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withinboredom

> the law automatically can be invalidated by a court.

There are three parts to the law:

1. The legislature must draft the law

2. The executives must enforce the law.

3. The judicial must punish for breaking the law.

If (2) never happens, then it never gets to (3). And courts can "invalidate" a law: jury nullification.

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Hahaha... oh man!

If you want to get kicked right off a jury start talking about nullification. Waiting in my jury pool to be called/dismissed one of the prospective jurors started handing out FIJA (Fully Informed Jury Amendment) flyers to anyone who was interested before we went into the courtroom.

http://www.ibiblio.org/fija/fijaintr.htm

The bailiff called him forcibly into the judges quarters and everyone he had spoken to was sent home.

SCOTUS ought to invalidate the DEA and drug scheduling considering they’re overturning other perceived federal overreaches.

Did the DEA create the schedules? Or did the Congress? I thought it was a latter.

Congress created them originally, but they gave DEA very wide authority to change them.

(This is also why federal drug legalization could, in theory, be achieved through executive order, if Dems had the spine for that.)

Thanks didn’t know it was actually congress. Makes more sense to me now. But does congress even have authority to regulate that? Does it fall under unenumerated rights that fall to the people? I guess I remember hearing they regulate it under interstate commerce?

Yes, it's the expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause. This is the Supreme Court case that fully fleshed out that doctrine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

Basically, if they can somehow connect it to interstate commerce - even if it very indirect, like in this case where growing something for personal consumption affected demand - it's "constitutional", supposedly.

This is the case that explicitly extended this reasoning to drugs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich

Republicans are in favor of the DEA and drug scheduling though.

That’s no longer true - Republicans are split down the middle on legal pot.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/356939/support-legal-marijuana-...

> courts can "invalidate" a law: jury nullification

This doesn’t invalidate the law. It decides one case in a particular way. An invalidated law is unenforceable for everyone.

If someone were willing to fund a campaign telling people why they should nullify a certain law, and the people agreed, eventually they’ll just stop prosecuting it because it won’t stick.

Technically, there’s nothing illegal about a judge telling the jury about nullification either.

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