U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Ginsburg Edition

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

Hmm

NEWS: A federal judge Monday said the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision may *not* have ended the constitutional right to an abortion.

She wants briefing on whether the 13th amendment — or any other — might confer such a right.

w/ @joshgerstein https://t.co/aQcAij29tk

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) February 6, 2023

That could be important.

I think we'd need a different set of justices for this argument to survive a SCOTUS case.

I think it's clear that the three liberals plus Gorsuch would hold that recording the police is constitutionally protected, but I'm not sure about that fifth vote. It's certainly harder post-RBG. The originalist analysis is kinda hard when smart phones are involved!

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) February 7, 2023

If somehow this leads to SCOTUS outlawing smart phones (and social media), then sign me up for originalism.

Fun fact: at the Boston Massacre, everyone had to hold still for an hour so an artist could sketch it.

honestly what the fuck do smart phones have to do with anything? You have a protected right to write down, draw, speak about, publish articles about, etc. whatever you saw police do, why would video be any different?

President Alito does not approve.

Police are testing out new abuses. It's not cool to film them with your phone before they've had the freedom to work them out.

How would they even know I am filming them and not watching a funny Tik Tok at the same time they are brutalizing someone?

I can see it now. The SCOTUS decision will find that filming police on duty creates a serious jeopardy to public safety by potentially distracting police as they attempt to deal with criminal activity, but that the 1st amendment must be respected; their solution is that police departments must provide 'reasonable accommodations' for those who seek to film police on duty. It will cite the example of requiring parade permits in order to take advantage of the constitutionally protected right of assembly as the sort of 'reasonable accommodation' that passes the test of constitutionality.

Republicans got rid of blue slips process for circuit court nominees, but Dem Senator Durbin wants to still largely retain them for District Court nominees even though that will allow Republicans to block and delay nominations

Durbin responding to NYT editorial board urging him to end blue slips:

“I want to continue blue slips with one caveat: I won’t honor a blue slip that I believe discriminates because of race, gender, or sexual discrimination. So we’ll see how this develops.”

The Supreme Court has failed to reach consensus on an ethics code of conduct specific to the nine justices despite internal discussion dating back at least four years, according to people familiar with the matter.

It remains an active topic at the court, these people said, and the court’s legal counsel Ethan Torrey prepared a working document of issues for them to consider. There is no timeline for the justices to act, however.

...Although the justices say they voluntarily comply with the same ethical guidelines that apply to other federal judges, the lack of an ethics code has become a prominent complaint on Capitol Hill, where in 2019 Justice Elena Kagan told a congressional committee that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was “seriously” studying the issue. But a discussion among the justices failed to produce agreement, people familiar with the matter said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/09/supreme-court-ethics-code/

Astounding!

4 more years of serious research is needed

ha yeah was tryna figure out which was astounding, that there is no formal code, or that they again failed to decide upon one which to implement. but i know soto knows the former. mystery solved *orders negroni*

my man

These folks have a job for life on good behavior (which really only means that they can theoretically be impeached).

Therefore I don't see any incentive for any of them to act in the public interest

plus impeachment, if I recall, has only been even attempted once and didn't go anywhere.

once you're in, you can basically make up the rules as you go along with no accountability

since you don't actually have to be a judge elsewhere first, I expect next time GOP gets in the White House that CEOs and oil salesmen will be the next ones nominated. why even bother calling them justices anymore

next time GOP gets in the White House that CEOs and oil salesmen will be the next ones nominated

ahem PILLOW salesmen

Thurgood Marshall was not wrong when he said "do the right thing and let the law catch up", it's just the first part of that sentence is kind of essential

xpost lol

can i just say my mother bought me a MyPillow before either of us knew who he was, she kept apologizing like she caused Jan 6 or something

How US Supreme Court conservative majority ruling is being used at lower courts:

Maryland’s requirement of a background check and firearm-safety course for those wanting to acquire a handgun is in danger because no similar regulation existed before the 1900s, appeals court judges indicated Friday as they heard arguments on the regulation.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that to restrict gun possession, “the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” through the end of the 19th century.
Two judges on the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit suggested that they did not believe Maryland’s regulations could pass that test.

Washington Post article excerpt

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/03/10/maryland-gun-permit-requirement-in-jeopardy/

End of the 19th C.? Start regulating magazine size, make everything bolt action, heck, let's require all guns to be cap and ball.

This is consistent with the right's desire to undo the 20th century.

For decades, Justice Clarence Thomas has secretly accepted luxury trips from a major Republican donor, newly obtained documents and interviews show.

The extent and frequency of these apparent gifts to Thomas has no known precedent in modern SCOTUS history... 🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/ROuGuyD6r6

— ProPublica (@propublica) April 6, 2023

THIS IS FINE

god, if he could just die soon

maybe he'll choke on Leonard Leo's dick

nice yacht you got there, would be a shame if someone...set fire to it

Canon 2: A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in all Activities
(B) Outside Influence. A judge should not allow family, social, political, financial, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment. A judge should neither lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others nor convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge. A judge should not testify voluntarily as a character witness.

yeah, you know to whom this does NOT apply? hint there are nine

it's almost as if lifetime appointments are a bad thing

very doubtful that Thomas is the only one doing this

yeah _and_ that lol

there oughta be a law oh wait

From that Propublica piece:

In a statement to the Times, Leo said it was “high time for the conservative movement to be among the ranks of George Soros, Hansjörg Wyss, Arabella Advisors and other left-wing philanthropists, going toe-to-toe in the fight to defend our constitution and its ideals.”

Man, Soros sure is a bogeyman to them. As if the Montgomery Burnses of America haven't been been buying Republican political favor to dismantle labor and environmental protections since forever. Add conservative Catholicism and Evangelical fervor and watch the fun begin.

yeah, sure is high time that conservative donors finally enter the battlefield and begin influencing politics on a national level

Ginni really needs to be stopped but the mechanics of that remain sketchy

she's fucked up but not on scotus. we put a guy there. the mechanics of that are even sketchier. (not galaxy brain i know)

they could fall into some kind of booby trapped pit filled with sharpened spikes on one of their vacations, the mechanics of that are pretty straightforward

pointed critique taken to heart(s)

I am shocked, shocked at the latest Clarence Thomas revelations.

https://i.imgur.com/eM7omfn.jpg

Thomas to everyone: "Drop dead."

Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years. As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them. Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable. I have endeavored to follow that counsel throughout my tenure, and have always sought to comply with the disclosure guidelines. These guidelines are now being changed, as the committee of the Judicial Conference responsible for financial disclosure for the entire federal judiciary just this past month announced new guidance. And, it is, of course, my intent to follow this guidance in the future.

tbf I don't think you actually have to give Thomas anything to get him to keep making shitty votes

My initial question when this story broke was whether Crow did in fact have any connection to any case before the Court. Of course Thomas is going to say no, but that's not sufficient.

The fact that he's even responding shows he knows this isn't a good look.