U.S. Supreme Court: Post-Ginsburg Edition

Derp State

x-post = That Supreme Court majority action to leave in place for now the McKesson 1st Amendment ruling is ridiculous because it comes from the extreme crazy 5th Circuit. As the Vox article explains:

Under that lower court decision, a protest organizer faces potentially ruinous financial consequences if a single attendee at a mass protest commits an illegal act.

It is possible that this outcome will be temporary. The Court did not embrace the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision attacking the First Amendment right to protest, but it did not reverse it either. That means that, at least for now, the Fifth Circuit’s decision is the law in much of the American South.

For the past several years, the Fifth Circuit has engaged in a crusade against DeRay Mckesson, a prominent figure within the Black Lives Matter movement who organized a protest near a Baton Rouge police station in 2016.

The facts of the Mckesson case are, unfortunately, quite tragic. Mckesson helped organize the Baton Rouge protest following the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling. During that protest, an unknown individual threw a rock or similar object at a police officer, the plaintiff in the Mckesson case who is identified only as “Officer John Doe.” Sadly, the officer was struck in the face and, according to one court, suffered “injuries to his teeth, jaw, brain, and head.”

Everyone agrees that this rock was not thrown by Mckesson, however. And the Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware (1982) that protest leaders cannot be held liable for the violent actions of a protest participant, absent unusual circumstances that are not present in the Mckesson case — such as if Mckesson had “authorized, directed, or ratified” the decision to throw the rock.

Indeed, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor points out in a brief opinion accompanying the Court’s decision not to hear Mckesson, the Court recently reaffirmed the strong First Amendment protections enjoyed by people like Mckesson in Counterman v. Colorado (2023). That decision held that the First Amendment “precludes punishment” for inciting violent action “unless the speaker’s words were ‘intended’ (not just likely) to produce imminent disorder"

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/15/1238351984/supreme-court-transgender-rights-gender-affirming-care-idaho?ft=nprml&f=1070

The Supreme Court majority also let a conservative law go into effect (until later maybe)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday granted Idaho's emergency request to temporarily revive a state law banning gender-affirming care for children under the age of 18.

The law, which makes it a felony for doctors to medically treat gender dysphoria in minors, will now go into effect except in the case of two anonymous plaintiffs who have until now been treated with hormones and may continue to receive treatment.

Sotomayor and Jackson did a dissent; Kagan dissented without signing on to the other dissent

Should be a day

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/16/supreme-court-obstruction-jan-6-00152406

Ugh .

Alito now going all-in on comparing J6, legally, to hecklers at SCOTUS and protesters blocking traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge.

— Mike Sacks (@MikeSacksEsq) April 16, 2024

Totally cool and chill

Hopefully one day we'll be comparing Alito to Tony Dogs in Casino

He was also asking if someone who pulled a fire alarm to delay a House vote would go to jail for 20 years.

🐦[Alito now going all-in on comparing J6, legally, to hecklers at SCOTUS and protesters blocking traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge.
— Mike Sacks (@MikeSacksEsq) April 16, 2024🕸]🐦

Solicitor General did a good job, but the conservative majority seemed determined to nitpick the statute and Justice department enforcement via analogies that were stretches.

Yesterday the same majority allowed an extremist 5th Circuit to restrict free speech protests in that region greatly by reversing precedent based largely on politics and today is mostly more of the same. There are a few issues admittedly with how law at issue today was phrased , but not that substantial.

Clarence Thomas was back at court today and participating even though due to his wife’s involvement in j 6 he should have recused himself

https://x.com/therecount/status/1780305428171174131?s=46&t=u2ZSlsY3trRV36IPP6jNDQ

Clip here has a great response from solicitor general

It's so depressing when you hear these justices and it's like, "Oh you get all your information from Fox News too huh." Long since become accustomed to right-wing elected officials parroting whatever the dumb outrage of the week is, and I know it's increasingly unrealistic to think of the SCOTUS majority as anything but right-wing (un)elected officials, but it's still dispiriting.

Scalia was fucking quoting the Ben Nelson carveout in 2012 when the ACA went to court. These guys are droogs.

At arguments in Grants Pass, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson are pummeling the Gibson Dunn attorney defending laws that punish homeless people who sleep outside.

Sotomayor asks: If homeless people aren't allowed to sleep anywhere, are they supposed to just "kill themselves"?

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) April 22, 2024

literally what i typically ask people who are for rounding up homeless people sleeping on the streets

except people say 'yes' to it quite often, because yes, most people do want them to not exist

(which is fucked up but hey, USA, USA)

Chief Justice John Roberts displayed a alarming lack of humanity throughout the arguments on Monday, strongly fighting the idea that being homeless could ever be a status because a person can get a home at any point. While other justices questioned the implementation or application of the Ninth Circuit’s rule, Roberts, instead, seemed almost incredulous that we were in court hearing this case.

Chris Geidner from Law Dork Substack

Yeah I mean why don't they just go home jeez

These are the times that the religious justices all agree in a separation of church (ie, Jesus' commandments on helping the poor) and state... not to say they'd do any sort of charity in their private lives either.

In practical terms a lot of this is going to boil down to the policy question of where the burden of alleviating homelessness falls. On one end, there’s the probably untenable idea that every municipality in America no matter how small or under resourced has to provide a fairly sophisticated shelter system, and on the other end it’s blue cities are going to get stuck with the bill for housing the homeless as red cities and small towns can just force them to move along. Neither is really tenable but those are the practical implications of the constitutional question. Some kind of federal legislation is probably needed to ensure that the cost of housing the homeless is properly spread out.

Today at the court— After Starbucks fired seven workers who were trying to unionize their Tennessee store, a U.S. government agency obtained a court order forcing the company to rehire them. Now, Starbucks wants the Supreme Court to curb the government’s power in such cases.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/04/23/starbucks-federal-labor-agency-supreme-court/

Court majority was likely sympathetic to Starbucks

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-starbucks-union-fired-workers-tennessee-e373f840987234c84019cd9643ddf2f3

And today- Idaho abortion ban vs federal law protecting patients who need emergency care. Supreme Court is holding president immunity hearing till tomorrow Thursday April 25 ( & may take their time issuing a decision to help the court majority’s pal)

Hmm. I may be wrong, but the conservatives (even Alito!) seem to want to make emergency access an exception to their hostility? Alito and Gorsuch and Roberts sound like they're begging the federal government for assurance that this is an exception.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar is so good at this.

Sounds like they want to be slick and pretend the Idaho law allows for protection of women, and allows doctors to protect the pregnant person , when in fact the Idaho law doesn’t clearly do that and allows for prosecution of doctors.

Alito was focused on the unborn child language in such a way that didn’t seem to show much of any concern for the pregnant person

I wrote my post before Alito's DINGO ATE MAH BAYBEE language.

https://x.com/chrisgeidner/status/1783170516418773488?s=46&t=u2ZSlsY3trRV36IPP6jNDQ

https://www.rawstory.com/amy-coney-barrett-2667868611/

When I read that Alito was focused on unborn child language am I to assume he was making guttural noises in addition to some combination of moaning and gargling?

He's the angriest one on the court. The state of Idaho Is arguing for the right of prosecutors (or fearful doctors) to deny patients emergency abortion care, even if it means that they could die, and Alito wants that

But today is the long delayed immunity case that could have been dismissed or held awhile ago, and which needs to have a decision issued quickly, so trials can proceed before the election. But Supreme Court, which has in the past, heard and issued decisions quickly, isn't interested here

is there any chance they actually rule that the President is allowed to commit unlimited crime?

Probably frantically pressuring clerks to help them figure out how to make sure it only applies to Republic presidents moving forward.

I'm sure they can come up with some loophole to help him

when you're famous they let you do it

jfc listing to the trump lawyer speak is painful

listening*

hmmm doesn't seem like the SC is buying this

poor fella. don't they owe him? he seated a third of them, got abortion outlawed in the confederacy :(

jesus listening to this trump asshole is really friggin' hard. it sounds like two pieces of sandpaper fucking.

Biden eagerly awaiting the go-ahead to order Trump's assassination

so it doesn't look like this is gonna go Trump's way but I wonder when they're actually gonna issue the ruling, like is this something where they aren't gonna explicitly say Trump is above the law but will help him out by taking 3 months to decide

but how are they going to get the Biden crime family if they absolve Trump? This isn't an easy decision

I started listening during Gorsuch's turn. Jackson's kicking his ass now.

Biden should just whack Trump now, he's 81, if he doesn't get immunity he'll be dead before he reaches prison anyway

DO IT AND BE LEGENDS

Thomas needs to go back to sleep

jesus listening to this trump asshole is really friggin' hard. it sounds like two pieces of sandpaper fucking.

Massive lol. And not only is his laryngitis (or whatever it is) painful it seems that he thinks the faster he speaks the smarter he is.