SCOTUS refuses to hear case from parents objecting to school’s transgender support plans in DC suburbs.
It's just the latest in a series of cases where #SCOTUS has "dodged" review of lower court rulings siding with #transgender students.
Reading the petition to the Supreme Court, there weren't strong questions of federal law here, so there's no surprise that the Court didn't bite.
There was simply little in their jurisdiction to review.
@ginaintheburg Our system isn't supposed to be one where only the elite can understand it.
Court records are posted publicly so we can all read them, because we can all see what's happening.
So there's the docket. We can see what's going on in the Court. We don't need attorneys to tell us what's happening.
Whether or not there are "strong arguments of Federal law here" is something only an atty familiar with federal law & its relevant case law would be able to evaluate. To claim anyone who knows how to read can understand, appreciate & accurately evaluate legal arguments & citations just because the pertinent documents are available on the web is patiently disingenuous, to say the least. If that were the case, there would be no need for attorneys, who'd be extinguished as a profession.
@ginaintheburg I utterly disagree because the idea that the laws we are expected to live under can only be understood by the elite is problematic on so many levels ranging from philosophical promotion of democratic principles through the very practical issue of just knowing the rules of our daily lives.
Further, it's very frequently appreciated in legal circles that our laws are to be interpreted based on common understandings of the text.
So I would encourage you to rethink your stance that only experts can judge our laws.
No, we should absolutely not accept such a position.
I am referring primarily to the statement you made & the current state of the legal system, not to the state of the legal system as it should be.
While I do wish all laws were written so anyone can understand them, many are, but also many are not, prolly because they address complex circumstances not sufficiently understood by non-professionals, e g., accounting, intl trade, for. affairs, etc & so are necessarily complex & obtuse to the lay person. Plus there are procedural issues
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such as rules of evidence, what constitutes tampering w/witnesses or the jury & other rules & laws that dictate procedure & behavior whose necessity &/or existence are not obvious to persons unfamiliar w/court proceedings but which have been developed over a centuries based on historical experience & an understanding & appreciation of logic & epistemology, which the vast majority of us are clueless abt, or nearly so, yet upon which the validity, pertinence & fairness of evidence,
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testimony & conclusions rest.
It's imp to ensuring just, fair & equitable APPLICATION of #laws, i.e., #JUSTICE has been achieved, that experts in the law, w/knowledge & understanding of how the #law has been successfully & unsuccessfully applied in the past, that laws & procedures be precisely articulated/written w/ that experience in mind. Sometimes this means the genl public doesn't understand. But then not all law is written to address only the experiences of the genl public -
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e g finance, security.
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@ginaintheburg again, I would argue that if we can't understand the law then it is fundamentally unjust on its face.
To say that for the sake of justice we must have laws that we can't understand strikes me as a self-defeating claim.
It is to say we must have an unjust system for the sake of justice.
And I firmly reject that stance.
We don't all understand the laws of physics or aerospace engineering, but that doesn't make them invalid.
Just saying...
@ginaintheburg who said anything about validity?
I'm talking about practicality and also justice.
Maybe I can't control whether an anvil falling on my head is going to harm me, but we can absolutely control whether crossing the street is going to get us thrown in jail.
