It’s a lot to hope for, but my sense of Roberts is that he isn’t entirely incapable of imagining the judgement of history, at least not in the way Scalia was or Alito is. That alone might save us from conservative Sharia law.
100% chance that sometime today, someone had to tell Trump he can’t fire John Roberts.
And then someone else had to tell him, because he didn’t believe it.
“People have been telling me you can’t fire a supreme court judge. All kinds of people. Turns out they’re wrong, and I can do it if I want.” - Donald Trump, tomorrow, probably
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/10/politics/supreme-court-planned-parenthood-abortion/index.html
It left in place two lower court opinions that said that states violate federal law when they terminate Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood affiliates who offer preventive care for low income women.
It would have taken four justices to agree to hear the issue, and only three conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch – voted to hear the case.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared to side with the court’s liberals in not taking up the case – showing an effort to avoid high-profile abortion-related issues for now.
I’m not sure I’m comfortable with judges being openly partisan, but anyway, this is kind of cool.
While I commend the action, she just moved to the left of far-right, to unaffiliated or no-preference. And also while I can understand and commend her actions and statements regarding what has been happening to illegal immigrants within her jurisdiction, she is a chief justice who’s affiliation was under a party in decline right now, both in her state, and in the house.
So the realist in me sees this also for job and future career preservation on her part. If she moves on from her current appointment, she will suffer more hardship with her current party affiliation.
So I guess I would summarize, it’s good to see, but that would not mean she would get my approval toward a future supreme court nomination. Go forth from her current position and put that into action on case loads as they appear. Show me you mean you’re not going to side conservatively going forward, and that this isn’t a short-term stance to self-preserve.
I think it’s good. Anyone who is horrified with what their party does but remains in the party after what the Republicans have been doing just makes me question how serious they really are. She doesn’t need to become a Democrat to make a stand against her former party, and yeah, judges shouldn’t be openly partisan when it comes to their work.
I tend to agree. I used to give more of a pass before the GOP started openly edging closer to Fourth Reich territory.
Well, I guess we can be thankful that Roberts isn’t a complete hack.
Although I gather that he’s largely responsible for the legal doctrine that led to the bizarre interpretation of the Arbitration Act of 1925 as a justification of mandatory binding arbitration as a substitute for class action lawsuits in everyday consumer contracts.
On the other hand:
The majority said he took too long or some bullshit. Because I guess rights have expiration dates.
This is a valid argument.
It’s not that rights have expiration dates, but rather that you can’t wait until the last minute to make a request, with the knowledge that accommodating that request will take long enough to delay your sentence.
The execution had been scheduled for 3 months, and the guy waited until 7 days before the event to make this request, which would have taken more than 7 days to accommodate. I believe that the main issue was that they couldn’t go through the security vetting procedures for the Imam he requested in the time allotted.
There’s already clearly established precedent showing that the State does not need to accommodate last minute requests designed to delay implementation of a sentence.
However, it’s possible there is something more to this case, as I can’t find the full court’s opinion. I can only find Kagan’s dissent.
This strikes me as a bullshit argument. The security vetting necessary before letting an Imam into his maximum security holding facility is basically an X-ray and metal detector scan. If the guy isn’t armed, he isn’t going to be a problem. It’s a prison.
It’s not the same issue as letting a visitor into the prison. The imam was already regularly visiting prisoners. However, additional paperwork was necessary for anyone to be present in the execution chamber itself.
The real question is whether the guy should have known that extra paperwork is required, and that’s where the various courts split.
I dunno, I think Kagan’s dissent pretty much shreds the claim that the guy deliberately waited until the last minute and that there wasn’t enough time to accommodate the request.
Really, it’s quite hard to come up with a non-evil rationale for the majority’s decision. The 11th Circuit thought the guy was being harmed and wanted to hear the arguments. At most they were delaying the inevitable execution in order to address the question of the guy’s rights. For the SCOTUS majority to step in show basic contempt for the guy’s rights and for the jurisprudence of the 11th Circuit. They could have simply passed on the case. The 11th Circuit hears it, probably prescribes some remedy, the execution is delayed a couple of weeks, and the guy gets an Imam in the execution chamber. Where’s the harm?
I mean, the state’s position is facially discriminatory. They solve the problem of a Christian chaplain in the room by employing one, but everyone else can just fuck off if they want a non-Christian spiritual advisor? How is that not a religious preference?
Edit: Of course it’s the 11th Circuit, not the 5th. Not sure where that came from!
Without seeing the full court’s opinion and having more information, it’s not really possible to know how well Kagan shreds the claim.
Does anyone have a link to the full case file? I couldn’t find anything.
Yeah, I think the decision is stupid. Rush the process to get the imam there. The prisoner is going to be executed. Is it that hard to show a bit of compassion?
It also just creates bad PR for our justice system. Muslim denied rights, etc. It’s just dumb to allow this to be a problem and take up time in the courts.
I haven’t found it either, but Kagan’s dissent describes the timeline and sequence of events and causes for that sequence. There’s no reasonable argument that the guy waited until the last minute.
Edit: Is it possible there’s no majority opinion because there isn’t one? It’s just a majority vote to vacate the stay?
There’s a couple of issues here. First, the SCOTUS is generally predisposed not to delay executions. Arguments like “Well, what’s the harm of a short delay while you review this?” could be made for pretty much any last minute appeal.
In this particular case, a lower court made a finding of fact that Ray should have known about the paperwork requirements for his imam. Appeals courts are generally very reluctant to overturn findings of fact, because that’s not really their job. The Eleventh Court thought this warranted an exception, but the SCOTUS disagreed.
This, from Alabama’s argument, is breathtaking:
The Eleventh Circuit’s holding that the State had favored one denomination over another might make sense if the State allowed only Christians to bring their preferred spiritual advisors into the execution chamber, but the State forbids anyone who is not employed by ADOC into the execution chamber.
The law of Alabama in its infinite majesty permits Christians and Muslims alike to have a state employee Christian minister in their execution chamber. Equality!