Journalist Chris Hedges Sues Obama Admin over Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens Approved in NDAA

[happyslug]

27. But the point I was trying to make, was the Court COULD have avoided the case

The point I was trying to make with Roe was that the Court COULD have declined to hear the case for Roe no longer had standing for she had had the abortion OR had given birth by the time the case reached the Supreme Court.

I was using ROE was an HOW standing can be used by the Judges to avoid cases the Court wants to avoid. In the case of ROE, the Court decided the hear the case and thus ruled that Roe had standing.

The Supreme Court has a long history of avoiding issues it dislikes. One of the earliest example of this was during the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868, the court REFUSED to rule on the act Johnson was impeached for violating, the Tenure in Office Act. Some 20 years later, when the Act was almost long forgotten AND the President and Congress were no longer at each other throats, the Court did rule on the Tenure in Office Act, and ruled it unconstitutional. Thus by one Vote of a Senator we could have seen the removal of a President for violating an act, that the Supreme Court later found unconstitutional for it restricted HOW the President could run the executive branch of Government (i.e. the President would have been removed for doing something the Constitution permitted him and him alone to do).

The court has several other legal rules it can use to avoid making a decision that is opposed by Congress and the President. The Political Issue case is one of the best known (for it clearly states the issue is Political and thus to be decided by Congress, thus it is a way to move a controversial subject from the courts to Congress).

The Standing issue, is not the clear putting of an issue to Congress as in the Political issue case, but it is a way to avoid a case the Court has no desire to decide at the present time. The standing issue can also be waived (given you still have two sides to an issue) if the Court really wants to hear the case. Thus Standing can be a real issue in a case, or an excuse to avoid an issue (and sometimes both).