With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

We actually got to see an alternate timeline where Nightmare Moon won. Aside from being dark and all the guards armour being enchanted to make them look like Bat Ponies everything was more or less the same really. Either the plants there don't need sunlight or they figured out how to stop them from dying right quick.

Maybe sort of implied that Nightmare Moon killed Discord and the other villains though given The Elements couldn't be used and none of them are so much as mentioned.

 

"So you are ruled by a cabal called the 'Supreme Court'?"

"Yes, but no, but yes."

"...I understand some of your villains better now"

 

Thank you, corrected.

As far as I remember he just lost his arms.

 

It's adorable that Grayven thinks that will survive the constitutional challenge.

Because it wouldn't.

 

It's also both a useless law and an unenforceable law.

The light had to arrange a Machiavellian scheme to take over Belle Reve. Cardboard prisons are obviously not the norm in Young Justice, and when they saw villains who were supposed to be in prison they immediately knew the Light took over Belle Reve because the idea that they just escaped from Belle Reve was inconceivable.

So this is a solution looking for a problem.

And it's unenforceable. Non federal law enforcement doesn't work for Washington DC, they work for the states and local government.

From the NYPD to sheriff of mulehumper, flyover country, the feds aren't really in a position to punish anyone who responds with "Fuck you, you can't tell me what to do," because it's literally true in this case. Just like the feds can't do anything if local cops don't arrest people for violating federal drug or immigration laws. While local cops can do arrest people for violating federal law, that's voluntary, not mandatory.

So a cop who ignores this law will SHUDDER! worry about a strongly worded letter maybe.

Unless the bill makes it a literal federal crime for cops to not execute those escaped prisoners, and that would have a snowball's chance in hell of passing.

 

Yes, but also maybe no.

Yes, all your points are true.

Maybe no, because this is a universe where Narrative Forces exist in the form of The Dream and The Emotional Lights and Literal Magic/Meddling Devils.

This law is:
1.) half vigourously dick-waving in Batman's face,
2.) Half de-clawing the narrative forces encouraging Joker Immunity coincedences, as making such coincidences be opposed by previously non-aligned narrative forces.

Think of it as multiple neutral tropes of fiction are being encouraged to join forces with the Superhero trope in kicking Supervillain trope in the ribs.

...yeah, this law is attacking the bystander effect.

 

If I remember correctly, the Renegade specified that he crushed the Joker's limbs, but they are still attached to him. He later fixed one of his arms, possibly temporarily, in order to get an autograph for Starman's son.

 

On the contrary.

Of course the law doesn't cover the entire country. It is valid only in locations which operate on federal law, such as federal land, courts and prisons. There is already a mechanism in universe for transfering supercriminals to the Belle Reve Federal Penitentiary.

If the Joker says in Gotham, it doesn't apply.

Yet.

Because it's a powerful indicator of the direction of travel that the Office of the President thinks the country ought to go in, and any jurisdiction that doesn't pass a similar law will be asked some rather pointed questions. Not by the Oval Office, but by their own constituents.

And of course if any supervillain actually commits a federal offence, including but not limited to terrorism, then it certainly applies.

 

Thank you, corrected.

 

Unfortunately this is a comic books universe so something will go wrong.

Remember when the Joker had super lawyers that got him out somehow? Or Lex Luthor?

 

That's something going right. If lawyers get them out then the system is working. Probably not working as intended but it's working.

 

So what happens if the Joker walks up to someone and says "Here! Smell my flower!" and the person shoots him in the face with a .45? That's self-defense, isn't it? Does that person go to jail? Or do they get a ticker tape parade?

'Cause I imagine there are people out there that would pay for Joker to be gunned down. In fact, I'm suprised Batman hasn't had to stop Joker from being murdered by bounty-hunters.

I can't see Deathstroke or Deadshot not taking a bounty on any of the criminals in DC if the money was good. Professional courtesy my @$$.

 

Is the Joker, even a fresh graduate would get the man who killed the Joker declared non guilty.

Plus no one in Gotham would want to.prosecute the man (or whatever) who killer the Joker.

 

I'm sure in Gotham you could actively seek out the Joker, get into a fire-fight, with collateral damage, and they still wouldn't charge you with the Joker's murder.

 

I'm pretty damn sure there have even been storylines where people flat out refused to convict the person who killed The Joker.

Though I'm also pretty sure most of those storylines exist solely to create arbitrary conflict in the superhero community. Because apparently the worst possible thing you can do isn't the mass murder characters like The Joker regularly indulge in. Nope. The absolute most evil thing you can do is kill supervillains.

 

Considering how often the Joker kills ordinary people for shits and giggles, a neutral court would likely rule it as self-defense. His established patterns and the threat he represents are common knowledge.

Hell, most other supervillains hate the joker's guts for doing such ridiculous bullshit and being an unreliable ally.

 

Both, probably. The question is whether or not they go to prison. And I have my suspicions.

 

Smart!

They DO do slightly different things. Even with both being elected instead of having one being appointed, the design is still intended to have each house representing different balances of power. The House represents the popular majority opinion while the Senate is meant to ensure that the needs of minority populations aren't neglected. Opinions may vary over how effective this is in practice, but that was the clearly-documented founding intent.

 

It seems to me that since in Earth 16 of DC, Supreme Court Justices are for life, the answer lies in Deathstroke the Terminator.

 

Except for the whole part where the courts all but immediately strike the law down as being unconstitutional.

 

I want Luna to run for president.

 

On what grounds would it be unconstitutional?

It's not on due process grounds, because it requires a conviction of a capital crime, followed by proof of commission of another crime. This also rules out it being classified as an unreasonable seizure or taking.

It's not cruel and unusual punishment; again, death is not unusual punishment for a capital crime, and reincarceration might actually be more cruel.

The only way it could be a First Amendment issue is if the inmate had been denied a writ of habeas corpus and escaped in order to petition the government.

It's not a Tenth Amendment issue because it only applies to federal crimes and federal facilities.

So... how is it unconstitutional?

 

Read the wording.

Violation of due processes in every case the person wasn't sentenced to the death penalty.

Violation of due process period, because the person was found "not guilty" and wasn't sentenced to the death penalty.

Long story short, the only time these two would maybe be possible is if the person who escaped was sentenced to the Death Penalty. And even that's iffy because our justice system has a lot of checks and balances in place to stop people being murdered by the government.

While this? This part is a violation of the Tenth.

 

Batman's pragmatic enough to consider the 'better on the inside pissing out, than the outside pissing in' angle.
I mean if all the people they want dead are already dead, then they don't have a lot of skin in the game on 'do I have to kill this guy I'm fighting, or not?' She just wants interesting and memorable fights. He just wants a happy wife.

So, better to have them join on the understanding that joining means going nonlethal as the S.O.P (with Justice League standard racist exceptions for robots, demons, and stuff that looks inhuman and ugly), than remain horribly lethal non-members.

 

OL said "essentially." He isn't quoting the law as written in the proper legalese; he's giving the short version. What this law likely does is define a sentencing guideline -- instead of the choices being "life imprisonment" or "death" a sentencing judge can now choose "death, commuted to life imprisonment unless the criminal escapes from prison." This remains constitutional as long as the judge is allowed to use discretion in which of these three sentences to hand down.

I'll credit you that this one is very borderline. It probably wouldn't fly at all in US Prime. But US Prime doesn't have people with disorders that make them chronically incapable of making moral judgments, who are also them a clear and present danger to the public for an indefinite amount of time, who also cannot be restrained through normal means. US 16 clearly does, and I would expect jurisprudence there to have evolved differently as a result.

Honestly, this one's more of a plot hole in the underlying DC setting. The fictional definition of "insane" is completely bonkers. The Joker is not insane -- he's intelligent enough that he should be able to understand the consequences of his actions. He's capable of long-term planning, so his actions aren't the result of an inability to control his impulses. He is aware of his own actions. Whatever mental illness he has, he isn't insane -- he isn't incapable of forming intent.

But if we were to grant that Batman's rogues gallery is full of people who really are so insane that they don't know that what they're doing is wrong, then what this law is establishing is a class of mental illness that is such a grave threat to public safety that lethal force is statutorily considered a defensive act. It isn't a criminal death penalty; it's a legal recognition of a clear and present danger.

Wrong for two reasons.

(1) It only applies to federal statutes, so this isn't overriding state death penalty laws. This is preempting charges and lawsuits that would have failed on jurisdictional grounds anyway.

(2) It's not immunity; it's indemnification. It doesn't mean the officers can't be brought to trial. It means that the federal government takes responsibility for compensating the damages. Importantly, this means that if the officer did do something wrong, they can still be tried for it instead of having the entire trial thrown out up front.

 

That's not allowed.

The Federal Death Penalty is a unique beast that can only be handed out by a unanimous jury verdict. Once that verdict is received, the judge is not allowed to reject or modify it in the manner you described.

While I understand what you're going for.

This is very much one of those "no exceptions allowed" bits of US constitutional law because allowing any exceptions is the equivalent of jumping off the cliff government abuse wise.

 

These parts are pretty important. It reduces how big a mess the law can be used to create, or at least limits the type of messes it can be used to create, and it makes more sense as a law that could potentially pass.

 

"move there"

"American"

Very good decision.

 

"I'd pick a hoe right now" About that John, right now they have a bit of a problem with pregnacies in Themyscira. I would wait till you go outside the island