SEC & Swamp Take Trial By Jury In Butt

With little fanfare, a 6-3 majority of Justices struck a blow for liberty against the bureaucracy by ruling last week that federal agencies can’t deny defendants a trial by jury in fraud cases by sticking them in their own tribunals.

The long & short of it: “Hedge-fund founder George Jarkesy argued that a provision in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act letting the SEC seek penalties administratively for securities fraud violated the 7th Amendment’s right to trial by jury” as suggested by the Amendment’s plain language & history.

The Court’s decision means most complaints by agencies seeking penalties will have to be charged in federal courts, “where defendants enjoy more procedural rights including to legal discovery.” Nor will agencies like the SEC benefit from a “home-court advantage,” that is, have THEIR PEERS rather than the DEFENDANTS’ PEERS be the judge & jury. Any wonder that up until now, the SEC has won “nearly every case in their own tribunals”?

Davd Soul