Yes, but it's a long, slow process. Not helped along when some of those "social groups" seem to just not get it (refer also to California's prop 8 vote).

FTA: "[...]Clarence Thomas, whose entire solo dissent was devoted to research showing that the Founding Fathers did not believe people under 18 had First Amendment rights at all. If Clarence Thomas thought really hard, could he think of any other category of people who were denied full civil rights in the 1700s, and hence why we wouldn't want to apply that standard today?)"

Grand theft varies by state but often starts as low as $400. In California it seems to be $950 but they never have trouble inflating the value to charge it as such.

The real issue (to the Court) seems to been how the case was presented, not the merits of the case itself. Despite the one statement about "fly-by-night company", the judge was really just complaining about the quality of the case. Had the same case be presented by good attorneys with a well-prepared case the judge would have gone along with it. When there's big money involved (SCO, patent trolls) you can hire expensive attorneys and take the time to prepare (spin) a case, even out of nothing. Here the attorneys were working for free and for the defense; there was no money in for them and it showed in their work.

To be fair, this was an appeal of the $27,000 award, which in turn was a reduction from an 11 million dollar award. Not the same at all as litigating a $27k lawsuit the first time around.

But in a very similar situation, they did shut down Craigslist's 'adult services' section, sending it to all corners of the internet instead of keeping it nicely contained. They had a willing partner, and all the 'baddies' were right there waiting to be picked off, yet that's not the way they played it.