Ken Lammers:
I don’t like the result, but really can’t argue with the reasoning.
Well, OK, but so what? Why does that get QotD status? Doesn’t sound all that earth-shaking, it’s not particularly witty, comes off pretty flat, in fact.
That is his response to Jaynes v. Commonwealth (No. 062388) [scroll down], a case challenging what the Virginia State Supreme Court says was an overbroad anti-spam statute. Presumably, Lammers doesn’t like it because now spammers are free to spam, and with that, I agree.
He gets QotD, however, because of the broader principles involved. Here’s the decision summary:
Held:
(1) Jurisdiction is valid because all of AOL’s servers are in Virginia and this is common knowledge.
(2) The Virginia Supreme Court quotes the Commonwealth’s own stipulations during a prior argument before the federal supreme court and finds that Virginia cannot limit access to constitutional protections to fewer people than the federal government allows.
(3) While trespass may be a valid theory in a civil suit, it does not apply in a case involving the government because governments must answer to the 1st Amendment.
(4) The mere fact that someone sends an anonymous email cannot be illegal because anonymous political speech is protected political discourse. Unlike other States, Virginia has not limited this statute to commercial speech. Therefore, the statute is not sufficiently narrowly drawn.
(5) While mere overbreadth is not enough, this statute is substantially overbroad. It “would prohibit all bulk e-mail containing anonymous political, religious, or other expressive speech. For just being published today example, were the Federalist Papers via e-mail, that transmission by Publius would violate the statute.”
(6) The Supreme Court refuses the Commonwealth’s invitation to narrow the application of the statute so that it only applies if the internet service provider objects or the emails contain criminal activity, defamation, or obscenity. Rewriting a statute is the province of the General Assembly and mere construction of this statute cannot reach as far as the Commonwealth urges.
Reversed.
[My bold.]
Lammers calls the decision a “tour de force”, saying it’s “28 pages and not an inch of fluff.”
The crux of the whole thing is point (6): “Rewriting a statute is the province of the General Assembly and mere construction of this statute cannot reach as far as the Commonwealth urges.”
See how that works? As much as I hate spam, as much as I want to see spammers staked out on fireant mounds with their eyelids snipped off and their bellies slit open, the VA Lege screwed up by writing an unconstitutionally broad law — and it is not the job of the Court to fix that, even though the Lege invited the Court to do so.
That’s how it’s done, folks. That’s how separation of powers works. That’s how the Rule of Law works. You don’t tolerate tyranny even if, in the short run, it achieves a goal you want. The Virginia Supreme Court understands that (at least in this case) and Lammers understands that — his quote is the essence of Point (6).
Together, they share Quote of the Day.
