and everyone accountable” for crimes he has committed against the nation.

The evidence is piling up against Trump. The televised hearings have produced some stunning revelations to the public. I understand that there are those who will read this blog post and will respond with something like “no one’s watching these hearings; they don’t register with voters.” They shouldn’t waste their time and energy. The folks who should be watching them — namely the legal eagles at Justice — will be watching.

I also am acutely aware of the enormous political consequence if a criminal indictment doesn’t produce a conviction. The AG is even more aware of that than anyone else on Earth. Will I accept a decision from Garland that tells us he will forgo a criminal prosecution? Sure. I won’t like it, but I trust him implicitly to do the right thing.

I just am feeling at this moment that the “right thing” is going to make history.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Why omit this one, Mr. Justice?

It wasn’t lost on many folks that U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas omitted a legal precedent when he signaled which others might become vulnerable in future SCOTUS rulings.

The court knocked Roe v. Wade — the landmark ruling that legalized abortion — down and out. Thomas then noted that in the future, the court could take on same-sex marriage and contraception, two other provisions protected by constitutional “rights of privacy” provisions.

But … wait! What about interracial marriage?

Oh, yeah. Thomas, one of two blacks to serve on the court, is married to a white woman … and a controversial white woman at that! Ginni Thomas has been rabble-rousing like the dickens over Joe Biden’s 2020 election as president.

The court’s famous Loving ruling in 1967 legalized interracial marriage. It’s difficult for many of us to understand why it was ever illegal for people of different races to marry one another, but it was.

Is that going to be part of the court’s future?

Bwahahahaha!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS has changed, not Roe

Leave it to a lame-duck U.S. Supreme Court justice to put a monumental ruling in fascinating perspective.

Stephen Breyer is about to retire from the nation’s top court. He cast a dissenting vote in the decision to toss aside 50 years of “settled law” by overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that made abortion legal.

Previous Supreme Court decisions had upheld Roe v. Wade in earlier challenges. The court would rule that the law was established and that, by golly, the Constitution did guarantee a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

Not this court. Not this time.

It was Justice Breyer who noted in his dissent that Roe had withstood challenges because it remained the same. The only thing that changed, he wrote, “is this court.”

So it is that Supreme Court, with his conservative supermajority, has decided to enact an activist agenda by ruling that a half-century of “settled law” had been decided wrongly.

Pitiful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS credibility at issue

The U.S. Supreme Court has a credibility problem. It’s serious, I’m telling you.

It ruled in just the span of a few days that New York does not have the authority as a state to govern concealed handgun carry and then decided that states must decide whether women can obtain a legal abortion.

Two justices — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — reportedly told Sen. Susan Collins that Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion ruling that the court has just tossed aside, was “settled law” and that they wouldn’t trifle with it. Well, they damn sure did.

“This decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents,” Collins wrote.

This calls into question whether the court is as independent and impartial as the founders envisioned when they created the federal judiciary.

Having said all this, I stand by my refusal to endorse the notion of expanding the court’s number from nine to whatever progressives want to install.

What has to happen is that American voters need to decide whether the Supreme Court’s current makeup is reason to vote for members of Congress and for presidents who will honor the rule of the majority.

Donald Trump vowed to nominate justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. He made the pledge while running for president in 2016. Yes, he established the proverbial “litmus test” for judicial candidates to pass. He said so reportedly knowing that most Americans favored keeping Roe on the books. They, too, understood the meaning of “settled law” and wanted to give women the right to choose whether to take a pregnancy to full term.

The high court has thrown all of that aside with its Roe ruling. Moreover, it has spoken out of both sides of its collective mouth by declaring that states could decide whether to allow abortion but that they had no authority to decide how to govern firearm ownership.

Credibility? It’s missing from the Supreme Court.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS shows its consequence

There can be no greater example of electoral consequence than the decision delivered this week by the U.S. Supreme Court that overturns Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion in the United States.

Ponder this for a moment:

Justice Clarence Thomas is the court’s senior member, serving on the high court since 1991; the man who selected him, President George H.W. Bush, left office in 1993. Justice Samuel Alito joined the court in 2006; the president who nominated him, George W. Bush, left office in 2009. Chief Justice John Roberts took his post in 2005 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.

Those three conservative justices have stayed far beyond the terms of their political sponsors. The same likely will hold true for three more judicial conservatives, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, all of whom were nominated by Donald J. Trump.

Remember, too, that Trump declared while running for office in 2016 that he would find “two or three” justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. He did … and they did. They, too, are likely to remain in office many decades after Trump leaves the scene.

Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring and will be replaced by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s lone selection (so far!) to the nation’s highest court.

Yes, elections have consequences. I now shall assert that the next president election must be determined at least partly by how voters want their Supreme Court to function well into the future.

Do we really want a SCOTUS making far-reaching decisions based on justices’ own religious bias?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

‘Representative democracy’ takes a hit

I need to stipulate something up front that shouldn’t need to be stated, which is that we all live in what we call a “representative democracy.”

What does that mean? To me it means that the men and women who serve in our nation’s public offices need to represent the will of the people they govern.

OK, are we clear on that? Good! Then consider this:

Every reputable public opinion poll taken reveals that a substantial majority of Americans favor maintaining abortion rights for women. Gallup, Harris, Quinnipiac, Roper, Ipsos — all of ’em — tell us that most Americans want women to have the right to govern their own bodies.

The U.S. Supreme Court, though, today said the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. The ruling comes as the court has struck down the Roe v. Wade landmark ruling that stood as settled law since it was announced in January 1973. Women no longer are able to obtain an abortion.

Most Americans believe in providing abortion rights for women. A minority in Congress and in our legislatures believe something else.

Where I come from, when the minority rules supersede the beliefs of the majority, we call that “governing by tyrannical means.”

Is that what we are becoming?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS might just be getting warmed up

The U.S. Supreme Court is feeling its Wheaties today after handing down a ruling that effectively ends legalized abortion in the United States of America.

It’s a dark day in American juris prudence, at least as I see it.

But … here’s some real bad news: The nation’s highest court now could be feeling so emboldened that it will take dead aim on such constitutional guarantees as the right to marry someone of the same gender as you.

Let’s ponder that for a brief moment.

Texas once had a law on the books that was called colloquially the “anti-sodomy law.” It banned same-sex marriage. I have no need to explain the origin of the “anti-sodomy law” description.

Then the Supreme Court, in a stunning decision just a few years ago, declared that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment applied to same-sex couples as well as straight couples, that everyone in this country is entitled to “equal protection under the law.” The ruling was hailed as huge step toward recognizing gay marriage as legal.

It has now been established as “settled law.”

Or … is it?

The court might believe it is ready to impose its own form of morality on a nation well could have an entirely different view. The gay marriage ruling has been essentially hailed as a victory for inclusion of all Americans under a constitutional clause that many had believed had excluded them from its protection.

Is the Supreme Court really prepared to walk down that path, just as it has decided that Roe v. Wade, the decision that had been settled law for 50 years, now no longer is valid?

Folks, we well might have a U.S. Supreme Court that is preparing to run amok.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com