Supreme Court upholds rule allowing state, federal charges
Source: Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is upholding a constitutional rule that allows state and federal governments to prosecute someone for the same crime.
The court’s 7-2 decision Monday preserves a long-standing rule that provides an exception to the Constitution’s ban on trying someone twice for the same offense. The case had been closely watched because a ruling for the defendant in this case might have made it harder for states to pursue criminal charges against defendants in the Russia investigation in the event they are pardoned by President Donald Trump.
The court ruled against federal prison inmate Terance Gamble . He was prosecuted by Alabama and the federal government for having a gun after an earlier conviction for robbery.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his majority opinion that 170 years of precedent supports the idea that “a state may prosecute a defendant under state law even if the federal government has prosecuted him for the same conduct under a federal statute.”
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By MARK SHERMAN
30 minutes ago
Read more: https://apnews.com/198d29dad0ed4ba6a3852fca66e52cd5
Related: 17-646 Gamble v United States (Supreme Court of the United States)
= new reply since forum marked as read
Trump Crime family can’t be too happy though
I assume you meant ...I don't SEE very different rationales...
Anyway, thanks for the follow up.
I'm guessing the issue here is that you actually read the dissents! 
I posted because I wanted to see what kind of reaction I would get. I respect RBG as much as the next Liberal. Some here are so entrenched that they can't accept the fact that she dissented in the same case as Beer Boy.
There were Biden supporters here today tearing into Pete about his statement on our embassy location in Israel. I haven't heard yet but if Joe came out in agreement with Pete it would all be OK. They'd say they both agree with not changing it back but for very different reasons or some such bullshit.
So much text. What first struck me is how Alito, writing for the majority, reaches back before the 1500s to make the case more complex than need be. But that's a minor point.
What's more troubling, however, is Thomas' concurrence. It is worth reading since it lays out his judicial ideology, and how his post-modern originalist ideas can be used as fig leaves to cover all manor of horrors. While there is room for post modernism in critical literary theory and its antecedents, it requires decades of scholarship to try and understand the circumstances surrounding historical events.
Here's why originalism is dangerous: Thomas dispenses with the formalities of scholarship, and instead fancies himself as a time-traveling medium who can project his mind into the time of the founding of the republic. It's a sloppy (and unacceptable) way to look at history, and bastardization of post modernism, since post modern interpretations of history depend on symbols (the alphabet, grammar and words), which are codified by biased people (we are all biases in some way) to support and further the ideas of the upper classes.
Thomas nor anyone else can not truly understand the workings of someone's mind in the late 1700s. He uses his false approach, though, to dispense with the idea of precedent being important to law. In fact, he sees no conflict with sweeping away centuries of stare decisis if his reading of the constitution leads him to a conclusion that is different. This is troubling because Stare decisis can be thought of as legal scholarship; it's a product of the language and attitudes of people from the time it was written. Precedent be damned if Thomas doesn't agree with it.
Here is his philosophy in his own words:
Page 8 of Thomas' Concurrence
So, with Thomas' ideas about eugenics and abortion coupled with the judicial philosophy he lays out in his concurrence in this decision, he will sweep away any law and decades or centuries of jurisprudence if it doesn't suit his understanding of the colonial mindset.
It isn't surprising he will dispense with precedent when it suits him. What is troubling is how he lays out a suggested approach to overturning precedent because he thinks he has a grasp of the workings of the minds of people from the 1700s; and people in the 1700s are all that matters. This reaches the realm of ideology and mysticism.
This is not to say all precedent is sacrosanct: sometimes precedent was a product of a racist or biased zeitgeist, and should be compared against evolving social norms and the unfolding of history.
This is a long and rambling post and needs editing. But I wanted to put the thoughts out there. Thomas concurrence is so bizarre that it would be considered the ramblings of a madman if he were not a Supreme Court justice.
Re-enactment of Conservative Justices Practicing Originalism:
He's been at it for so damn long, after all....
