Don Dechert
@dondechert.bsky.social
3.7K followers
12K following
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Lawyer, veteran. Ex-baby historian, current litigator, lapsed social scientist, still playing TTRPGs. Unabashedly pro-cat because cats are awesome. Various thoughts, some well articulated in 🇺🇲/🇩🇪.
📍Chicago, IL, Vereinigte Staaten, Terra
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![Several Presidents suffered debilitating illnesses and injuries. For weeks and months at a time, the country was left without effective or accountable presidential leadership. Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 provided for the Vice President to step in when the President had an “inability to discharge [his] powers and duties,” but it provided no decision-maker, no procedures, and no definition of “inability.” Nor did it make clear whether the Vice President would act as President only until the President recovered, or instead would become President for the duration of the term. No Vice President wanted to seem like a usurper. In practice, power was never transferred and presidential inner circles typically concealed the President’s condition. This pattern came to be seen as increasingly irresponsible with the advent of nuclear weapons during the Cold War; the nation needed a fully functioning presidency at all times.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xnhzkzgseabdmwem4ckv3jwh/bafkreibql3ifljewv5q26dc3q5obbyi23x63mbnfotjwsbu6ezxa7uowmy@jpeg)
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![This case, however, is about hate crimes, not hate speech. Violent physical assaults
are “not by any stretch of the imagination expressive conduct protected by the First
Amendment.” Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476, 484 (1993). And it is well established
that Congress may account for racially discriminatory motives when penalizing criminal
conduct, as it did in the hate crimes laws at issue here. See id. at 487–88 (upholding a law
that imposed enhanced penalties for crimes committed “because of” race). While Hudak
was entitled to possess despicable Nazi symbols, the jury was entitled to consider that fact
when deciding whether he assaulted J.D. and J.S. because of their race, color, and national
origin.
How much meaning to assign the Nazi memorabilia was ultimately a question of
weight, not admissibility. But we see no abuse of discretion in the district court’s
conclusion that Hudak “opened the door to it[],” regardless of whether it would initially
have been admissible. Birchette, 908 F.3d at 61.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:24vva42nxim6zbcmnozegoef/bafkreif46umt23xjedtlfmzzcfoybeh7twc2w2tlge5fc5o24aiuk3gjoe@jpeg)
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