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I heard this being discussed this morning on the drive-time into work. Many on the Right are claiming victory in the Supreme Court's ruling on Arizona immigration law since they claim that the court has ruled that the section of the law concerning the right of police officers to stop someone and demand that they prove that they're citizens has been ruled as 'Constitutional'. Well actually the court did NOT do that, rather they ruled that the WORDING of the law was NOT UN-Constitutional. Now to some this may sound like someone was splitting hairs but it's very important as to what this means. The Court has basically said while they see nothing wrong with the WORDS used in the law (and this ruling was unanimous) they are not in a position to determine if it can be APPLIED in a manner which will be Constitutional or not, and the reason being is that they have yet to be presented with a case where the law was used to detain and arrest an individual based on them not being able to demonstrate that they were legally in the country or not. When this actually happens, now that Arizona can go ahead and start to 'enforce' this law, which everyone expects won't take long before there is at least one incident which will test the APPLICATION of the law, then this part of the law could very well move back through the courts and could eventually end-up in front of the full Supreme Court once more where they will then have something to rule on as to whether the law can be APPLIED in a Constitutional manner. This is where the issue of 'racial profiling' will come into play since many people feel that in order for Arizona to accomplish what it claims that it can with this law (remember all laws have to serve some purpose, they can't just be on the books because the read nice or they sound like a good idea) that there is no way that that will ever occur WITHOUT their being a degree of 'racial profiling' being done and that will then be the basis for any future litigation as to the Constitutionality of these so-called 'papers please' laws. And the court has also placed a burden on the Arizona authorities, which again I suspect will be tested soon, and that is that they can't detain anyone for an unreasonable period of time while they attempt to verify whether the individual is or is not a legal resident or citizen. So unless this person has actually broken a law which would normally result in being detained or arrested on the spot, they will NOT be allowed to detain or arrest anyone based ONLY on the idea that they have not yet verified that persons status or not. Again, I can see where this will be the sort of thing which will toss this back into the courts in very short order, particularly if "Sheriff Joe" has anything to say about this.
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