In the first such CP restitution case to make it to the Supreme Court of the US; the majority of 5 justices decided that "Amy" cannot ask each individual defendant for her total losses resulting out of aggregate losses created by individual actors. She cannot hold one person responsible for the actions of everyone else; only for their own.

This was held by Kennedy, Ginsberg, Breyer, Alito, and Kagan.

Two dissenting opinions were registered.

Three justices held that restitution must be proportionate to the defendant's role, but that it also cannot be arbitrary, and it must be a result of the defendant's downloading; not the creation or distribution. They argued that Amy's losses would have already been incurred before the defendant downloaded. And that the law which demands an amount is then impossible to apply because it has no mechanism for determining a non-arbitrary amount.

This dissent was authored by Chief Justice Roberts, with Scalia and Thomas.

And one justice dissented to argue for the law exactly as written which requires each participant to bear 100% of the responsibility now matter how diluted their role nor how distant their proximity; so long as they played a role and had some proximate causal relationship to the losses.

This dissent was authored by Sotomayor.

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Of course I'm only supposed to deliver unrelentingly bad news in order to bolster the doom and gloom around these parts. Sorry ;p

Note: for those here who argue that libruls are better than conservatives; check out how these opinions break down.

Dante







• ( http link ) http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-8561_7758.pdf
[Anonymouse]