Chapter 3: The Case of Barr v. Goldberg
The answer to the question of whether the cases from New Jersey, Michigan, Oregon are precedent depends on whether the trial judge is sitting in a federal court in Nevada or a Nevada State court. If it is a federal court, then the Oregon case would most likely be precedent whereas the Michigan and New Jersey cases would be persuasive. The reason for this is that the court system at the federal level is in essences, the same court divided into 13 circuits or regions that span the whole country. In other words, all federal courts apply federal law, which is the same throughout the country. However, because they are divided into separate districts, sometimes they arrive at different interpretations of federal law. The federal courts in Nevada and Oregon are both in the Ninth Circuit. Accordingly, a prior ruling in Oregon would be precedent for the Nevada court if the Ninth Circuit’s Appellate Court found the Oregon ruling to be correct. The federal courts in Michigan and New Jersey are from different circuits. However, because both are still federal courts, the Nevada could use their rulings as persuasive reasoning in coming to a decision about the case.
Conversely, if the trial court was a Nevada State court, then the rulings in Oregon, Michigan, and New Jersey are not precedent and could only be used for persuasive reasoning in the Nevada court’s decision. The reason that they are not precedent is because they do not come from the same court system as Nevada. In essence, they would be considered foreign law in Nevada courts. Nevertheless, because they are also legal opinions, if there are enough similarities between the laws of the states or the facts of the specific case, then the Nevada judge could reasonably use them to form a persuasive argument of why Nevada law should follow their lead.
Chapter 4: The Supreme Court and the issue of indefinite detention
If the U.S. Supreme Court found that “indefinite detention” was illegal, or more specifically, unconstitutional, there would not be much that Congress, the president, or the people could do short of bringing more “indefinite detention” cases before the Court and convince it that its prior finding of unconstitutionality was mistaken. This, however, takes time and based on the Court principle of stare decisis, or a reliance on the decisions of past cases; it may nevertheless prove extremely difficult. Another alternative to a Court decision would be to amend the Constitution so that it would allow for indefinite detentions. To amend the Constitution, however, is also no easy task.
In order for an amendment to be successful, it first must be introduced in Congress. An introduction can come from Congress itself or from the states. Once it is introduced, the next step is to secure agreement for the amendment from two-thirds of the members of the House and Senate, which is approximately 350 members voting for the amendment. If the amendment finds the requisite support in Congress, the third, and final step is send the amendment for approval by the legislatures of each state. If three-fourths of the states’ legislatures, or about 37 states, approve of the amendment, or ratify it, then the amendment will take force and the Constitution will be amended to allow for indefinite detention.
