I Wouldn’t Be Upset If This Hawaii State Justice Ended Up on the Supreme Court One Day
(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to This Post)
Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what’s goin’ down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin’ gets done and where we’re glad to be alive, underneath the sky of blue.
We begin in California, where ExxonMobil, the company that knew it all along, plans on using the current upside-downism in constitutional law whereby a) corporations are people too, my friends, and b) the only real discrimination needing judicial correction is that aimed at wealthy white people and their businesses. From The Guardian:
Exxon, an oil firm consistently ranked among the world’s top contributors to global carbon emissions, is suing the state of California over two climate-focused state laws, arguing that the rules infringe upon the corporation’s right to free speech.
The 2023 laws, known collectively as the California Climate Accountability Package, will require large companies doing business in the state to disclose both their planet-heating carbon emissions and their climate-related financial risks, or face annual penalties. The laws would thereby force Exxon to “serve as a mouthpiece for ideas with which it disagrees”, says the lawsuit, filed in the US district court for the eastern district of California on Friday.
I think the whole premise of the lawsuit is absurd. But, then again, I thought the reasoning behind Citizens United was absurd, and I thought John Roberts’s declaration of the Day of Jubilee was absurd in its evaluation of the true victims of antidiscrimination. Call me cynical, but this lawsuit looks to me to be in the sweet spot between these two particular heresies. Stay tuned.
We move along to Hawaii because why the hell not. Actually, there’s some work to be done there. I give one Justice Todd Eddins of the state supreme court. Back at the end of September, Eddins and his colleagues decided to take a bite out of the Nine Wise Souls in D.C. From Bolts:
Charles Zuffante was a passenger in his girlfriend’s car, driving on Hawaii’s Big Island in late 2021, when the police stopped them for expired registration. During the traffic stop, police saw a glass pipe and arrested both Zuffante and his girlfriend. They found 3.5 grams of methamphetamine in his pants pocket; when they searched the car, which belonged to her, they found 130 grams stored in different spots.
At trial, a police officer testified that Zuffante had confessed to him that “everything” belonged to him and that “all the meth was his,” prompting Zuffante to interject and accuse the detective of lying; he took the stand to insist that he didn’t know what was in the car and that he’d never said otherwise during the interrogation.
Zuffante had assumed the interrogation was recorded because of a camera in the room, but it wasn’t. The officer had taken no written notes during the interrogation, only filing a report a week later. With just Zuffante’s word against the officer’s, he was convicted of several charges, including “promoting a dangerous drug in the first degree,” a very serious offense that would have been far harder for prosecutors to prove absent the purported confession. Zuffante was sentenced to twenty years in prison.
Zuffante appealed the decision, insisting his rights had been violated and that the absence of a recording left him no choice but to take the stand. The Hawaii Supreme Court sided with him last week in a significant win for the rights of criminal defendants, holding that police have a constitutional obligation to record interrogations. The ruling means that law enforcement in the state will now be required to record all interrogations taking place inside police stations. It also requires police to record them outside stations “when feasible.”
The decision also takes a well-aimed kick below the waterline of the carefully manufactured conservative majority (CMCM). And good for it.
But the court didn’t rely on the U.S. Constitution in arriving at its decision—instead, it relied exclusively on the Hawaii Constitution, which contains similar language. Justice Todd Eddins, who authored the majority opinion, took pains to spell out that this was intentional, writing, “No United States Supreme Court opinion has tackled the recording of custodial interrogations. If a case did though, we would still look to our state constitution first.” His opinion takes direct shots at the current conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, pitting its jurisprudence against the guarantees the state constitution can provide.
Eddins has been a staunch advocate for Hawaii’s state constitution for some time now. Awhile back, on a religious-freedom issue, Eddins took an even more direct shot at the CMCM.
“As the people of Hawai‘i who ratified our state constitution over the years understood, the promise of religious pluralism and secular government depends on a durable wall separating church and state,” he said. “The Roberts Court casually dismisses the lessons of American and world history, the warnings of prominent early Americans, and the judiciary’s storied legal minds. Bad things happen unless government and religion are completely separated.”
Book ’em, Todd-o.
Also, note to any future Democratic president, assuming one is ever allowed to take office again: If you happen to be looking for Supreme Court nominees, just follow the sun.
We return to the mainland so we can consult Politico and check out the latest episode of the new family-fun game “Who’s Zohran Scaring Today?” And our contestants are ... are ... this guy!
“Being Mayor of New York City is the second toughest job in America, and the next mayor will face immense challenges. Andrew Cuomo has the experience and toughness to stand up for New Yorkers and get things done. I hope you will join me in supporting him,” [former Mayor Michael] Bloomberg wrote in a social media post Wednesday evening.
In a social media post, [Representative Tom] Suozzi—whose district encompasses part of Long Island and a piece of Queens—gave his full-throated support for Cuomo’s independent bid, but spent much of the announcement zeroing in on where he felt Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani fell short. Without explicitly naming Mamdani, Suozzi ripped his “thin resume” and said he couldn’t back a “declared socialist.” Suozzi has long been a vocal critic of Mamdani and has consistently separated himself from the democratic socialist through the campaign. He’s maintained concerns about Mamdani’s proposed solutions to affordability, and earlier this year, he penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing Mamdani “should serve as a loud wake-up call for the Democratic Party.”
Suozzi, it should be noted, called for Governor Andrew Cuomo to resign when the sexual harassment accusations hit the fan back in 2021. You don’t need a weatherman, etc.
And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma whence Blog Ambassador to Iberian Patios Friedman of the Plains brings us the tale of how, as far as Governor Kevin Stitt is concerned, it never rains in Oklahoma. From 2 News KJRH:
“Congress needs to act,” said Stitt. It comes after the announcement that SNAP benefits would be frozen November 1 if the shutdown continues. “Now is the time for us to step up as fellow Oklahomans,” said Gov. Stitt. “The Oklahoma standard. Neighbors walking with neighbors.”
According to the story, Oklahoma has a billion dollars in its rainy-day fund and even Stitt admits that he can access $300 million of it. Presumably, this is taxpayer money, so it seems to the casual observer that Oklahomans have been walking pretty happily with their neighbors, and that Stitt is the primary roadblock.
“Talk about how much is in that fund and at what point the state would actually use the money?” 2 News asked.
“To access the rainy day fund, it’s set up in a way that you’re only supposed to access it in a revenue failure,” replied Stitt. “We don’t have a revenue failure. This is a federal government problem not a state problem.” He said while there is close to a billion dollars in that rainy day fund, the max amount the state could access is $300 million. It would required a 2/3 vote from the legislature and calling lawmakers back in for a special session. Plus, Stitt says it’s not guaranteed the federal government would pay them back.
He might be right about that, given the current administration and its deadbeat leader, but that’s beside the point at the moment. Maybe Stitt should walk with his neighbors for a spell.
This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.
esquire
