The Constitution separates power, the administrative state fuses it. The Constitution gives Congress the power to make law, the president the power to enforce law, and the courts the power to apply law to specific cases. The administrative state takes all three for itself.
Today, however, the Supreme Court delivered an important blow against that administrative fusion of powers by standing up for the right to have your case heard by a jury. It held that if the Securities and Exchange Commission prosecutes you for fraud, you’re entitled to have your case heard by a jury of your peers.
An administrative agency like the SEC can make a law, charge you for violating it, and prosecute you before its own in-house tribunals—where the judges whose salaries it pays rule in its favor 90% of the time.
That’s what happened to George Jarkesy, who was prosecuted by the SEC in…
