Plessy vs Ferguson and Judge Harlan's Dissent

In the Plessy vs Ferguson case of 1896 the large majority of Justices voted in favor of "separate but equal". In fact only one Justice, Harlan, voted against it. So why did he still vote against it when he knew he would for sure lose, because Harlan made a valid, strong argument to push for equality. For those willing to listen he provided a substantial argument in an attempt to protect the freedoms of african-americans. His argument had some really strong points as he cited and gave his own interpretation of the 14th amendment. He also discussed how our judicial system did not need to fail the african-american people again after it already had with the Dred Scott Decision.

At the time I'm sure more white people probably trusted the system than african-americans, so there was not likely to be a large objection from the general population. This is especially the case because of how over whelming the votes from the Justices was. Today, it seems people are much more worldly and cultured than they were at the time. Even though it was a large majority decision, I don't believe the majority of America would have stood for it.

I'm sure at the time this would have been hard to see, but I believe this slimmer of hope for equality from Justice Harlan is spark for our judicial system to head in the right direction. Our system definitely still had a long way to go but it is the opinions of people with a voice like Justice Harlan that can make a change.
 

Scott vs Sanford

For my first moot court I represented John Sanford who was arguing to keep the rights to his property in his slave Dred Scott who was fighting for his freedom. Scott's team went first and cited many strong points. First off they cited a case from history where it was proven that once you are free, you are always free. They also pointed out that according to the Missouri compromise, Scott was being held in a territory was slavery was not legal. Finally that Dred Scott was never made aware of his rights while being held in this free territory. My team was up to speak, we really only needed to make two very simple points. First, the Missouri compromise was later deemed unconstitutional and therefore his right to freedom in those specific territories was not actually true. Secondly, and most importantly, according to the US government any man with full african descent was not a citizen of the United States. If you are not a citizen of the United States you can not sue for your freedom. Unfortunately, this would turn out to be case closed for Dred Scott and the supreme court did not grant him his freedom. So on March 6th 1857 was denied his freedom. This would affirm the right of slave owners to take their slaves into western territories without any consequence. According to the courts Dred Scott was property of his owner and could not be taken from his position as property without due process of law. This would go down as one of the most controversial and embarrassing cases our judicial system has ever faced. 

State vs Mann

In class the first two moot court groups argued the State vs Mann case, where a slave trying to flee her master was shot in the back and severely injured. The two sides made very strong cases as State was up first. State's opening argument was that slavery as a whole was unconstitutional and that Mann was not only a murder but did not have the right treat his property in the way that he did. Unfortunately for them, slavery is not directly denounced by the constitution, the slave did not die, and according to the law of property Mann can pretty much do what he wants to his own personal property. Mann's argument was simple in that they said common slavery was legal in North Carolina and that a runaway slave was to be returned by any means necessary. Unfortunately according to the laws at the time Mann had done nothing wrong and was not forced to pay a fine.
 

FBI vs Apple

The Federal Bureau of Investigations has filed a court order to Apple Inc to have a code written to unlock an iPhone so they can have full and complete access to it. It should be said that this isn't just some random iPhone, this one in particular belonged to the San Bernadino attacker Syed Rizwan Farook. This is all part of their, rightfully, thorough investigation of the terrorist attack. Apple is in return filed for a motion to dismiss this court order claiming among other things that this is a violation of the first amendment. Apple's legal council, in short, stated that if their client writes this code it could put hundreds of millions of phones at risk of being accessed or monitored remotely. This is an interesting topic for me, as I come from a family of law enforcement and fully understand how important it is to be as thorough as in these types of situations. However, writing this code is tampering with a power that has yet to be tapped into yet. If this code were to leak or if the government decided to take liberty with it, the results could be catastrophic. Like in many of my other blogs, the question is where do we draw the line?

How much access is too much access? In this CNBC article, the author clearly believes Apple has a strong case. Their argument has won in cases like this before but, it seems especially in recent history that "national security" trumps everything else.