There is nothing in there about the firearm having to cross state lines, so he was clearly in violation of the law by possessing it without authorization.
The federal government has no power to enact such a law, so the federal government used a virtually unlimited reading the commerce clause to claim that power.
Regardless, the SCOTUS has long since decided that the Commerce Clause is not limited to being Interstate in nature or commerce related.
That's what most do, but if law enforcement breaks through the money laundering scheme, the person would be charged with both tax evasion and money laundering.
The subsequent penalties might be higher than those for the originating crime.
And I fail to see how declaring illegal income prevents charges being filed.
It prevents you from being charged with tax evasion which can often bring more severe penalties than the original crime.
A high end call girl would be an example. If she is arrested and ledgers are found or she provides information as a condition of a guilty plea, she opens herself up to a tax evasion charge if she hasn't been declaring the illegal income.
What jurors? There'd have to be a trial for there to be jurors, and for a trial there'd have to be specific charges.
The specific charges would come from the information the IRS would gather when they asked you to provide specifics of the nature of your illegal income.
If you didn't answer to their satisfaction, they'd just charge with you tax evasion anyway and claim that you only reported a small portion of your illegal proceeds and that you must have laundered the rest.
Since you've already admitted that you participate in illegal activity, there isn't much of a defense.
So if the IRS cared enough to ask you to clarify the sources of your illegal income you'd have the choice of stonewalling them and being charged with tax evasion or revealing the source of your income which will be used by other agencies to indict you.
Not to mention the Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination.
Yeah, but the IRS forms have a blank for "Illegal Income" and that has somehow passed constitutional scrutiny. A conviction of the income producing crime is not required.
Criminalizing the failure to disclose criminal activity should be a clear violation of self incrimination protections. The courts let it through by insisting that the failure to incriminate yourself isn't the crime, failure to pay the taxes is. This ignores, of course, the fact that paying a tax on illegal income is by definition an admission of guilt.
This same sort of reasoning could somehow be applied to this law as well.
It would be interesting to see a lawsuit filed against Tampa for unconstitutionally disenfranchising citizens of the United States who are subject to its laws.
New York City has already tried to apply its gun control laws to Georgia gun dealers. The Georgia gun dealers were not shipping any guns to NYC.
The gun shops were not violating any federal or georgia laws, but NYC claimed that some of the guns originally bought from the shops were eventually making into the NYC area.
I hope not - the actions displayed in the videos are so repugnant to the general public that the SCOTUS would never over rule it. Yeah, I know it shouldn't matter but unfortunately it does.
That's why the ACLU is pretty selective when it comes to picking a test case to push to SCOTUS. Law enforcement does the same thing.
In the past, civil liberties groups have been able to create their own test case by getting an otherwise model citizen to engage in an "illegal" activity in full view of the police. This prevented irrelevant but decision affecting peripheral issues like prior records, drugs on the scene, child porn, etc to muddy the water too much.
Unfortunately, prosecutors have caught on and refused to take the bait. Instead, they pick the most repugnant situation possible to push so that the SCOTUS will view the defendant as such a bad person that even unconstitutional punishment is ok.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press....."
The problem is that the 1st Amendment only applies to the Federal government and not to state and local ones. For example, Massachusetts had an establishment of religion until 1833 - every man had to belong to a church and had to pay taxes to support it.
The Supreme Court has used the 14th Amendment to "incorporate" selected Bill of Rights protections to apply to the states as well.
It's certainly better than nothing, but it is perilous as it is a clear perversion of the the intent of the 14th amendment.
Since the court has used questionable and dubious reasons to incorporate these protections to the states, the foundations of these protections are not very strong and can be weakened, eliminated or interpreted so narrowly that they are meaningless.
There are also jurisdictional problems - a Californian should not be subject to the laws of a foreign state (Florida).
Let's say that a person in California mailed a letter bomb to someone in Florida. If anyone was killed, Florida would be able to try him for murder. He might even get Florida's death penalty even though the death penalty is unconstitutional in California.
To be clear, that action would most likely violate some California and federal laws as well, but that doesn't change the fact that sender from California would be subject to Florida laws and penalties.
I agree, however, that obscenity laws should not be applied in this way.
Can you be extradited for something that isnt even a crime in the state you're in?
Most definitely - especially felonies. Firearm violations is common example.
However, it does all depend on how much effort your local and state law enforcement want to put into finding you though. Some places may just wait for the accused to have interaction with law enforcement (traffic stop, unrelated arrest, etc) while some will actually make an effort to find you.
Many police forces have become militarized and see serving a warrant as a great reason to pretend that they are Delta Force and use their toys (e.g. the show Dallas SWAT).
Regardless, being the subject of an open warrant from a place that you will never visit still makes it very hard to do lots of things. Pretty much every time you interact or identify yourself to the government, you are at risk of a computer hit and getting hauled away in cuffs.
A person in NYC who doesn't own a car is probably pretty safe, but with license plate scanners a person in L.A. would have a much harder time.
Aha, yes they pass on the cost of taxes to buyers but those buyers will buy less thus lower the petroleum industry's revenue and thus their profits.
At the pump prices for gasoline have increased by huge amounts over the last decade or so in the United States, but oil companies have still posted record profit even with having pretty low profit margins.
The demand for gasoline is pretty price inelastic. Maybe europe could tax it to the point that people would give it up, but if the US did that, the country's economy would completely dry up.
Slashdot Mirror
There is nothing in there about the firearm having to cross state lines, so he was clearly in violation of the law by possessing it without authorization.
The federal government has no power to enact such a law, so the federal government used a virtually unlimited reading the commerce clause to claim that power.
Regardless, the SCOTUS has long since decided that the Commerce Clause is not limited to being Interstate in nature or commerce related.
The subsequent penalties might be higher than those for the originating crime.
And I fail to see how declaring illegal income prevents charges being filed.
It prevents you from being charged with tax evasion which can often bring more severe penalties than the original crime.
A high end call girl would be an example. If she is arrested and ledgers are found or she provides information as a condition of a guilty plea, she opens herself up to a tax evasion charge if she hasn't been declaring the illegal income.
What jurors? There'd have to be a trial for there to be jurors, and for a trial there'd have to be specific charges.
The specific charges would come from the information the IRS would gather when they asked you to provide specifics of the nature of your illegal income.
If you didn't answer to their satisfaction, they'd just charge with you tax evasion anyway and claim that you only reported a small portion of your illegal proceeds and that you must have laundered the rest.
Since you've already admitted that you participate in illegal activity, there isn't much of a defense.
So if the IRS cared enough to ask you to clarify the sources of your illegal income you'd have the choice of stonewalling them and being charged with tax evasion or revealing the source of your income which will be used by other agencies to indict you.
Not to mention the Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination.
Yeah, but the IRS forms have a blank for "Illegal Income" and that has somehow passed constitutional scrutiny. A conviction of the income producing crime is not required.
Criminalizing the failure to disclose criminal activity should be a clear violation of self incrimination protections. The courts let it through by insisting that the failure to incriminate yourself isn't the crime, failure to pay the taxes is. This ignores, of course, the fact that paying a tax on illegal income is by definition an admission of guilt.
This same sort of reasoning could somehow be applied to this law as well.
It would be interesting to see a lawsuit filed against Tampa for unconstitutionally disenfranchising citizens of the United States who are subject to its laws.
New York City has already tried to apply its gun control laws to Georgia gun dealers. The Georgia gun dealers were not shipping any guns to NYC.
The gun shops were not violating any federal or georgia laws, but NYC claimed that some of the guns originally bought from the shops were eventually making into the NYC area.
This specific case just happened to be about porn. The next case could easily be about firearms.
In fact NYC has already tried to apply its gun control laws to Georgia gun shops. The gun shops weren't shipping anything to NYC or NY state.
Yay. Time for this to be ruled by the scotus
I hope not - the actions displayed in the videos are so repugnant to the general public that the SCOTUS would never over rule it. Yeah, I know it shouldn't matter but unfortunately it does.
That's why the ACLU is pretty selective when it comes to picking a test case to push to SCOTUS. Law enforcement does the same thing.
In the past, civil liberties groups have been able to create their own test case by getting an otherwise model citizen to engage in an "illegal" activity in full view of the police. This prevented irrelevant but decision affecting peripheral issues like prior records, drugs on the scene, child porn, etc to muddy the water too much.
Unfortunately, prosecutors have caught on and refused to take the bait. Instead, they pick the most repugnant situation possible to push so that the SCOTUS will view the defendant as such a bad person that even unconstitutional punishment is ok.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press....."
The problem is that the 1st Amendment only applies to the Federal government and not to state and local ones. For example, Massachusetts had an establishment of religion until 1833 - every man had to belong to a church and had to pay taxes to support it.
The Supreme Court has used the 14th Amendment to "incorporate" selected Bill of Rights protections to apply to the states as well.
It's certainly better than nothing, but it is perilous as it is a clear perversion of the the intent of the 14th amendment.
Since the court has used questionable and dubious reasons to incorporate these protections to the states, the foundations of these protections are not very strong and can be weakened, eliminated or interpreted so narrowly that they are meaningless.
There are also jurisdictional problems - a Californian should not be subject to the laws of a foreign state (Florida).
Let's say that a person in California mailed a letter bomb to someone in Florida. If anyone was killed, Florida would be able to try him for murder. He might even get Florida's death penalty even though the death penalty is unconstitutional in California.
To be clear, that action would most likely violate some California and federal laws as well, but that doesn't change the fact that sender from California would be subject to Florida laws and penalties.
I agree, however, that obscenity laws should not be applied in this way.
Yeah, the founding fathers thought of that, but the 17th Amendment changed all that.
Can you be extradited for something that isnt even a crime in the state you're in?
Most definitely - especially felonies. Firearm violations is common example.
However, it does all depend on how much effort your local and state law enforcement want to put into finding you though. Some places may just wait for the accused to have interaction with law enforcement (traffic stop, unrelated arrest, etc) while some will actually make an effort to find you.
Many police forces have become militarized and see serving a warrant as a great reason to pretend that they are Delta Force and use their toys (e.g. the show Dallas SWAT).
Regardless, being the subject of an open warrant from a place that you will never visit still makes it very hard to do lots of things. Pretty much every time you interact or identify yourself to the government, you are at risk of a computer hit and getting hauled away in cuffs.
A person in NYC who doesn't own a car is probably pretty safe, but with license plate scanners a person in L.A. would have a much harder time.
Lawyer: "Your browser cached the picture. That constitutes downloading a copy.
Unfortunately, this part is already in effect. If law enforcement finds a child porn photo in your cache then you are charged with possession.
This is true even if the drive where the cache was stored was later formatted but not overwritten on the hardware level.
Even if site was stumbled upon by a typo, most defendants would be advised by their attorney to take a plea rather than letting it go to trial.
Aha, yes they pass on the cost of taxes to buyers but those buyers will buy less thus lower the petroleum industry's revenue and thus their profits.
At the pump prices for gasoline have increased by huge amounts over the last decade or so in the United States, but oil companies have still posted record profit even with having pretty low profit margins.
The demand for gasoline is pretty price inelastic. Maybe europe could tax it to the point that people would give it up, but if the US did that, the country's economy would completely dry up.