American Atheists Legal Philosophy | American Atheists

 

 

American Atheists Legal Philosophy | American Atheists: There are methods of appeal from the ruling of judges to higher courts. Each state has its own appellant system; the courts of the United States have another, both ending at the United States Supreme Court. One does not, despite their bravado, “take the case all the way to the Supreme Court.” No one “takes” a case to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). One petitions SCOTUS to hear a case, and the odds are several thousand to one against a given case being granted review. If the high court does take a care, and makes a ruling, whether the case comes up through the federal or state system, the holdings of the court make legal rulings that become “precedents” that are binding in every court of the United States. A ruling of SCOTUS may not be correct, but it is final.

The scope of a given court ruling depends on the “jurisdiction” of the court, or the area over which that court has power. A city court ruling might only affect the city in which it is made, and a state court holding, or a federal opinion, affects only the area served by that court. The appeal courts have a wider net. The Supreme Court of a state can make precedents that bind all courts of that state. A federal court usually covers a specific geographical portion of a state. A United States Court of Appeal covers several states. If, by way of example, a bad decision is made in a federal court in Louisville, Kentucky, it only has binding application in about half of the state of Kentucky. If that horribly bad holding is appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers all of the states of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, and that bad ruling should be affirmed, the party taking the appeal has thereby managed to expand a horror story from their own back yard into bad law for four states. If SCOTUS should take the case, and affirm the bad ruling, then a major legal disaster has occurred that affects the way the law will be decided in the future throughout the entire United States and in every court therein. If one has any concern for the future of our freedoms, one should proceed with caution. This is not a suitable sport for amateurs.

Bad facts make bad law. It should be considered an act of legal negligence for one to take a case to a higher court where it is completely predestined that the court will rule against a meritorious cause, and thereby make bad law not only in that case, in that region of the country, but, depending on which appellate court is chosen, make bad law for a much wider area, where the bad ruling will be the law until the case in question is ultimately, if ever, overruled. By building on bad precedents, in time the very concept of separation of religion and government could be destroyed. The religious right understands this. We would be well advised to understand it as well.