{"id":1840,"date":"2004-05-27T10:38:12","date_gmt":"2004-05-27T15:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1840.html"},"modified":"2004-05-27T10:38:12","modified_gmt":"2004-05-27T15:38:12","slug":"appeals-court-smacks-ashcroft-around-over-assisted-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/appeals-court-smacks-ashcroft-around-over-assisted-suicide\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals court smacks Ashcroft around over assisted suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking of the attorney general, it was heartening to see the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals uphold Oregon&#8217;s voter-approved law that allows doctors to help terminally ill patients commit suicide. It was even better to see the judges <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/05\/27\/national\/27SUIC.html?pagewanted=all&#038;position=\">publicly rebuke John Ashcroft<\/a> in the process.<\/p>\n<p>The Justice Department&#8217;s role in this matter was always rather dubious. Just weeks after the 9\/11 terrorist attacks, when it seemed he had more important things to do, Ashcroft instructed the Drug Enforcement Administration to pull the drug-prescription licenses of any physician who cooperated with Oregon&#8217;s assisted suicide law. The move obviously ignored any notion of states rights, which Ashcroft claims to revere, and was a bold power grab for the DoJ.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, the 9th Circuit took Ashcroft to task, saying that he far exceeded his authority.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The attorney general&#8217;s unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers,&#8221; Judge Richard C. Tallman wrote for the majority, &#8220;interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide and far exceeds the scope of his authority under federal law.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This seems to be part of a trend for Ashcroft, who has been smacked around by a lot of judges lately. A federal court wasn&#8217;t fond of Ashcroft&#8217;s arguments when he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/04\/27\/politics\/27ABOR.html\">demanded hospital records<\/a> of women who had had abortions, and a different federal judge in Michigan <a href=\"http:\/\/www.detnews.com\/2004\/specialreport\/0403\/28\/a01-105567.htm\">berated Ashcroft<\/a> for violating a court gag order in an ongoing case involving alleged al Qaeda sleeper cell members.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not a great track record for someone who is supposed to be the nation&#8217;s top law enforcement official.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking of the attorney general, it was heartening to see the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals uphold Oregon&#8217;s voter-approved law that allows doctors to help terminally ill patients commit suicide. It was even better to see the judges publicly rebuke John Ashcroft in the process. The Justice Department&#8217;s role in this matter was always rather [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}