Justice Kennedy: Constitution a 'Flawed Document'

[LAGC]

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wasn’t out to make news when he addressed the annual conference of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and devoted most of his 50-minute speech to the Magna Carta, which turns 800 years old in 2015. But Kennedy did let on that he doesn’t belong to the school of Constitution-worshipers who base their legal doctrines on what they glean to be the original, literal meaning of every word and phrase in the nation’s founding document.

“The Constitution of the United States is a flawed document,” Kennedy said at Thursday’s windup conference session in Monterey. By “thinly veiled language,” he said, it “basically reaffirmed the legality of slavery,” referring to provisions that allowed the slave trade to continue at least until 1808 and defined each slave as three-fifths of a person when deciding how many congressional delegates to assign to each state.

The 600,000 who died in the Civil War, Kennedy said, were “one of the things it cost for having a Constitution that was flawed.”

At the same time, he said, the drafters of the Constitution had the insight to declare principles, like due process of law, that could be interpreted anew by future generations — a sacrilege to literalists like Justice Antonin Scalia, who contends the court is strictly bound by what he deems to be the original intent and meaning of the document.

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election...awed-document/

Who needs a 5th liberal SCOTUS justice when we have Justice Kennedy already?

Seriously though, that article goes on to make a good argument about Second Amendment rights being recognized over time.

All in all, Kennedy isn't that unfair of a judge. He seems pretty even-handed most of the time, definitely not a hard-core partisan ideologue.

[1 Patriot-of-many]

"The Second Amendment, ratified along with the rest of the Bill of Rights in 1791, had been interpreted by the court as late as 1939 to protect only the right to bear arms in a “well-regulated militia.”" Well that's NOT what the court said in the first place. They decided for the treasury dept with no opposition, that a sawn off shotgun was not used by the military or militia and not suitable for such use and therefor not protected under the second amendment. If Miller and his lawyer had shown up they could've easily shown the court that shortbarreled shotguns had indeed been used by the military and the whole decision would've thrown the NFA out the window. Not only that but the NFA was upheld as a legal taxing authority. Since we can no longer pay the tax and buy new machineguns, I'm still wondering why the NFA hasn't been challenged, it's an easy win for a legitimate court. If their only authority to regulate the item is taxes and we can't pay the tax, there is no legal reason for the NFA to exist.

[Krupski]

"The Second Amendment, ratified along with the rest of the Bill of Rights in 1791, had been interpreted by the court as late as 1939 to protect only the right to bear arms in a “well-regulated militia.”" Well that's NOT what the court said in the first place. They decided for the treasury dept with no opposition, that a sawn off shotgun was not used by the military or militia and not suitable for such use and therefor not protected under the second amendment. If Miller and his lawyer had shown up they could've easily shown the court that shortbarreled shotguns had indeed been used by the military and the whole decision would've thrown the NFA out the window. Not only that but the NFA was upheld as a legal taxing authority. Since we can no longer pay the tax and buy new machineguns, I'm still wondering why the NFA hasn't been challenged, it's an easy win for a legitimate court. If their only authority to regulate the item is taxes and we can't pay the tax, there is no legal reason for the NFA to exist.

Actually, the court was told that Miller's particular shotgun, serial number XXXXXX was not a military weapon (which was true, Miller's particular shotgun was never used by the military - even though countless others just like it WERE).

The defense (Miller & attorney) didn't show up at the appeal hearing, and the judge bought the "Miller's particular shotgun" story and ruled as he did.

If Miller had shown up, things would probably have been a lot different.