WHY DOES THE COURT GO DARK?
WHAT DOESN’T THE COURT WANT US TO KNOW?
Some say that silence is golden. Is that true in the case of SCOTUS? Should it ever be? When a case of significance is filed in the Court isn’t it strange when the Court goes dark? Why is the Court able to act without explanation? Because we allow it.
In a recent case, State of Utah v. United States of America, the Court ended the case by saying nothing. Well, almost nothing. The Court said:
“… UTAH V. UNITED STATES
The motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied.”
What does that even mean? What is a Bill Of Complaint?
Here is a portion of the Bill of Complaint, the original document filed with SCOTUS asking the Court to hear a case, meaning it is one of Original Jurisdiction filed directly with the Court. Here is this section in its entirety filed with SCOTUS in an attempt to convince it to accept the case because of its importance to Utah.
1. The United States currently owns about 69 percent of the land in the State of Utah—roughly 37.4 million of Utah’s 54.3 million acres. Nearly half of that federal land—roughly 18.5 million acres—is “unappropriated” land that the United States is simply holding, without formally reserving it for any designated purpose or usin it to execute any of its enumerated powers. Those 18.5 million acres are administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”), which earns significant revenue by leasing those lands to private parties for activities such as oil and gas production, grazing, and commercial filmmaking, and by selling timber and other valuable natural resources that the federal government retains for its own exploitation.
2. As a direct consequence of the United States’ indefinite retention of unappropriated public lands within its borders, Utah is deprived of basic and fundamental sovereign powers as to more than a third of its territory. It cannot tax the federal government’s land holdings. It cannot exercise eminent domain over them as needed for critical infrastructure like public roads and transportation and communications systems. It cannot even exercise legislative authority over the purposes for which they may be used. In short, throughout much of Utah it is the federal government, not Utah, that wields the general police power.
3, This state of affairs is no accident on the federal government’s part. It is the express policy of the United States to indefinitely retain its millions of acres of unappropriated land in Utah, regardless of whether it needs them for any enumerated purpose or how doing so impacts the interests of the State and its citizens. See 43 U.S.C. §1701(a)(1). Utah’s elected leaders have repeatedly urged the United States to relinquish ownership of its unappropriated lands, see, e.g., Utah Code §63L-6-103, but to no avail.
4. The time has come to bring an end to this patently unconstitutional state of affairs. Nothing in the Constitution authorizes the United States to hold vast unreserved swathes of Utah’s territory in perpetuity, over Utah’s express objection, without even so much as a pretense of using those lands in the service of any enumerated power. On the contrary, Article I carefully limits the United States’ power to hold land, granting the federal government exclusive control over only the District of Columbia and other federal “enclaves” purchased with state approval, and authorizing additional property ownership only to the extent necessary and proper for the exercise of an enumerated power. The Property Clause of Article IV likewise authorizes the federal government only to regulate and “dispose of” public lands—not to indefinitely retain lands within a State—as both the plain constitutional text and historical context make clear.
5. The United States’ perpetual retention of unappropriated lands in Utah, over the State’s express objection, thus exceeds its constitutional authority andisrupts the constitutionally prescribed balance of power between the federal government and the States. Making matters worse, it contravenes the foundational principle that all States enjoy equal sovereignty, as it improperly aggrandizes federal power at the expense of Utah’s sovereign authority over the land within its own borders, diminishing Utah’s sovereignty as compared to its sister States.
6. This egregious federal overreach cannot continue. To restore the balance that the Constitution requires, Utah seeks a judgment declaring that the federal policy embodied in 43 U.S.C. §1701(a)(1) of perpetual federal retention of unappropriated public lands in Utah is unconstitutional and ordering the United States to begin the process of complying with its constitutional obligation to dispose of those lands.
The case is obviously of extreme importance to the state of Utah and the other states and entities joining by filing “friend of the court” briefs because of this policy and how it affects their jurisdictions. Those parties included: the “Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties, U.S. Senators Mike Lee, Mitt Romney, and other Western Members of Congress, Pacific Legal Foundation, Utah Association of Counties, and others.
Under Article III of the United States Constitution the Court has the authority to hear “cases and controversies”, however, the judges have decided they must have a motion filed to hear a case and if they choose, they don’t have to hear it? Surprising news to you? Probably more than surprising to a lot of citizens who thought the job of the Court was to hear cases and make decisions. Now they know they are wrong.
No argument before the Court, no writing one or more opinions by the judges revealing how they voted on the case, their thinking on the issues, the Court says NO you are not entitled to have the case considered. Is there anything more tyrannical?
How is the Court allowed to turn down even the filing of a case of national importance involving the right of the federal government to hold a state’s land against its wishes in such a summary manner? As you have heard many times before in these postings, the answer is simple – because the Court can do whatever it wants and we are not allowed to question it. You can’t un-elect the judges.
Usually portions of the majority opinion and the dissenting opinions would be presented if there were any. In this case, however, there is nothing so you can guess for yourselves what might have been discussed by the justices in reaching this result.
Is this what we expect from our highest court, the one that claims its decisions are binding on us as the law of the land? Of course not. Neither did Utah.
So, is there anything you can do? Some say no because they are judges and we should not question their actions. A different position would be to realize that if we truly have a Republic, it is a government established for us to govern ourselves through its branches. One of the branches is SCOTUS and they can be affected. On the issue of the death penalty the Court has changed positions several times and stated it was because of public opinion regarding its imposition.
When calling or writing, refer to the case as Utah v. United States, with the assigned number, No. 160, Original.
If you call the clerk of the court to express your opinion, give the name of the case and the number and state your position. The number is 202-479-3000.
Or write a letter to each judge telling them because there were no opinions written you don’t know how they voted and express your thoughts on why there isn’t transparency with cases. All they can do is throw your letter away. At least you will have done something. Doing nothing never accomplishes anything.
The judges are Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Associate Justice Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The address for each judge is:
[Judges name, for example]
Chief Justice John Roberts
Supreme Court of the United States,
1 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20543
If everyone gets involved in this Republic in which we think we rule ourselves, maybe there will be some changes.
My new book “How The U.S. Supreme Court Has Made You Less Safe! A Distortion Of Constitutional Proportions” will soon be available. For further information go to donaldbrockettauthor.com
Don
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