Coronavirus and the Courts

The Right to Due Process and Privacy in Times of Coronavirus
Introduction
One of the major problems in the US and the wider world is the dissemination of news or information that is accepted uncritically as gospel truth because it comes from a trusted source, a trusted outlet, a trusted organization, or a professional with the right sort of credentials that get people to assume trust. With regards to the coronavirus there is a great deal of misinformation and a great deal of legitimate questions and points that are raised by professionals, doctors, scientists, researchers and people with extensive backgrounds in epidemiology and health care that are not promoted in the mainstream media because those questions and points do not provoke fear and hysteria, which are the main drivers of the lockdown. Governors across the US have used fear and hysteria, rather than common sense, as justification for locking down their states and putting 20 million people out of work. Sweden, on the other hand, has not embarked on a mission of economic suicide and has adopted the position that few of its citizens are at risk from the novel coronavirus, which the state has identified as new form of the flu, and effect of this decision is that Sweden has weathered the appearance of the novel coronavirus just fine (Baker). Elsewhere in the US, the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services have raided the offices of a health clinic that was treating coronavirus patients with vitamin C IVs to great success; the reason for the raid was the doctors were not following the recommended protocol for putting coronavirus patients on ventilators, which have a 90% kill rate (Fox 2). One must begin to see that the coronavirus scare is a manufactured crisis that has been used as a pretense to bailout corporate America and Wall Street (once again) while leaving Main Street to dither in the wind. It is egregious and when a case like Ernie Camacho’s or JoJo’s comes up, as a member of the US Supreme Court, I have to state up front my bias—I am completely in sympathy with Camacho and JoJo and find Barr’s actions and California’s overreaction to the novel coronavirus to be a horrible violation of human and civil liberties.
With that said, we are tasked not only with assessing the spirit of the law but also the letter of the law, even though it has been said that the letter kills but the spirit gives life. The letter of the law exists to set the parameters for the spirit—not to be twisted by linguists and lawyers whose livelihoods depends upon their ability to reinterpret and re-imagine new meanings for words. The law is a thing to be respected, and yet everywhere it appears it has been gravely abused with fear and hysteria serving as the underlying motivation for this abuse.
But the Constitution does not give governors or the federal government the right to assume dictatorial control just because fear and hysteria are in the air. It is a mistake to believe that people naturally and legally give up their rights as US citizens because social media users, or politicians, or media personalities, or the governor’s office is in a panic about a flu about which speculation has run wild and the health care system, using exceedingly questionable tactics, has been essentially permitted or rather encouraged to euthanize its patients (via ventilators) so as to contain the spread of the virus.
In short, there is a great deal of noise and passion and hysteria and misinformation surrounding the issue of the coronavirus. Thus, what can we do to filter out the noise and reduce our own cognitive bias as we begin to examine the relevant factors of this case? I have already bracketed out my bias by stating it up front. Conscious of my own thoughts and feelings on this matter, it is now time to look at the facts of the case. This we can do by highlighting them as succinctly as possible.
Facts of the Case
1. The Yaz Act of 2020 was passed by Congress mandating every American to receive the flu vaccine.
2. If it is “my body, my choice” for women who choose to have abortions, it must also be “my body, my choice” for people who choose to go unvaccinated. The utilitarian principle of a perceived “greater good” does not eviscerated the individual’s right to choice.
3. District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) held that grammatical re-interpretation of the collective vs. the individual with regard to the expression “the people” is needed. I disagree with this conclusion: “the people” is not an expression that changes meaning from one Amendment to the next but rather it is certain people who want that meaning to change from Amendment to the next.
4. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905) upheld states’ right to enforce compulsory vaccination laws. Zucht v. King (1922) reaffirmed this ruling.
5. I disagree with both rulings: the state does not have the right to mandate a medical intervention without the consent of the individual. Allen v. Harrison (2016) is a recent court ruling to reaffirm the patient’s right to give consent before any type of health intervention is provided.
6. Health interventions cannot be mandated without the person’s consent. Since the horribly unjust days of the Tuskegee Experiments, it has been clear that every person has the right to determine what to do with his own body. Health care cases are very clear on this matter.
7. On that point alone, the Yaz Act of 2020 is unconstitutional and a violation of the individual’s right to give consent before receiving a medical intervention.
8. The reason for the importance of informed consent is that medical personnel routinely make mistakes and the science can always be questioned—and should be questioned. Too often “experts” are given more credence and trust than they deserve. Every individual has the right to make up his own mind on the matter of his own personal health.
9. The coronavirus did not cause extensive damage to the economy. Locking down the businesses caused extensive damage to the economy. Sweden did not lock down and has maintained a healthy populace and a healthy economy. The Yaz Act’s data should be considered completely invalid because of the false assumptions contained therein.
10. Arrest, fining and imprisonment for no less than a year for failure to comply is the equivalent of cruel and unusual punishment, which is protected against in the 8th Amendment. It is entirely excessive and a dictatorial abuse of the federal government.
11. A religious concern with vaccination should not be required; a health concern is a perfectly legitimate reason to refuse vaccination, and the special US court set up to deal with vaccination law suits shows why these health concerns are legitimate.
12. Ernie Camacho’s refusal to get the vaccination is perfectly reasonable, legitimate and within his rights. His imprisonment is entirely unjust and Camacho could be viewed as a political prisoner for refusing to comply with a dictatorial, authoritarian government, totalitarian and repressive in nature.
13. The Dormant Commerce Clause prohibits state law from discriminating against interstate commerce.
14. If JoJo White has met all the conditions needed to be met that California law has stated must be met for its own citizens as well as those entering the state, he cannot be barred from entering the state on the grounds of the Commerce law, which was used to justify the Yaz Act of 2020.
15. The state of California is discriminating against “Lax” states because they are not “Hardass” states like California, NY and Washington.
16. JoJo White’s suit is justified and the letter of the law with regard to the Dormant Commerce Clause would provide him with grounds to win the suit.
17. That White should have to resort to this inanity to win what should be a commonsense verdict is what I take issue with.
18. The absurd overreach on the part of state and federal governments is incredibly shocking and antithetical to everything the American constitution has represented in its 200 years of existence.
19. Though the letter of the law favors Jojo White, it must be said that the spirit of the law also favors both JoJo White and Ernie Camacho.
20. As Justice Anthony Kennedy stated in C&A Carbone, Inc. v. Town of Clarkstown, N.Y., 511 U.S. 383 (1994), quoting the Federalist Papers: "The central rationale for the rule against discrimination is to prohibit state or municipal laws whose object is local economic protectionism, laws that would excite those jealousies and retaliatory measures the Constitution was designed to prevent."
Analysis
The ruling in favor of JoJo White will show that California’s exclusion act is a violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause. However, it should also be shown that California and the federal government have no right to deny the rights of citizens—particularly the right to control their own person—i.e., the right to privacy that accompanied the Roe v. Wade (1973) ruling.
Americans must be treated with respect and not as children who are incapable of making decisions on their own. The determination of representatives of government to decide for each and every person what they may and may not do is a gross miscarriage of their office. The decision to deprive Americans of their right to work and to earn a living was a dangerous example of how easily it is for local, state and federal governments to abuse the rights of Americans.
Thus, why should JoJo White have to turn to the Dorman Commerce Clause in order to win a suit against the state of California, which barred him from entry because he heralded from a “Lax” state? Due process under the Fifth Amendment guarantees that every citizen has the right to travel as part of the liberty that no American can be deprived of. Yet here is California depriving Mr. White of that liberty, and here is Mr. White suing—not on the grounds that his Fifth Amendment rights have been violated but rather on the grounds that California law has violated a Commerce clause because it was Interstate commerce law that was used to ram the Yaz Act through Congress.
All of this shows a blatant disregard for the Constitution, for Due Process, and for the most basic rights of Americans. Every American is afforded the right of due process by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, both of which refer to due process clauses protecting the life and liberty as well as property of the individual. Just because the state believes a vaccine will save lives does not mean it will or that it is even effectively or harmless for taking. The state and health care systems have been egregiously wrong in the past with respect to health interventions—and the latest example of this is the opioid epidemic, which, to date, has killed vastly more people than those who have supposedly died from COVID 19 or who are supposed carriers of the disease. It must be said “supposedly” because there is a stark difference between a person testing positive for coronavirus and a person being clinically diagnosed with COVID 19 (the disease caused by the virus). Yet, this distinct differentiation is not made in the mainstream media, which ridiculously guides the thinking and action of so many lawmakers.
The childish and womanish absurdity of the manner in which this nation is acting is clear evidence that those tasked with representing constituents utterly appear to lack the capacity for critical thought. It is outrageous that such a pronouncement must be made by me in this ruling in this manner, but such is the reality of the situation that someone must state the obvious since the media is not doing its job and the lawmakers are not doing their job. The hysteria must be brought to heel and it must be brought to heel within the framework of the constitutional law that gives this country the conditions upon which rights are to be exercised and laws are to be implemented.
Due process is one of the most important aspects of American law and yet it is flagrantly disregarded by lawmakers and justices, all of whom find ways to manipulate language to their own ends. It is Ethical Egoism run amok and the people of America are the ones who are made victims of a vile and unscrupulous approach to law and the execution of justice. Every American has the right to due process as defined by the Constitution and no American should feel like he has to make a defense for his liberties by appealing to a commerce clause. How utterly ridiculous that a human being in this nation in the 21st century cannot expect to win a lawsuit against a tyrannous regime by appealing to his Constitutional rights under the 5th Amendment! How utterly sad! And yet here we are: so little is the respect shown to the Constitution and to the spirit of the law that today’s executive branch decision makers believe the law is whatever they say it is and that the lawyers will justify whatever they say it is by playing word games that undermine the confidence of the average American in the ability of the Constitution to protect him from tyranny any longer. By taking the law into its own hands, the executive offices at local, state and federal levels seek to circumvent the actual law of the land and create for themselves the ability to turn their will into law. But doing such is the essence of tyranny and no citizen should feel obliged or compelled to obey or conform to such tyranny.
Conclusion
The state of repression in American society has reached a new low with the unconstitutional arrest and imprisonment of Ernie Camacho and the denial of the right to interstate travel and an infringement of his personal liberty in the person of JoJo White. The Constitution itself safeguards and protects the right to privacy and the right to liberty of Americans—yet executive offices in the US are trampling upon these rights willy-nilly because hysteria over a flu has turned the executive office into an unbridled nanny—and that nanny now must be brought to heel and relieved of her duties.
Works Cited
Allen v. Harrison (2016). https://law.justia.com/cases/oklahoma/supreme-court/2016/111877.html
Baker, Sinead. “The architect of Sweden's controversially lax coronavirus response says he thinks it's working, and that the capital city is already benefiting from herd immunity.” Business Insider, 2020. https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-sweden-defends-plan-not-to-lock-down-immunity-2020-4
C&A Carbone, Inc. v. Town of Clarkstown, N.Y., 511 U.S. 383 (1994). https://www.oyez.org/cases/1993/92-1402
District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). Retrieved from https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-290
Fox 2. “Alleged fraudulent COVID-19 treatments spark FBI raid of Shelby Twp medical spa.” Fox 2, 2020. https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/alleged-fraudulent-covid-19-treatments-spark-fbi-raid-of-shelby-twp-medical-spa
Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/197/11/
Roe v. Wade (1973). https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18
Zucht v. King (1922). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/260/174/