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Reply With QuoteUh, didn't 8 other SCOUTS justices disagree with him?Originally Posted by Anubis
familiar with Wisconsin v Schultz? Congratulations!
From http://www.wisconsinappeals.net/wp-c...0/Schultz1.pdf :
Retain Judge Counsell!In addition, as noted above, this court agrees with Justice Clarence Thomas’s McDonald concurrence and application of the Fourteenth Amendment to this matter. In essence, no State shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States. As Justice Thomas demonstrates, the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right, not created by the Second Amendment, but secured or recognized by it. The right to keep and bear arms is therefore not to be abridged by any State law. Sec. 941.23 must also fail under the application of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In sum, sec. 941.23 is unconstitutional on its face as overly broad in violation of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
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Uh, didn't 8 other SCOUTS justices disagree with him?
Banned
To a certain extent yes, but not exactly, Justice Thomas's opinion in McDonald was a concurring opinion. You have three types of SCOTUS opinions, majority, concurring and dissenting. There is a majority opinion in every case. This is the "winning" opinion.
In almost all cases there is also a dissenting opinion. This is writen by the "losing" side and explains why the particular justice disagrees with the majority. There is no requirement that a dissent be writen, but in all but uniamimous decisions, there is one writen. There can also be multiple dissenting opinions, i.e. Justices can disagree with the majority opinion for entirely different reasons.
In some cases you have a concurring opinion. A concurring opinion is an opinion that agrees with the majority opinion, (or very, very rarely a dissenting opinion) but for legally different reasons. The question at hand in the McDonald case was incorporation of the rights protected under the second amendment through the fourteenth amendment. Thomas agreed with the majority that the second amendment was incorporated, albeit for different reasons than the majority.
Obviously a majority opinion carrys more legal weight than any other. However the weight of an opinion in any case does to a certain extent rely on the quality or lack of in the other opinions. The amount of weight that Clarence Thomas's opinion carries in future cases is yet to be determined.
I don't disagree with your dissertation on supreme court opinions (I've been admitted to the Supreme Court for more than 25 years and have filed petitions for cert and amicus briefs, but have never presented oral argument.)
But the above quote is the critical point. 8 other justices agreed that Thomas was wrong on his incorporation method. A state court or lower federal court that relies on Thomas's theory of incorporation is going to end up with an 8-1 reversal on that issue.
Banned
But we don't nessesarily know that. Six of the justices effectively did not supply their exact opinion, they signed off on someone elses.
I guess I am confused? What does SCOTUS have to do with this? This WI district judge used the WI Constitution, the Heller and McDonald decisions to say, in effect, that since the WI Constitution guarantees the right to carry without harassment and that since 941.23 makes concealed carry illegal,, oc must occur without harassment. Since the Madison 5 got harassed just because they were oc'ing, therefore 941.23 is unconstitutional at the state level.
This hasn't been appealed so concealed carry is only legal in Jackson county, where this ruling was made.
Oh, I don't know..maybe this part:
this court agrees with Justice Clarence Thomas’s McDonald concurrence
Ahhh... OK.
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