ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
ScrewyWabbit wrote:
A court decision only carries as much sway as people are willing to abide by it, or as much as the court or the government has the power and willingness to enforce it. Either way, enforcement or willingness to go along with it will ultimately change the 'facts on the ground' so long as one of those two things happen. If a court says a statue must be removed from a state capital, and its ultimately not removed for whatever reason, then the court's ruling ultimately becomes pretty moot, but if the state gov. goes along with it and removes the statue, or federal law enforcement officers or troops are brought in to enforce its removal, then practically the ruling is in effect despite the pre-existing 'facts on the ground'. Another example, look at the desegregation of the University of Alabama - the court ruled segregation unconstitutional in Brown vs. Board of Education, but the 'facts on the ground' at the University of Alabama at that time were such that the school was, indeed, segregated. But the federal government was willing to enforce the ruling via the National Guard,and the University soon ceased to be segregated, thus changing the facts on the ground.
Okay - so what happens if the state says to the SC, we don't agree with your ruling so we are going to keep the statue - would that open the state up to all kinds of third party lawsuits?
I'm not a lawyer, but I would think that, most likely, yes. All courts except the SC are bound by SC precedent so any lower court where such a suit were brought would basically be obligated to apply the precedent from the SC case and rule in favor of the plaintiff, and grant them relief, either in the form of removal of the statue, or, perhaps, money if the plaintiff somehow sought and could demonstrate monetary damages. Of course if the state managed to not remove the statue after the SC told them to, not sure how a lower court telling them to would turn out any differently.
12 Jul 2015, 8:11 am
