A question for the armchair constitutionalists.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

A ruling by a 3 judge panel in CO has tremendous potential impact on the politics of prohibition as well as the upheaval of the entire justice system.

The case centered on Brandon Coats, a quadriplegic medical-marijuana patient who was fired in 2010 from his job as a telephone operator for Dish Network after testing positive for the drug. Lawyers for Coats argued he was protected under a Colorado law that states it is illegal for workers to be terminated for participating in lawful activities off the clock.
But a trial court dismissed the claim in 2011, siding with Dish Network that medical marijuana use isn't a "lawful activity" covered by the termination law.
Now, even though the law has changed, the outcome for Coats has not. In its ruling, the Colorado Court of Appeals sought to define the word "lawful," ultimately concluding that for something to be lawful it "must be permitted by, and not contrary to, both state and federal law."

Oh no they didn't...

Of course, I am not a lawyer, but my opinion is if this ruling were upheld, a state's rights to enact their own Code (of laws) would be nullified if they did not mirror the Federal Code. Because if something is not directly codified as 'illegal' then it is assumed to be legal (please don't make me look up the code for that statute, it does exist).

This means all State laws contrary to Federal law are not "Lawful" laws. So all this abortion stuff from the states; now nullified if this ruling is upheld by SCOTUS? It does not even mention local and county/parish laws.

Working the logic backwards, since the word "both" was used, does this piss not run upstream; that for any federal law contrary to any state law, removes the federal statute's "lawfulness"?

Comments

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

you (and I and all others) cannot ask dead people what they meant, nor can we ask a piece of paper what it means. in order to avoid those fuitless tasks, we have appointed 9 people to speak on behalf of the constitution.

neither you nor I, can say what the constitution means (we can make self-referential statements about how WE interpret it, but our interpretations are mostly irrelevant)

SCOTUS can say what the constitution means--and maybe im wrong, maybe the constitution doesnt bar fetal personhood laws. but you and I cannot say.

only SCOTUS can say; that is their job, their reason for being on the court.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

you (and I and all others) cannot ask dead people what they meant, nor can we ask a piece of paper what it means.

Seances aren't real, but their actual words that describe exactly what they mean are.

in order to avoid those fuitless tasks, we have appointed 9 people to speak on behalf of the constitution.

Well, they're designed to be a check on the other two branches, a role they've failed at numerous times.

SCOTUS can say what the constitution means--and maybe im wrong, maybe the constitution doesnt bar fetal personhood laws. but you and I cannot say.

only SCOTUS can say; that is their job, their reason for being on the court.

And what you're doing right here is buying into the myth.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

you (and I and all others) cannot ask dead people what they meant, nor can we ask a piece of paper what it means. in order to avoid those fuitless tasks, we have appointed 9 people to speak on behalf of the constitution.

My general opinion on the matter is that we had a document written by slavers who only wanted white, land-owning males of a certain age to vote.

The entire interpretation system is essentially a crutch on the garbled, vague mess we call a Constitution.

We need to rewrite it to bring it more in line with not only other national documents, but more reflective of the time we live in. Even if we rewrote it, 10 or 20 years from now it will still have problems, especially since a lot of people are on the wrong side of history in terms of gay marriage, drug prohibition, etc.

That is not to say that everything in there gets tossed out. No, the legal progress and casework we have made until now will define most of the new document. With a new Constitution, it's possible to quell a lot of issues that, at this point, have no foreseeable end because of the vagueness of the wording that will allow a controversy to live on forever, holding us back and driving this country into third world status.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Well said. I feel this way about the bible as well. So did Jefferson, but I've digressed.