WJI's Daily Reads for May 24, 2022

Wisconsin Examiner: In Wisconsin, same-sex marriage is not immediately in danger if Roe falls, but there still are concerns.

​In Wisconsin, the end of Roe means that a law still on the books from 1849 will take effect making it illegal for someone to get an abortion unless the mother’s health is at risk. The state similarly still has a provision in its constitution outlawing same-sex marriage, but it wouldn’t be immediately triggered if Obergefell were overturned, according to Larry Dupuis, legal director at the Wisconsin chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). 

Slate: Pay attention: Ginni and Clarence Thomas are telegraphing how the 2024 election will be subverted.

What Thomas was emailing was a prefabbed piece of legal advocacy that urged Arizona state officials to “Please stand strong in the face of political and media pressure. Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of electors is chosen for our state.” That isn’t just words. It’s actually a theory underlying the subversion of an entire presidential election. It’s also a theory her husband has endorsed as a matter of constitutional law. It didn’t work in 2020 because the legal and political structures to support it weren’t in place at the time. Those pieces are being put into place as we type this.

SCOTUSblog: Supreme Court severely restricts use of ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims in federal reviews of state convictions.

Despite such apparent qualms, (U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence) Thomas wrote for the majority endorsing the state’s position, and all five of the other conservatives joined him. Thomas spent the first 11 pages of his 22-page opinion recounting the grisly facts of the murders the defendants were convicted of, extolling the states’ authority to enforce criminal laws, and emphasizing the importance of the finality of convictions. Finally arriving at the issue at hand, Thomas cited cases holding that defendants are generally held responsible for their attorneys’ errors, and noted that while that general rule does not apply when counsel is constitutionally ineffective, the Sixth Amendment does not guarantee a right to counsel at the post-conviction stage – therefore, at this stage, the defendants were “at fault.”

Vox: Because the Supreme Court's new rule restricting ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, a man who may be innocent could be executed.

NPR: Federal court tosses Florida's social-media law.

A Florida law intended to punish social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, dealing a major victory to companies who had been accused by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis of discriminating against conservative thought.

The Hill: Little-used ethics criminal law might apply to Donald Trump and associates.

The Hatch Act prohibits electioneering by executive branch officials, including the promotion of the president’s political interests, during the course of their formal duties. . . .

While the ethics law has been used almost entirely administratively since it was passed in the 1930s, experts say a rarely used criminal provision of the law could be a novel and relatively straightforward strategy to ensure consequences for Trump in what is sure to be a challenging atmosphere.