On Thursday, the Court handed down a 6-3 decision, on a party-line vote, that could render a simply astonishing array of federal laws unenforceable. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes in dissent, “the constitutionality of hundreds of statutes may now be in peril, and dozens of agencies could be stripped of their power to enforce laws enacted by Congress.”
The dispute in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy turns on whether a hedge fund manager accused of defrauding investors is entitled to a jury trial to determine whether he violated federal securities law, or whether the government acted properly when it tried him before an official known as an “administrative law judge” (ALJ).
The charges against this hedge fund manager, George Jarkesy, are civil and not criminal, which matters because the Constitution treats civil trials very differently from criminal proceedings. While the Sixth Amendment provides that “in all criminal prosecutions” the defendant is entitled to a jury trial, the Seventh Amendment provides a more limited jury trial right, requiring them “in suits at common law” (more on what that means later).
SEC v. Jarkesy could render much of the federal government unable to function.
Congress, moreover, has enacted a wide range of laws on the presumption that many enforcement proceedings may be brought before administrative law judges and not juries. According to one somewhat dated review of federal law cited by Sotomayor, “by 1986, there were over 200” federal statutes calling for trials before ALJs.
Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion in Jarkesy leans heavily into the kind of remedy available to the SEC if it prevails in a suit before an ALJ. Like a suit before a common law court, the SEC sought monetary damages from Jarkesy, and thus this case resembles a suit at common law in that way. As Roberts writes, “money damages are the prototypical common law remedy.”
Puts a whole new twist on glowing, healthy complexion! Super scary. I think the super scanners at the airport distinguish the jabbed from unjabbed for their nefarious reasons via the glow!
The Supreme Court just lit a match and tossed it into dozens of federal agencies
https://www.vox.com/scotus/357554/supreme-court-sec-jarkesy-roberts-sotomayor-chaos
On Thursday, the Court handed down a 6-3 decision, on a party-line vote, that could render a simply astonishing array of federal laws unenforceable. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes in dissent, “the constitutionality of hundreds of statutes may now be in peril, and dozens of agencies could be stripped of their power to enforce laws enacted by Congress.”
The dispute in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy turns on whether a hedge fund manager accused of defrauding investors is entitled to a jury trial to determine whether he violated federal securities law, or whether the government acted properly when it tried him before an official known as an “administrative law judge” (ALJ).
The charges against this hedge fund manager, George Jarkesy, are civil and not criminal, which matters because the Constitution treats civil trials very differently from criminal proceedings. While the Sixth Amendment provides that “in all criminal prosecutions” the defendant is entitled to a jury trial, the Seventh Amendment provides a more limited jury trial right, requiring them “in suits at common law” (more on what that means later).
SEC v. Jarkesy could render much of the federal government unable to function.
Congress, moreover, has enacted a wide range of laws on the presumption that many enforcement proceedings may be brought before administrative law judges and not juries. According to one somewhat dated review of federal law cited by Sotomayor, “by 1986, there were over 200” federal statutes calling for trials before ALJs.
Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion in Jarkesy leans heavily into the kind of remedy available to the SEC if it prevails in a suit before an ALJ. Like a suit before a common law court, the SEC sought monetary damages from Jarkesy, and thus this case resembles a suit at common law in that way. As Roberts writes, “money damages are the prototypical common law remedy.”
Puts a whole new twist on glowing, healthy complexion! Super scary. I think the super scanners at the airport distinguish the jabbed from unjabbed for their nefarious reasons via the glow!
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