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[–] Cat-hax 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

well thats it, law is meaningless.

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[–] cdglow ago 

According to the article, the dead judge wrote the decision this vote is based on. So while this is very bad, this specific case should be rejudged, and some kind of law should exist to prevent dead peoples' opinions from counting, at least it doesn't look like the outcome in this specific case changed.

It's not a good precedent though and opens up the door for radical abuse. Imagine if a judge was 60% leaning towards siding with one side half-way through a trial and indicated as such. At what point could executing a judge to lock their opinion in place be an actually used strategy? This should be fucking terrifying for judges.

The same system used for jurors who die or fall ill during a trial (alternate jurors who are forced to show up and follow along) might be impractical for the highest courts, so they should fall back to what happens if the alternates aren't available either: declare a mistrial and try again.

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[–] 1HepCat 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

Yeah it's not super clear from the article but it seems like the following?:

1) The judge ruled and authored a document/'opinion' to explain the decision

2) The judge died

3) Some court clerk or something filed the opinion, thus making it official

4) The losing party appealed the ruling based on the judge's death prior to the filing.

5) SCOTUS (who has their own dead/dying justice) declared the filing invalid and ordered a retrial with a complete panel of living judges.

Seems like SCOTUS made the right call. I'm surprised this is the first time something like this has come up. I think the main concern is that the dead judge is no longer around to authenticate his ruling. E.g., in case the clerk altered the document (or fabricated the whole thing) before filing it.

Apart from that, the judge had ostensibly locked his ruling in. Apparently, none of his nine colleagues, including those who'd dissented, found the filed document suspicious enough to raise their own stink over it either. If I'm understanding the scenario correctly assassinations would only be effective if you could subsequently convince the public, etc. that the judge was both ready to rule and had indeed already rendered an unfiled verdict. Still not a great loop hole to leave lying around, though.

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[–] Crawdaddy 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

It would be good to know the names of those persons who submitted Reinhardt’s and Ginsberg’s votes.

[–] [deleted] ago 

[Deleted]

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[–] sane [S] 0 points 3 points (+3|-0) ago  (edited ago)

Vote was ILLEGAL as Trumps SCOTUS just ruled 9-0.

The 9th district just attempted a 9-0 ILLEGAL ACTION of letting dead judges vote.

9-0 is about as clear cut illegal as you can get. Here is the Supreme Court Ruling from Trumps new SCOTUS :

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/022519zor_8mjp.pdf#page=13

That's direct from SCOTUS Decided February 25, 2019

BTW : The irony of "9" votes , one being from a dead comatose undead lich, is not lost on me.

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[–] freedumbz ago 

Before we go off half cocked... is it possible he wrote this and voted before he passed but it wasn't counted until after he died?

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[–] sane [S] 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

No proof. Anyone could claim such a thing either way , the dead judge cannot testify if vote is tampered with.

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[–] freedumbz ago 

Good point.

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[–] shawnfromnh69 ago 

Whoever was in on that faked vote if they are on the bench should be tossed off and into jail for at least 20 years also if someone was not on the court but added it should also serve that jail time. This should be an automatic sentence with no excuses or minimized punishment.

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[–] nycpats 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

RBG’ been busily voting.

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[–] Boyakasha 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Well, I guess shooting the judge wouldn't help.

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