The Supreme Court’s third (but not last) decision is SEC v. Jarkesy. By a 6–3 vote, the court holds that when the SEC seeks civil penalties, the defendant is entitled to a jury trial in federal court.
This sounds technical but it’s huge.
SCOTUS’ decision is Jarkesy may well hobble many federal agencies’ ability to bring meaningful enforcement actions against wrongdoers. Not just the SEC. Neither the executive branch nor the judiciary have the time or resources to try all these cases before a jury. Nowhere close.
Today’s decision in Jarkesy could kneecap enforcement by the FCC, the FTC, the NLRB, the Department of Labor, and more—it goes WAY beyond the SEC. This is a massive blow to the federal government’s ability to enforce regulations against lawbreakers.
The ruling is here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-859_1924.pdf
More from Benjamin Weingarten;
Justice Gorsuch — with whom Justice Thomas concurred — details more administrative state tyranny. We’ve been de-sensitized to an unelected, unaccountable, awesomely powerful branch of government that’s, shall we say, hard to square this with the Constitution
And another: The Supreme Court granted applications for a stay, effectively halting the enforcement of the EPA’s “good neighbor” policy. The decision underscores the limits of the EPA’s regulatory authority, emphasizing state sovereignty in managing local environmental issues.
This is good news for the US. IMO it curtails the power of the Administrative State. If only there was a Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) with enough courage to reach the same decision Canadians would be better off.
well there ya have it the interplay of the famous 3 branches.
one branch just got trimmed back it seems.
speak up democraps, bemoan the ‘loss’ of ‘democrapcy’ and resume calls to have orange man expunged from any future ballots to ‘protect democrapcy’ etc etc
Cue the cry “Jury trials are a threat to democracy!”
Funny how the leftists all cheered PDJT’s conviction by a jury of his peers in NYC? Oh well, when a jury does the illegal bidding of the utterly corrupted Deep State … then our “Democracy” is working, eh?
Shhh! Don’t give the progressives any ideas.
But, if trials are required, the regulator can’t shake down their target!
The entire Federal regulatory state is in mourning, after this.
And the Democrats will be seething at this restriction on their power and all the money that glues the Democrats way as a result if that power, such as their ability to collect graft as regulatory consultants, and punishment of the impure.
Unlike the Lieberal Democratic Peoples Republic of Kanada where simply claiming an action is punitive and not criminal gives the government power to destroy anyone not bending the knee.
I worked in the environmental consulting field for over a third of a century, dealing with these arrogant, petty, drunk-with-power tyrants and it transformed me ideologically from sort of a middle-of-the-road non-partisan to a hardcore conservative/libertarian, where I continually advocate for the complete and total dismantlement of the federal government, stripping them of virtually all their power.
It all started with some petty bureaucrat – a communist, really – at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection telling me he was going to put my application to remove an underground storage tank “to the bottom of the pile”, all because I called in to check on its status.
ouch.
well, they all deserve all the resultant scorn and condemnation. so have at ‘er.
“Because the claims at issue here implicate the Seventh Amendment, a jury trial is required unless the “public rights” exception applies. Under this exception, Congress may assign the matter for decision to an agency without a jury, consistent with the Seventh Amendment.”
That a “public rights” exemption exists, is problematic in and of itself, and appears to be a creation of judges.
That “administrative law judges” exist, and have the ability to set out penalties, while working for the same agency that is bringing the action is an abomination, and should have been killed long ago.
I’m having a hard time finding a down side to this ruling.