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Comment by djsumdog | Hacker News Reader

I wish there had been less focus on the alleged sexual assault and more focus on the fact that Kavanaugh doesn't understand the constitution (or just ignores it) and supported the Bush administration in defending torture.

Keep in mind statements like this are very double edged. Hosting providers are already denying the ability for people to even host platforms. Platforms are de-platforming people (and not all of them are hate groups. Just check out Carey Wedler's ban from Twitter). It's not a huge stretch to then say, ISPs should be allowed to regulate what content flows through their servers.

I can't seem to find it, but isn't there another case coming up to the Supreme Court soon over just this issue? You can't deny service to someone due to their race. I really feel like we're getting to the point where that really needs to apply to speech.

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There was significant criticism of him professionally before the multiple allegations of rape were made.

It didn't matter.

Then the multiple allegations of rape were made.

And it still didn't matter.

So let's not kid ourselves that there was ever any chance of stopping his confirmation.

He's the political version of a made man.

Allegations shouldn't ruin peoples careers. A conviction should be the bare minimum and even then depending on the crime.

Even a criminal charge would have helped such an argument but even that wasn't the case here. If it wasn't for the politics of the situation I highly doubt so many people would be against such basic human right as due process.

It wouldn't have ruined his career, it just would've said "maybe we shouldn't give him a promotion to a lifelong job until we thoroughly investigate whether or not he's a rapist".

That's might sound like persuasive way to phrase it but it doesn't represent the reality of the situation fairly or provide adequate context.

Most importantly being a Supreme Court justice doesn't protect you from going to jail or from law enforcement from investigating your past behaviour... justices can be impeached.

On the inverse of your position we also shouldn't prevent the promotion of people to important roles (this goes well beyond SC justices), having followed every legal rule correctly up to that point, merely because of a last minute allegation. Let alone an allegation that wasn't even brought directly to the attention of law enforcement requesting investigation first but rather to a political opponent of the judge in question.

Even if the accusers sound persuasive it sets a very dangerous precedent that would make it easy to game the system and prevent any quality promotions merely based on unfounded allegations. This would almost certainly be open to abuse and hurt ALL political parties during future nominations, for any role, for decades to come.

Absent at a very minimum a law enforcement decision to bring charges, the hearings should continue and the matters should be investigated afterwards should they warrant it.

Which would inevitably lead to a continuous stream of unprovable, yet also undisapprovable, allegations against every subsequent candidate. We saw the beginnings of that in the clearly fabricated follow up accusations.

"Then the multiple allegations of rape were made. And it still didn't matter."

Do you think allegations should matter to the confirmation process?

If the allegations are substantiated well-enough, the DA of Maryland could still charge him, right?

The confirmation process does not seem like the right venue to seek justice for a crime like that.

Becoming a supreme court justice is one the highest privileges the US can bestow on any one citizen. There are (legal) limits to the factors that may or may not be considered in the Senate's deliberations. It's a fallacy to believe that the presumption of innocence, a principle of criminal law applies. This is rather easy to see, just by looking at history, and vast amount of facts that have been cited in votes against nominees, only a tiny fraction of which were ever the subject of a criminal trial.

It's also intuitively obvious by considering the often-cited reasoning the the presumption of innocence:

It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.

Because this doesn't hold for supreme court justices, where I think most would agree it's better for ten excellent judges to be passed over in lieu of the second-best alternative, than to have one criminal decide what's law and what isn't.

I'd argue that the standatd of proof required for "man should go to prison" should be higher than then for "man shouldn't be trusted with one of the most powerful judicial positions in the country"...

What should be the standard for the latter?

It doesn't require a standard of proof in the way that people don't work with a standard-of-proof 3-pronged test-of-likability for their spouses.

Among the myriad reasons: the nature of the crime matters. If they got caught with a bit too much LSD in 1975 it doesn't matter even if proven & admitted and convicted. If, however, there's just a whiff of corruption then that's Game Over, next please.

Hell, if they were arrested in bar fight just last year and spend a week in jail, that might even be a plus: first hand experience of the criminal justice system from "deep inside" could at least excuse a singular transgression (perhaps depending on what side of emacs-vs-vim they so drastically defended in that bar).

So it's more of a calculation, as in

    probability X recency X seriousness X relevancy for job 
    +/- all other factors.

...rather than any single standard of proof. And that's fine. That's how it has always been, and how it was originally envisioned.

> multiple allegations

Some of them have turned out to be lies:

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/go...

> I wish there had been less focus on the alleged sexual assault and more focus on the fact that Kavanaugh doesn't understand the constitution (or just ignores it) and supported the Bush administration in defending torture.

Since the sexual asssault allegations came at the tail of the process, had there been attention to the other things (EDIT: or the serial misrepresentation in regard to his role in the Bush Administration detainee policy, which ought to be disqualifying for the federal bench whether or not his actual role was problematic), the sexual assault issue may never have arisen.

> I wish there had been less focus on the alleged sexual assault

I thought there should have been more focus on his partisanship and lying. I believe the allegations, but they are just that, allegations. I rewatched Gorsuch's hearings, and you can really tell who belongs in the supreme court and who doesn't. Too bad over 90% of the votes were predetermined based on the candidates original political party, not their merit.

Which one of his decisions on the DC Circuit do you think shows he doesn't understand the Constitution?

> and more focus on the fact that Kavanaugh doesn't understand the constitution

no now according to constitution you don't understand constitution!

you know like, after they interpreted the constitution as giving them the sole power to interpret the constitution. or however that worked out.

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