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Alberta, Canada

Laura and I spent the first week of August with her family in Alberta, Canada. We stayed near Banff National Park and spent most of our time in Banff and Jasper National Parks as well as the towns of Banff and Canmore.

Our activities included:
Aug 2 (Sat)
Short drive through Calgary, Luge Run at Olympic Park;
Aug 3 (Sun)
Johnston Canyon Picnic with view of Castle Mountain, Two Jack Lake;
Aug 4 (Mon)
Tunnel Mountain Hike, Minnewanka Lake - picnic and hike;
Aug 5 (Tues)
Lake Louise, Plains of 6 Glaciers Hike, Gondola, Moraine Lake;
Aug 6 (Wed)
Ice fields Parkway, Columbia Ice fields, Parker Ridge Hike;
Aug 7 (Th)
A day at the lodge which included a talk and short hike with a local tour guide;
Aug 8 (Fri)
Grassi Lake Trail, shopping and dinner in Banff.

For more pics from our trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/clsanders/AlbertaCanada02

4th of July

America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism. And it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about divine, at least about human things.
G.K. Chesterton

Laura and I spent this July 4th here in Winston. Between my bar prep and Laura's weekend job, it is rare for us to have a day that we are both free... so we wanted to make sure to take advantage of our time together today. We watched and played tennis this morning before heading to Tanglewood Park for the afternoon. At Tanglewood, we went horseback riding and played the par 3 golf course, then we enjoyed a picnic before taking in the fireworks. It was a great way to celebrate the 4th!

Laura and Reno

Scout and I

Reno bein' suave

Picnic

waiting for the fireworks

Two recent Supreme Court decisions

There have been two recent decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) that have garnered much attention and initiated much debate. The decision are the June 12th ruling in Boumediene v. Bush and the June 26th ruling in DC v. Heller. This post is an attempt to lay out the essential holdings from these two decisions and offer a few questions that arise from them. My goal with this post is to keep the analysis simple and straightforward.

Essentially, in Heller the SCOTUS held that the Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms is an individual right and exist apart from participation in militia. This is obviously a milestone decision that answers a question which has been heavily debated for quite some time.

Two important questions left unanswered by Heller:
1) What level of scrutiny will the court apply to restrictions?
2) Will the right to bear arms be applied to the states?

This is the most interesting question and one that very well may be addressed by the SCOTUS in the very near future. As most of you are probably aware, the Bill of Rights applies directly only to the federal government. Most of the rights in the Bill of Rights now apply to state and local governments through incorporation into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms is one of five rights that have not been incorporated into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. So as of right now, your state government could pass a law stating that no citizen can possess a gun for any reason, and it would not violate your Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms.

Since the Heller decision, no less than five lawsuits have been filed attempting to have this Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause. It will be interesting to see what happens if any of these cases work there way up to the SCOTUS.

Essentially, in Boumediene, the SCOTUS held that 1) detainees are protected by the Suspension Clause (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Constitution which states “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.”) and 2) the Detainee Treatment Act review system does not provide an adequate substitute for habeas because it does not authorize the DC Circuit to order detainees to be released, does not allow detainees to argue that their detention exceeds the scope of the executive's detention authority, and does not allow presentation of new evidence.

Like Heller, Boumediene has been followed by much debate and perhaps more uncertainty.

Some of the important questions left unanswered by the Court are:
1) What impact it will have on the military commission trials just getting underway?
2) What constitutional right and protections should be given to detainees?

This question is currently being debated by both sides of the Hamdan prosecution. SCOTUSBLOG’s Lyle Denniston offers more detailed insight into this issue in his post, Debate over Boumediene’s meaning. In short, the government contends that the detainees are now protected by only a single constitutional right. The military lawyers argue that Boumediene was only “a narrow holding” that detainees have a constitutional right to pursue a habeas claim in District Court. They say that the Court’s decision turned only on Congress’s violation of that Suspension Clause. On the other hand, the defense attorneys claim at least nine constitutional rights:

1. A constitutional right to equal legal treatment, allegedly violated by any trial before a military commission (equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment).
2. A constitutional right not to be forced to give evidence against himself, presumably based on alleged evidence obtained in interrogations (Fifth Amendment ban on self-incrimination).
3. A constitutional right to due process, based on alleged use of testimony obtained by coercion or torture and denial of access to documents about the conditions at Guantanamo (Due Process Clause of Fifth Amendment).
4. A constitutional right to call witnesses who may aid the defense, based on claims of too-limited access so far to “high-value detainees” at Guantanamo — including some key Al Qaeda leaders (Sixth Amendment right to compulsory process).
5. A constitutional right to the aid of a lawyer, allegedly frustrated by conditions at Guantanamo that inhibit lawyer-client relationships (Sixth Amendment).
6. A constitutional right to confront adverse witnesses, based on a claimed prosecution plan to offer “50 items of hearsay evidence” at trial (Sixth Amendment).
7. A constitutional right to a speedy and public trial, allegedly violated by the mode and scheduling of military commission trials (Sixth Amendment).
8. A constitutional right to be charged by a grand jury, allegedly violated by the charges leveled here only by Pentagon prosecutors (Fifth Amendment).
9. A constitutional right not to be accused of a crime for actions that were not criminal at the time, a test of whether a military commission has jurisdiction because the accusations are not violations of the law of war (Ex Post Factor Clause in Article II, limiting Congress’ authorize to create new crimes after the fact).

These two decisions will be debated ad infinitum and their full ramifications will not be known for years to come.

1st Anniversary. Lake Lure & Chimney Rock

Monday, June 16th, was our one year wedding anniversary. Because our anniversary feel on a Monday (due to leap year) that I needed to spend at school studying for the bar, we took our "anniversary trip" on the weekend of the 14th and 15th. Laura and I spent the weekend at the Lake Lure Inn. Saturday was spent on the lake and Sunday was spent at Chimney Rock Park.

We had a great time during our weekend getaway! On the evening of the 16th we enjoyed a dinner in, and ate our one year old wedding cake. We were both very surprised at how good the cake was after spending twelve months in the freezer. Here are some pics from our trip.

Laura and I on a Lake Lure tour boat

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The Dirty Dancing cove

Great views were easy to find


A shot from the boardwalk

Chimney Rock with Lake Lure in the background

Laura and I on Chimney Rock

Dinner Saturday night.

The beach

In some ways, it is hard to believe we have been married for a year, but at the same time, it seems like we have more than a years worth of memories from the last 12 months. We have been truly blessed and are excited about starting our second year of marriage!

Thomas More

I have long had a great admiration for Thomas More, he was an outstanding lawyer, author, judge and diplomat, who rose to the highest office in England, next to the King. He was also a Christian who believed that his first, and most important, calling was to follow Christ, whatever the cost. He was a man who had a huge impact on this world, while living for the next. As a result, he chose death rather than to betray his conscience. Moments before he was beheaded for his faith, he humbly described himself as "the King's good servant, but God's first."

I just came across this meditation that he penned while he was a prisoner in the tower of London, in 1534.

Give me thy grace, good Lord, To set the world at nought, To set my mind fast upon thee. And not to hang upon the blast of men's mouths. To be content to be solitary, Not to long for worldly company, Little and little utterly to cast off the world,And rid my mind of all the business thereof. Not to long to hear of any worldly things, But that the hearing of worldly phantasies may be to me displeasant.Gladly to be thinking of God, Piteously to call for his help, To lean unto the comfort of God, Busily to labour to love him.To know mine own vility and wretchedness, To humble and meeken myself under the mighty hand of God, To bewail my sins passed, For the purging of them, patiently to suffer adversity.Gladly to bear my purgatory here, To be joyful of tribulations, To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life. To bear the cross with Christ,To have the last thing in rememberence, To have ever afore mine eye my death that is ever at hand, To make no stranger to me, To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell. To pray for pardon before the judge to come. To have ontinually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for me, For his benefits uncessantly to give him thanks. To buy the time again that I before have lost. To abstain from vain confabulations, To eschew light foolish mirth and gladness, Recreations not necessary to cut off. Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all, to set the loss at right nought, for the winning of Christ. To think my most enemies my best friends, For the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favour as they did him with their malice and hatred. These minds are more to be desired of every man, than all the treasure of all the princes and kings, Christian and heathen, were it gathered and laid together all upon one heap.

It Is Well With My Soul

I love this hymn, and as with many great hymns, the story behind it gives the words more meaning.

Horatio Spafford was a successful Chicago lawyer with one son and four daughters (still living with he and his wife). He had a large amount of money invested in Chicago real estate. By the late 1860's, Spafford had been blessed with a great family and very successfull investments.
Then, his son died and the Chicago fire of 1871 wiped out his holdings.

After loosing a child, and much of his fortune, Spafford and his family desperately needed a rest. So in 1873 he planned a trip to Europe with his wife and four daughters. Last minute business caused Spafford to delay his departure, but he sent his wife and four daughters on the S. S. Ville Du Havre as scheduled, promising to follow in a few days. On November 22 the ship was struck by the English ship Lochearn, and it sank in twelve minutes. Several days later the survivors landed at Cardiff, Wales, and Mrs. Spafford cabled her husband the brief message, "Saved alone."

When Horatio Spafford made the ocean crossing to meet his grieving wife, he sailed near the place where his four daughters had sunk to the ocean depths. There, in the midst of his sorrow, he wrote these unforgettable words that have brought solace to so many in grief:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll,

Whatever my lot,

Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Let this blessed assurance control,

That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

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If you have time, check out this video:

It Is Well With My Soul