New York Becomes 6th State to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage; California Next?

Albany, New York.  Last night, in a 33-29 vote, the New York Senate passed a same sex marriage bill expected to be signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo.  When this bill is signed by the governor, who lobbied for its passage, New York becomes the sixth state to legalize gay marriage.

A similar bill was defeated in New York in 2009.  The governor's persistent lobbying; some key Republican donors; an essentially absent Catholic Church; and voting senators that had gay family members, all factored into passage of the bill late Friday night.

Meanwhile, on the left coast, the seminal case from California continues its epic journey to the SCOTUS.  Perry vs Brown (formerly known as Perry vs Schwarzenegger) involves California's passage of Proposition 8 which banned gay marriage after it previously passed muster with California voters.  A conservative group sued in federal court; the ban was struck down, and the federal trial court's decision is now on appeal before the Ninth Circuit.

Judge Vaughn Walker, the now-retired federal court judge that initially struck down Proposition 8, publicly came out as a gay man only after his recent retirement.  His ruling was immediately challenged based on grounds of bias, becoming the first judge in history to be challenged for recusal on the basis of sexual orientation.  The chief judge of the federal bench in San Francisco upheld Judge Walker's ruling.

Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the District of Colombia are jurisdictions that all have previously legalized same sex marriage.

This has become the civil rights issue of our time.

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SCOTUS Orders the Release of More than 45k California Felons

Photo Credit: LA Times

In a hotly contested 5-4 plurality decision that will surely go down as one of the more controversial cases of this decade, SCOTUS affirmed the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in ordering the release of more than 45,000 California felons.  The decision will precipitate the largest release of prisoners in American history.

Brown v Plata began it's marathon crawl through the federal court system in 1990, when a case was filed challenging the poor status of mental health treatment in the California prisons.  Then in 2001, a companion case challenging the medical care of prisoners was initiated.

These consolidated cases have everything, from a procedural standpoint.  For example, a "special master" first was appointed by the federal court to make findings about the prison conditions.  The State of California stipulated to violations of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and agreed to remedy the problem by reducing overcrowding in the prisons.  Next, when remedial measures fell short, or did not occur, the court appointed a receiver to oversee the California Department of Corrections.

The cases were even assigned to a special three-judge panel to oversee the CDC's progress; or lack thereof.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority's opinion, finding that prison conditions had gone too far for too long.  The opinion provides a few slices of life in the CDC like sharing a toilet with 55 of your good buddies, or doing your entire four-year bit in a sweaty gymnasium. 

The always-conservative Justice Antonin Scalia opined that the majority's decision was "absurd", noting that SCOTUS routinely overruled 9th Circuit decisions that called for the release of individual prisoners.  Justice Scalia sees grave problems that will come home to roost from the Plata ruling.

In a separate dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the majority's decision conflicts with a federal law which prohibits judges from releasing prisoners.

The one thing SCOTUS gave the State of California was time.  California has busied itself with transferring thousands of state prisoners to county jails across the state.  This will not amelioriate the entire problem, however, and some of California's "happy-go-lucky" [Scalia's characterization] felons will wind up on the streets.

This High Court decision brings into focus the inherent tension between our individual freedoms and enforcement of the laws.  There is a constant tension between the two concepts.  Sometimes, that tension cycles to the breaking point like in California, where too many law breakers are stuffed into concrete boxes that are ready to explode.

In Michigan, although we are far behind California in maxing-out our prison capacity, we have an awful lot of population encased in concrete and barbed wire.  In fact, we have the opposite problem.  Due to budget cuts, we have at least one brand new facility, in Lake County, sitting empty due to lack of funding.

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Lake County to Absorb 2500 California Felons

In 1998, the Michigan Department of Corrections opened the Michigan Youth Correctional Facility in Baldwin, Michigan; right smack in the middle of the Manistee National Forest in Lake County.  The facility, known as the “punk prison”, closed in 2005 and was subsequently sold to GEO Group, Inc., a Texas-based conglomerate.

Lake County has suffered unemployment as high as 20% as a direct result of mothballing the youth facility.  The situation is about to change, however, due to California’s chronic prison overcrowding.

This blog has been tracking the landmark prison overcrowding case recently argued before the SCOTUS.  In a proactive effort to alleviate the situation, California recently contracted with the GEO Group to house more than 2500 inmates in the newly-renovated facility.  

California’s contract with GEO is worth a reported 60-million per year to the private detention management services company.  The contract begins in 2011 and runs through 2014.  Given California’s fiscal woes, you have to wonder how they can afford it.

Nevertheless, Lake County Michigan is ready to absorb the collateral benefits associated with accepting thousands of Californian felons, expecting to add as many as 500 jobs to the local economy.

This development hammers home the idea that in our democratic society, the constant tension between law and freedom results in a massive resource allocation for prisons, jails and law enforcement apparatus.

So when you are driving Up North this summer along M-37, just remember not to pick-up any hitchhikers.

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Progressive Marijuana Initiatives Lose Ground

California's Proposition 19 lost by a vote of 56% to 44%.  If successful, the proposed law would have been the first in the country to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

In Arizona, the medical marijuana proposition was too close to call as of Thursday, with the nays leading by less than one half of one percentage point.  That contest will most likely be called sometime today; looks like Arizonans will reject medicinal marijuana after all.

In California, the pot initiative lost because too few voters under age 26 turned out and moderate voters rejected the initiative.  Recent violence with Mexican drug gangs in both California and Arizona did not help either initiative.

Mixed messages float around the issue here in Michigan.  Recently, a huge pot-expo scheduled for the Pontiac Silverdome, billed as the largest pot-party in the world, was canceled at the last minute.

All this raises the questions: do we really need to legalize pot?  Is ours a pot-smoking nation?  Does marijuana have genuine palliative properties?

One of the major problems of perception with medical marijuana laws is that folks are simply going through the administrative steps to get "medically" certified to use pot, but are smoking on a recreational basis.

No good comes of a law that sets requirements that are perceived as a farce.  It would perhaps be better to legalize marijuana outright, then regulate its production, sale, and distribution.

California was really looking forward to billions in pot-derived state revenue.  Here in Michigan, there is confusion about who can legally grow pot and how it should be grown and distributed to "patients".  In Arizona, the question is too close to call 3-days after the mid-term elections.

Yeah, right.  Good luck with all that...

UPDATE:  A month after the election, it seems the "mainstream" media outlets are adopting the position asserted in the above blog post; medical marijuana certificates are being acquired to insulate recreational users from criminal charges rather than for legitimate palliative purposes.  Here's an article on this point from Nolan Finley in the Detroit News.


UPDATE on the UPDATE: Here's a great article from the Traverse City Record Eagle on this subject which details the case that most likely will go to the Michigan Supreme Court to test the viability and scope of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act.

MORE UPDATES:  Now, the feds, via the DEA, have subpoenaed the Michigan Department of Community Health (the state agency in charge of administering the MMA) for all records relating to seven individuals under investigation by the DEA.  Read more here.

EVEN MORE UPDATES:  Now, Holland is getting in on the act, asserting it's attempt to "regulate" the MMA.  Here's the link.

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