U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Ginsburg Edition

From NY Times article on Alito and Hobby Lobby 2014 release :

Mr. Schenck recruited wealthy donors like Mrs. Wright and her husband, Donald, encouraging them to invite some of the justices to meals, to their vacation homes or to private clubs. He advised allies to contribute money to the Supreme Court Historical Society and then mingle with justices at its functions. He ingratiated himself with court officials who could help give him access, records show.

All the while, he leveraged his connections to raise money for his nonprofit, Faith and Action. Mr. Schenck said he pursued the Hobby Lobby information to cultivate the business’s president, Steve Green, as a donor.

Does Alito denial statement unfortunately make this a one day story for mainstream media and even for Senate Dems? Seems worthy of more investigation and coverage

Could a larger issue be the trust placed in Supreme Court Justices to decide their conflicts of interest? To me it seems like an egregious violation of trust. (No wonder Roberts hates Alito -- suspicion only!)

(How did Hobby Lobby get its name?(!))

They’re not going to allow ethic rules to apply to themselves.

at a certain level some people are so inherently moral and self-limiting that suspicion beyond self-suspicion is unnecessary. and improper really, right? riiiight.

Conservative majority up to no good in another way-

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/opinion/supreme-court-decisions-vacated.html

The Supreme Court is increasingly setting aside legally significant decisions from the lower courts as if they had never happened, invalidating them in brief procedural orders. The pace of these actions has increased in the past 22 months, neutralizing important civil rights and civil liberties decisions.

Reasoned opinions by the federal appeals courts on issues ranging from voting rights to Donald Trump’s border wall have been wiped from the books, leaving no precedent for the lower federal courts to follow. Legally, it is as if these decisions by the appeals courts, one rung below the Supreme Court, had never existed. The Supreme Court’s final, unilateral exercises of power in these cases have gone largely unreported.....

The Supreme Court is increasingly setting aside legally significant decisions from the lower courts as if they had never happened, invalidating them in brief procedural orders. The pace of these actions has increased in the past 22 months, neutralizing important civil rights and civil liberties decisions.

Reasoned opinions by the federal appeals courts on issues ranging from voting rights to Donald Trump’s border wall have been wiped from the books, leaving no precedent for the lower federal courts to follow. Legally, it is as if these decisions by the appeals courts, one rung below the Supreme Court, had never existed. The Supreme Court’s final, unilateral exercises of power in these cases have gone largely unreported....

,,,In 12 of the 13 lower court rulings vacated by the justices in the past 22 months, the court erased decisions that seemed to align with progressive values and objectives...

This court is the main reason I take little heart in the passing of the Respect for Marriage Act

Yep, the majority just invent their own rules. And then they have their lawyer stonewall questions from Congress on things like the Alito Hobby Lobby matter

https://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-stonewalls-defense-samuel-010255406.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFSvzIM6fx3gYLhH1pvNRvnmrqnWSqdLHNqfWZdtOBCXlpbB6Jsy7QZf0Zo8sY5PPA7-UsQO9XjADxvlr8EAq4X-P1Jt6LTLHZj8-6FCFtL-5GztBfSuxPuC2yvFvKdE2Ucrc3DUyPjj9oW0lfqdTHmZKspLOD4RuLgAFOjHBI9s

Torrey did not answer any of Whitehouse and Johnson’s questions regarding ongoing or potential ethics inquiries into the court’s leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, or into Alito’s alleged leak of the Hobby Lobby outcome. Nor did he say which justices received gifts as part of the religious right pressure campaign.

Torrey instead takes the tone of a defense counsel stonewalling an investigative body.

“There is nothing to suggest that Justice Alito’s actions violated ethical standards,” he wrote.

Torrey’s letter simply restates Alito’s denial of the alleged leak, saying that The New York Times report that the conservative justice leaked the Hobby Lobby outcome to Donald and Gail Wright, two supporters of Faith & Action remained “uncorroborated.” He goes on to say that Alito did not violate ethics rules in accepting meals and lodging from the Wrights because the couple “never had a financial interest in a matter before the Court.”

When lawyers call this Supreme Court lawless, this is what we mean. They're hearing oral argument on a case seeking an advisory opinion... something we all agreed they couldn't do in the 1790s. https://t.co/sqGa2NCclq

— Joe Patrice (@JosephPatrice) December 5, 2022

Dud

Today Wednesday this evil nonsensical theory gets discussed in a gerrymandering case

At the center of their case is a controversial legal concept called the "independent state legislature theory," which contends that state legislators alone have the power to govern federal elections unencumbered by traditional oversight from state constitutions, courts and governors.
The concept, if embraced by the justices in its most extreme application, could upend election laws across the country, experts previously told ABC News -- all before the 2024 presidential election.

I think we know how this, and all future ones, end

Fully expecting another half dozen cases in the next 2 years or so reiterating that, yes, Christians can tell gay people exactly how to go to hell

well they are the experts

Justice Jackson can barely contain her rage.

Kinda hope she doesn't

This dude making the independent state legislature keeps redefining "procedural" vs "substantive" and it's got the three lib justices in a lather. Sotomayor has been A+.

He's also a jerk. He refers to "my friends on the other side" with barely suppressed contempt like a small town defense attorney.

I'm not listening because Armond's take on S&S was quite enough for me this morning

The arguments in Moore v. Harper did not go as terribly as I had feared. Clearly, there are three votes for a maximalist version of the "independent state legislature" theory (Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch) and one vote for SOME version of it (Kavanaugh). Barrett sounded skeptical.

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) December 7, 2022

Yeah, Barrett and Kav sounded at best on the fence. It didn't help that Robertson was just awful.

these cases that threaten to completely upend a major part of the legal framework seem to be a red line that Robert and Barrett don't want to touch, hopefully that's the case here

Katya, wow, was fantastic. I'd never heard him in oral argument; I know him from his boring cable show appearances. He had the facts on hand, was crisp, and wasted no time. Several times he exasperated Gorsuch and Alito, who were reduced to impatient "Fine, fine"s.

https://www.salon.com/2022/12/13/law-professors-raise-ethics-concerns-as-kavanaugh-parties-with-at-worst-possible-time/

legal scholars raised concerns about the judicial code of ethics after a report from Politico that revealed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh recently attended a private holiday party hosted by Conservative Political Action Coalition (CPAC) chairman Matt Schlapp.

Also in attendance at the party on Friday night was Stephen Miller, a top adviser to former president Donald Trump and head of the America First Legal Foundation, which has cases pending in court.

Seb Gorka, Erik Prince, & many more right-wing crazies were there in Alexandria, VA

Old Town Alexandria is also home to Flynn. It attracts the crazies who want to cosplay as founding fathers.

This speech on "originalism" by judge Robert L Wilkins is an absolute scorcher

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/12/representation-judiciary-federal-bench-judge-wilkins.html

That is very good. Thanks.

wow, thanks

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/30/us/politics/supreme-court-historical-society-donors-justices.html

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the historical society’s most significant source of identifiable funds — more than 34 percent — is the lawyers and law firms that practice before the Supreme Court, according to the Times analysis

Judge Wilkins otfm.

i remember my first time covering a case in a federal courthouse (Elon Musk was there vs. the SEC lol). they take your electronics. like i had to pick up my iPhone at coat check when my day ended.

i can’t imagine putting money into creating an entire product & not knowing this pic.twitter.com/ll6MAUboPh

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) January 9, 2023

bruh you spent 6 years on this and didn't know a fundamental rule

Perhaps we could get them to agree with a charitable donation. Or accessibility rules.

Still a work in progress. Wish us luck!

— Joshua Browder (@jbrowder1) January 9, 2023

It's gotta be a joke.

the company has other features that are already functional like using AI to cancel subscriptions/try to fight parking tickets in writing/etc, stuff that already has a market, I guess the AI lawyer is the next grift thing they're gong to offer.

it's either a deliberately stupid comment in order to get publicity, or an accidentally stupid comment that has the same result.

i actually used them a couple of months ago when i was desperate to cancel my citizens bank checking account and could not figure out how to do it. and.. i think it worked? not sure since i made a bazillion calls and wrote a bazillion letters myself as well.

the irony? their website contains no way to close your DoNotPay account. you have to email a support email address so they stop billing you....

Roberts' Sinister Six actually did worse today:

The Supreme Court on Monday sided with a Texas death row inmate who is trying to overturn his conviction based on faulty DNA evidence. In a rare reversal, the inmate received the support of the district attorney involved in the case.

In an unsigned order, the justices agreed to take up the case, but in doing so wiped away the lower court’s decision and sent the case back to that court “for further consideration in light of the confession of error by Texas in its brief filed” in September.

“The most alarming thing about the court’s decision to send the case back for a new trial is that it was even necessary in the first place,” said Steve Vladeck, a CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

“The state confessed error in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, only to have that court affirm the conviction and death sentence anyway. Thus, while today’s decision is clearly the correct one, it unfortunately comes with no public reprobation of the lower court for forcing the Supreme Court to step in.”

$1 million to get disbarred and made unemployable.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court says it has been unable to identify "by a preponderance of the evidence" who leaked the Dobbs opinion last year.

A statement from the court, along with a report on the leak investigation, is posted here: https://t.co/cVMLKkbCb9

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) January 19, 2023

it is a mystery

To say it aloud would shatter the Court in a thousand pieces. Good.

it was darryl, the seemingly "can do no wrong" intern who was always working late nites in the supreme court

"What's that bulge under your shirt, Darryl?"

"I'm--uh--pregant?"

"Great! A funny thing about that.."

nant

The second sentence of that official statement ("The leak was no mere misguided attempt at protest") provides an interesting example of suggestive ambiguity. It seems to say something positive while actually stating its negation. How clever of them!

ah. they didn't investigate the justices. just everyone else. makes sense.

geeeee, who could have done it?!

https://i.imgur.com/BmVHOjq.png

that Tim Robinson jpg getting a lot of work these days

The Supreme Court did not disclose its longstanding financial ties with former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff even as it touted him as an expert who independently validated its investigation into who leaked the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

The court’s inquiry, released last week with Chertoff’s endorsement, failed to identify who was responsible for the unprecedented leak.....the court in recent years has privately contracted with The Chertoff Group for security assessments, some broadly covering justices’ safety and some specifically related to Covid-19 protocols at the court itself...he estimated payments to Chertoff’s risk assessment firm, for consultations that extended over several months and involved a review of the justices’ homes, reached at least $1 million. The exact amount of money paid could not be determined. Supreme Court contracts are not covered by federal public disclosure rules and elude tracking on public databases....The court’s decision to keep secret the prior arrangements with Chertoff, whose professional path has intersected over the years with Chief Justice John Roberts and other court conservatives, as it used him for a seal of approval, adds to controversy over the leak investigation itself.

“It’s at least a valid question why they went to someone who had a relationship with the court. Can we be sure he is objective? That’s part of the reason for disclosures,” Sean Moulton, a senior policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, told CNN....A year ahead of Roberts at Harvard Law School, Chertoff and Roberts served in successive years as law clerks on the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals and then at the Supreme Court...

...Last week’s report detailed the many law clerks and permanent employees who had been interviewed, and required to sign affidavits, to try to determine responsibility for the leak. But court officials initially said nothing about whether the justices were interviewed. On January 20, Curley revealed that she had spoken to each of the nine justices but had not asked them to sign affidavits.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/27/politics/supreme-court-chertoff-leak-investigation/index.html

ffs

So Roberts isn’t just throwing money to his school buddy Chertoff, but he is also seemingly enabling his wife to get work too

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/31/jane-roberts-legal-recruiting-work-agencies-cases-supreme-court-00080515