CG614 wrote:G. T. L. Rev. wrote:vamedic03 wrote:CG614 wrote:My intuition is that the Government can use the taxing and spending power to coerce the state. Also, I am not sure that the plenary police powers would allow the state to override the state common law charge of murder. The police power is generally held to be valid if it promotes the general welfare of the people of the state. Not sure that a persuasive argument could be had there.
lolwut? The common law isn't some kind of default that states have to overcome. It exists in the background, filling gaps and such. States are unquestionably free to depart from it, for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reasons at all.
Go to class. Murder was a common law crime before it became a statutory crime in all states. If the states get rid of the statute, the common law crime would be upheld by the courts.
So, basically what I was saying is that a state could not use its police power to make murder legal, all it could do is decriminalize it via repealing the statute, but then the common law would take over.
No. If a state got rid of the statute, the courts would recognize the legislative intent to decriminalize murder.