Social Justice - A Conversation

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Good evening. My name is Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Boyd School of Law and the UNLV Honors College. My

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name is Kira Kramer. I'm a fourth year honors college student, a public health major and a pre law student. And this

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is social justice, a conversation, a conversation you

Unknown Speaker 0:43
Well, good evening everybody. Welcome back to episode two of social justice, a conversation year three. I'm here with my partner, Kiera Kramer,

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hello. It's so good to be joining you today,

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and we have, we have much to discuss. I guess we could start with the Supreme Court. Supreme usually means, above all others, paramount in power and in being respected. But unfortunately, that seems not to be the case. As we know, the court came up with the immunity decision to shield the ex president, seemingly from any kind of criminal culpability, but we did not know the the mechanics of how that decision was arrived at, and Jody Cantor was whose byline was on this article gets into the planning and the preparation and all the different ways in which the court was was molded into coming up With a decision that seemingly has no basis in law. One of the disturbing things about reading this article, and of course, this was worked out months in advance of its actual release, was the fact that when they talked to a number of legal scholars about just how this decision came down, or how it could have come down, because there was no precedent in law. A gentleman who was the former law clerk to Clarence Thomas, when he was asked about it, his reply was, the decision is not connected to the Constitution. So if that's the case, then why have a constitution? Why have a Bill of Rights? Why have any of these, you know, legal protections for our society, when basically you can make it up as you go and you can you can feed your own political prejudices and the will of the people, but more than the will of the people, the will of a society that supposedly presumes and aims to be just is circumvented.

Unknown Speaker 3:14
Yes, I agree. It's over the last decade, it's been really disturbing to see the corrosion. I feel like, what is the corrosion of the court, seeing how the court is only supposed to rule on issues of constitutional law, and when the court produces a decision that has absolutely no basis in the actual constitution, with no precedent set. It's really disturbing. And I think what I've heard from a couple other legal scholars like take the issue from Roe v Wade, for example, where it could be argued like it's an it's an issue that legal scholars are torn about, because there is no right to an abortion in the Constitution. However, there is constitutional context around what rights the government actually does provide and whether or not abortion falls under those rights. But at least there is still constitutional dialog occurring, even within that conversation of the case of Roe v Wade, but in this case, where we see that there is no constitutional connection, and that this decision was based on historians accounts of presidential immunity, not actually, not any document, not any section or or constitutional backing, that is really disturbing, because that is not any it's just not in the jurisdiction of for the constitution to be addressing or ruling on. And so I think that's indicative of a disintegration of our court. And I wrote a article with the undergraduate law review that was. Discussing the increased use of the emergency orders docket, which is commonly referred to as the shadow docket, and it essentially allows the Supreme Court to expedite its decisions. And there are no requirements for any page limit or how much of a description they have to give for their reasoning for a constitutional decision or Supreme Court decision. And since with the current since we've had the current court, the incidence of the use of the shadow docket has gone up exponentially with more decisions having very little, if any, explanation, written explanation, behind their documents and behind their decisions. And I think that is also genuinely terrifying, and it also makes it extremely difficult for any of the lower courts to really make decisions based off of those documents, and so it honestly perpetuates a cycle where we're not really getting a lot of work done. We are piling up cases because the Constitution is very vague, it creates a lot of systemic problems, and that means people's cases aren't being heard, and it causes that, like constitutional cases of utmost importance to be overlooked by the court. And that is an issue when this nation is growing and changing, and there's a lot that needs to be addressed by the court,

Unknown Speaker 6:32
right? Yeah, well, there actually, within the last year, there actually has come out a specific book called The Shadow docket, and it's all about all these cases that the Supreme Court has heard pretty much on their own, without actually witnesses or lawyers or anything else. One of the things that's very interesting to me that I think runs parallel to this decision is the moral decline of the court, that it used to be that there was an unwritten ethical code as to what cases could be sat upon by justices who might have had some inferential interest in the outcome. I think that's all evaporated. I think we've seen in certainly with Clarence Thomas, but, but not Clarence Thomas alone, but other justices. You know, the the publishing house case, where two of the Justice had actually, Justices, actually had their books published by this publishing house, and they sat on the case. I mean, how could you sit on the case? And then they claimed they didn't know. They didn't know that their publishing house was one of the defendants in the case. I mean, that's just not, no, yeah, you just can't and like, there's, there's a lack of credibility there. And what's also sad is the lack of leadership from the Chief Justice. That the chief justice should set some kind of example as to these matters and who can sit on cases, and he should take a leadership role in saying, listen, in these certain cases, you can't be involved in it because you have a conflict. But what's even worse, I think, is the immunity decision basically gave no guidelines, so any of the judges now they're going to have to hear these cases in the various district courts as to what is an official act, what isn't an official act? So the judge basically is flying blind. They don't know, not only as far as hearing the case, but even on what matters the case can even go into, although, although, I will say one thing, from a common sense point of view, as Ben Franklin used to say, it cannot be an official act of the President to ferment the overthrow of our government, the abrogation of our Constitution, the invalidation of our election, all of which are what the crimes are basically charged in this obstruction of in this obstruction of justice case. So how they would justify that? I cannot understand that. I

Unknown Speaker 9:29
think when I was in DC, I had the opportunity to work with some of the best and brightest students, excuse me, from around the country, and I was assigned to a group that was meant to develop bipartisan legislature for a Supreme Court reform, and many of the ideas that the students and I developed were based around having a body that ensures accountability upon an investigatory body that will act and provide some type of. Assurance, because what we do know is that the court will not hold themselves accountable, and every other lower court does have a standard of a code of ethics and is expected to adhere to that, yet the highest court in our nation does not. And what reasonable person would say that a body that has a code of ethics will be responsible for governing itself. I think that's just in terms of human nature that's unreasonable. We wouldn't put anyone in charge of themselves, especially like, look at the example of the FDA. Ideally, the FDA is that governing body that evaluates everyone else, all like the food industry and the pharmaceutical industry, they are the reason, the whole reason it exists, is to act as a as an investigatory and a governing body over these other agencies. So why do we expect the court is able to investigate themselves, to hold themselves accountable? It's just unreasonable. And while I don't think changing the innate structure of the court is going to be possible, I do think it is possible for the for Congress, to develop a system of or either a board or a office that allows for the investigation and upholding of accountability for the Supreme Court, and it is my understanding that Congress and the President are subjected to the same investigatory protocol, and so Why is the third branch of our government not subject to the same? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 11:44
Well, what's interesting, what's interesting too, of course, is how people get on the Supreme Court. And I have talked to people who were recruited by the Federal society and a Heritage Foundation to to be involved in their affairs and go to law school. And it's, it's, it's a long range plan. So what happens is, you go to law school, you get out of law school, and they find you a job somewhere in Washington, working for one of these firms. Then from doing that, you get a clerkship for one of the justices. It might it might not even be on the Supreme Court. It might be the federal district court, it might be the Court of Appeals, and you get that clerkship. Then from that clerkship, they nominate you to be a federal district judge. Then from that federal district judge appointment, then they nominate you to the Supreme Court. The problem is, the problem is presuming that you have an open mind, and you treat cases fairly. You're beholden to these people for all the things that they've done for you. So now you get into that position, and you know, you say, Well, I'm going to look at these cases very objectively. And then there's that little creature on your shoulder that says, Well, wait a minute. Now, wait a minute. You know, we put you through law school, we got you your job, we got you your clerkship, we got you your federal, Federal Judicial position. We put you on the Supreme Court. The bill is due, and you got to pay the bill. There was a great movie, I don't know. It's almost like a cult movie now. It's called the Brotherhood of the bell, and it really, it really goes into and not in the judicial sense, but in another sense, how people get consumed and bought out by all these forces, and then, you know, they do their thing, and they enjoy prosperity and everything. But then one day, somebody comes to them and says, Listen, you got to do X, Y and Z, which ordinarily would be repugnant to the person, but they can't back out of it. Clarence Thomas, I think, is a perfect example. You can't take all that stuff, the trips, the ruvs, all the stuff, and then you're going to sit on a case where you have people who, who you've been dealing with, almost like, in a business sense, like a business partner. And he said, No, I got to do the right thing. I got to the honest thing. And then they present the bill of all stuff that they done for you.

Unknown Speaker 14:38
And I think that's just a microcosm of the way that corporations, greed and money have slowly but surely infiltrated our system. And it's not just seen in the Supreme Court, but it's seen in every single branch of

Unknown Speaker 14:54
government. I agree. I absolutely agree. I think. I mean as a perfect example, we're. They're talking now about, you know, trying to pass the budget again. We have this, we have this play that goes on every so many months where the where the government has to be funded. And the obvious answer is that, you know, people have to work together, and, you know, pass a budget. But you have people there who are compromised, and they will vote no to be able to pass a bill that's supposed to keep the government funded in the same way, in the same way in the Congress. Because I believe the Congress is compromised. I believe that corporate America and other influences that are aligned with corporate America, they have these people under their control,

Unknown Speaker 15:48
right? And I think it just underscores this idea that this government was supposed to be made for the people by the people, and the system of our government was supposed to allow us as people to choose those that would represent us, and I think other interests have now stepped in and have lobbied for that position of representation, and we now see their interests being represented on a large scale, and ultimately, what I hope for this country through education and access to resources that and it has, and I hope that that goal may be achieved one day or slowly, by people that really care, that we will wake up and realize that this is our country. We are the people, and we the people need to say something. We need to act and stop this, because this is our country, and I don't think we can forget our power that we have as a collective despite how insurmountable the obstacles seem.

Unknown Speaker 17:03
Yeah, well, I think, I think one of the major impediments to getting anything done is the issue of money. That with the Citizens United case, basically anything goes. So if you're running for office, say the mayor of Las Vegas, you have to get that. How do you get it? You get it because people will be willing to give you money if you do certain, certain things for them. I mean, even in, even in the current presidential race, where, we have two dramatically opposite agendas, personalities, ethical standards, let's say the Democratic candidate. She has to get money, she has to compete on the television, on social media, on all these platforms, with with the ex president. How do you do that? Well, you do it apparently, because, between the two of them, over the next 48 days, what have you between the two of them, they're going to spend between 500,000,750 500,000,700 and $50 million so you could be the most honest person in the world and say, I'm going to do X, Y and Z, but your pouch would be empty because people, the people who give you that don't want to, don't want to give it to you without the strings attached. So then people get into office, and you know, they campaigned hopefully on a progressive agenda, but there's a gap between that agenda that you want to put across and help people vis a vis the people who give you the money. Because, unfortunately, in our country, corporate America is not for that agenda. Their agenda is a mercenary one. It's how much you can do for me, how many tax breaks you can get for me, how many benefits you can get to my particular industry. So you go in there and you say, Well, you know, we're going to make a change. We're going to do all these different things. But then when you get in there, even though your intention might be good, you're going to have a shortage of people, even in your own party, who are going to go with that and say, yeah, yeah, you know, you're right. You got elected. It was good. You defeated him. But, you know, we have a few problems here. There's, you know, they funded most of our, you know, congressional campaigns, etc, etc. So, so it's, it's like a deal with what I call them, the horns. One the horns, one that. What are you going to do with that? You see, that's the. Problem. And now the answer to it, of course, is you have publicly financed elections. You have you have, you have a pot of gold that everybody's got to grab their claw into it, and you get whatever million dollars, whatever it is. But the problem is that the arguments and on media and all the rest of that stuff should be, it should be in debate form, in people critiquing one another on the stage and doing all the rest of those things, town halls with both candidates and doing all these things. But now you see that that's not possible. It's not possible, and unfortunately, as you said so astutely, this has gone beyond just the Supreme Court or even the president. If you look at the Congress, for example, the Congress, the Congress is compromised. But even, let's say, even if the Congress wasn't compromised, and we have this whole thing now with the IVF bill that they're trying to pass in the Congress and the Senate, you need 60 votes. You need 60 people to agree to even vote on one of these matters, which is insane. This is a democracy, and so we have 100 senators. Everything should be voted upon. There shouldn't be any limitation 60 votes. You need 60 votes. You need 70 votes. You vote on every you vote on everything that comes before you. That's why, in addition to the to the obstinance in the House of Representatives, we have, we passed very few laws. You know, how many laws did we pass? Less last term, 20 lost, 30 laws and that. I mean, how could that be?

Unknown Speaker 21:41
I think it's this like, because proponents of the current system will argue that it's quality assurance. You don't want just any laws being passed, and what if the repercussions are dangerous. And like, we realize after we pass a law that it, quote, unquote, causes more harm than good. But like you said, I think that to even put a law before Congress and to have a vote, to even put one before Congress, entirely defeats the conversation of actually fleshing out what needs to be done and how to effectively enact something for the people. How can that compromise and those conversations happen when it's not even able to be put on the table. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 22:24
of course. Well, sure. I mean, one of the great examples was the immigration bill that was proposed. Immigration bill was proposed, they had a bipartisan group of people, they had some Democrats, they had some Republicans. It had its strict points, and then had also points that were lenient. And it was, it was going to be, it was agreed upon the Senate that would be passed and be signed by the President, but the House of Representatives was told to kill the bill, kill the bill. Why? Because it was an issue that they've been promoting now in the presidential race, and we see now all the harm of that. Because if that Bill had been done and that agenda had been passed, we would have seen some, some actionable, you know, activities having to do with with, you know, regulation of immigration. So what we're down to now is people putting all these tropes on the computer, computer and social media and television about, you know, the Haitian people that are in Springfield, Ohio, that they're eating dogs, they're eating cats, all the rest of this crazy stuff. And it's legitimatized. And what's crazy about it too, is that the governor of the state has to have state police protecting the schools. That

Unknown Speaker 23:51
is the real harm in this entire situation. It's the fact that one man's words can, in fact, like infiltrate the daily lives and livelihood and safety of children of the people of our nation. And I think that that's outrageous, and for every mother who has to worry about her child being safe in those schools because they're an immigrant family that pay taxes and contribute to the economy and to the success of our nation, just like everyone else does. It's horrific. And not only that, I feel that the trope that Trump presents is this. It's like it's this othering idea, that it's always someone else that is causing the problem. It's always like we have to hate someone, hate Taylor Swift, we hate these people, or we hate that, like those people, and they're the reasons for our problems. Why? Why? Do we have to hate people in order to prove a point? I think that is the most terrifying reality that we are looking at today. I don't think any like our Constitution, in and of itself, was one of the greatest compromises of our nation's history. It is bright minds getting together to create one of the most foundational and profound documents ever created, and they did that not through hatred, but through the objective of serving this country in the best way possible together. And that is how our nation was formed, and that is the direction that this nation needs to go in. And I simply feel that his hatred for the other undermines our nation greatly.

Unknown Speaker 25:49
Well, I think, I think also too, though, and, and I've said this, and you've heard me say it, one of our national illnesses is indifference. Though we have a lot of indifference in this country, there was a very good article in The Atlantic magazine by this man who was one of the writers about so many people in the Republican Party who knew that all this was a lie. They knew it was bogus, the whole deal, but they went along with it. And that indifference, that indifference vis a vis him has, has has metastasized in social issues. It's metastasized not only in the immigration thing. It's metastasized in voting rights, where we try to deny people of color the right to vote and and akin also with IVF and abortion with women's rights. So you have all these cases now coming to coming to knowledge of women who died because they were unable to get abortion services, and all the rest of it. And I think that's a segue into the Puffy Combs case, because I see a line there. I see a line from from from Jeffrey Epstein to Harvey Weinstein to Puffy Combs. And that line is the indifference of people in those social settings who just didn't do what they should have done. That these things were going on for decades, and these women were victimized and harmed and everything in Hollywood and all these different places, and everything was okay. And then now we're in 2024 and this man's been accused of committing this crime for 16 years, and you have people who were considered pluralism of our society. Say the ex president, Bill Gates, all these people, they're traveling on a plane with Jeffrey Epstein. Harvey Weinstein was basically running Hollywood, but nobody knew anything about what he was doing. Come on. You have to have some there has to be some accountability somewhere. I agree. You know, I think it's really to say deplorable is an understatement, is an understatement, but as but ultimately, though, the choice is ours. We have. We have the choice, the opportunity, the privilege of voting. Yes we do, and that's what we have to do. We can't complain and say, you know, this didn't work out. That's where it's on us. Yes, it's on us. That's that's the main thing you know. And

Unknown Speaker 28:24
to end this podcast, I want to say a short message and plea even to all of our listeners to please register to vote. Do not listen to anyone that says your voice does not matter, because it does, and voting is one of the most special privileges we are afforded in this country. And so I hope that today or in the next week, you will take the time to register to vote. I

Unknown Speaker 28:49
agree wholeheartedly. And so we've come, unfortunately, to the end of another broadcast. We could we, as I've said to my colleague here, we could probably do this show every day, but we do the best we can in the time that we have. We appreciate you for listening to it. We hope to see you next week, and all I can say is good evening and God bless.

Unknown Speaker 29:11
Have a great end of your week, and we look forward to hearing from you again. Good night. You.

Unknown Speaker 29:23
I thank you for listening to this broadcast, and if you have any questions or ideas for future discussion topics, please contact myself at K, R, A, M, E, k two@unlv.nevada.edu or Professor Charles Stanton at C, H, A R, L, E, S, dot, S, T, A N, T, O n@unlv.edu, see you next time we

Unknown Speaker 29:53
look forward to it. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai