Talk:United States v. Lopez

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2021 and 13 March 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): J.perales1121.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:04, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Effects of the Lopez Decision

I think this article has too many uncited references and not enough substance on the effects that its precedent create in current policymaking. I made a small section on the effects of Lopez, but I do not know if my citations are formatted properly. Can somebody check them out and fix them if necessary? The762x51 07:00, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I am really concerned about the first two sentences in The Impact of the Decision section. After reading the referenced document, it is pretty clear to me that it was Justice O'Connor's strong language in New York v. United States that is what is referenced in the first sentence. This sentence does not belong in this article. The second sentence is not clear to me. What "special significance"? I would look for a more definitive assertion.

Does anyone else share my concerns? Mmccalpin 19:54, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Facts Etc.

The facts stated in the Article were completely wrong ---I don't know how that happens ... no one read the case? -- and I've corrected them from the text of the USSC opinion. In fact: The defendant was detained and arrested within the school itself. He was not charged with a drug violation of any kind, and he was not (therefore) subjected to an enhanced sentence on a drug count due to a collateral firearms charge. The only charge at issue in the Supreme Court decision was the single charge under 922(q). He was arrested (by the local police, no doubt) for carrying a pistol at school -- a violation under Texas law, and then was charged with the federal violation.

The state charges were dismissed in favor of the federal charges, but surely this was without prejudice -- there would be absolutely no reason for the state authorities to dismiss with prejudice and this is rarely done unless there is some kind of plea deal.

I also added the procedural posture which is helpful: Defendant moved to dismiss the indictment on constitutional grounds (absence of Congressional power) and the trial court ruled for the Government and denied the motion, finding that there was a sufficient nexus in that the prohibited activities "affected" interstate commerce.

The matter on appeal was whether this decision on the motion was correct and whether the motion to dismiss was erroneously denied. The USSC reviewed the C of A's decision, which found that the motion should have been granted; and it agreed with the C of A. The USSC found that while the line of cases was not entirely clear (ha!!!), the correct legal test was whether interstate commerce was "substantially affected" and not merely "affected." bla bla bla

The Article does not discuss the rather substantial body of dissenting opinion, in a very close decision. That's a substantial omission and I'll add some on this in the next week or so.

Comments/questions/complaints etc please speak up! —Preceding unsigned comment added by SixBlueFish (talk • contribs) 19:25, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

So many issues

This article has so many things that need to be addressed, I barely know where to start. For an article purported to be of "top importance" to Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases, it has been completely ignored, judging from the lack of response to concerns that were long ago raised on this talk page. I have therefore downgraded the WikiProject assessments atop this page.

Lead Section

I guess the opening sentence is as good a place to start as any:

United States v. Alfonso D. Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995) was the first United States Supreme Court case since the New Deal to set limits to Congress's power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

That's a pretty bold statement to make without a cite, lest it becomes WP:OR. As we learn from WP:LEADCITE, "the lead will usually repeat information that is in the body," which is not the case here. What's more, the claim has already been challenged – a decade ago, no less! In the section entitled "Commerce Clause power vs. lawmaking power" above, not only did the challenge go unanswered, but apparently, that user's attempt to fix it has since been undone as well.

Footnotes

Ok, what is up with the totally inadequate references containing nothing more than the likes of "p. xxy"? Seriously? There are ten such references with bogus page numbers. The cites that actually have page numbers don't fare much better, because they are not formatted to Wikipedia standards, nor are they linked to anything, making them unverifiable without significant user effort. What's more, they are almost exclusively primary sources.

Original research, NPOV, tone, weasel words

The Court of Appeals noted that the legislative history of the Act did not justify it as an exercise of the Commerce Clause power of Congress, suggesting to some that a new version of the Act which recited more of a nexus with interstate commerce might be devised, though what that nexus might be is difficult to imagine, as the Court clearly stated that the situation posed only a "trivial impact" upon commerce.

This is just one out of many examples in the text that are so laden with weasel words (e.g. "some") and editorializing (e.g. "difficult to imagine" and "clearly") that, in the absence of meaningful attribution, it again brings up concerns about WP:OR and WP:NPOV, and is not in keeping with an encyclopedic WP:TONE. —grolltech^(talk) 19:39, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

why aren't the defense attorneys indicated?

please provide info on who defended lopez, and more about their case and arguments. 2603:9000:7800:1843:BCE2:C62B:144:C207 (talk) 23:01, 17 November 2023 (UTC)