Tag: scotus

“No One Knows What Will Happen Now”: Justice Jackson Warns Against Unbridled Free Speech

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is again warning of a growing threat to the nation. In her lone dissent in Chiles v. Salazar, Jackson observed that “to be completely frank, no one knows what will happen now.” The ominous tone stemmed from the fact that free speech had prevailed over state-imposed orthodoxy in a Colorado case.

Eight justices, including her two liberal colleagues, ruled that Colorado could not prevent licensed counselors from “any practice or treatment” that “attempts or purports to change” a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The win for free speech was catastrophic for Jackson and many on the left. Allowing counselors to discuss the causes and basis for sexual orientation changes, Jackson maintained, would “open a can of worms.” It would be far better for the majority to simply silence such dissenting voices in the name of science.

The dissent in Chiles is only the latest example of the chilling jurisprudence of Justice Jackson, including a pronounced dismissal of free speech values. Consider the holding of her colleagues that Jackson finds so horrific.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the First Amendment “reflects … a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth … any law that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an ‘egregious’ assault on both of those commitments.”

What a nightmare.

Instead, Jackson would have declared the ban on anything deemed “conversion therapy” to be “conduct,” not speech.

It is that easy.

You simply impose an orthodoxy and then treat any dissenters as being regulated for their conduct, not their viewpoints.

Justice Elena Kagan could not withhold her frustration with her colleague, noting that “[b]ecause the State has suppressed one side of a debate, while aiding the other, the constitutional issue is straightforward.” She added that Jackson’s view “rests on reimagining—and in that way collapsing—the well-settled distinction between viewpoint-based and other content-based speech restrictions.”

Other countries have embraced Jackson’s permissive approach to speech curtailment.

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Supreme Court Rules 8-1 Against Colorado Law Banning So-Called ‘Conversion Therapy’

The Supreme Court overwhelmingly ruled against a Colorado “conversion therapy” law on Tuesday that bans therapists from helping minors align their “gender identity” with their biological reality. 

The High Court ruled against the law 8-1, saying it likely violates the First Amendment by allowing some viewpoints but not others. Liberal-leaning Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has repeatedly been unable to describe what a woman is, penned the lone dissent. 

Colorado’s law was passed in 2019; more than 20 other states have laws banning “conversion therapy.” While Colorado’s law bans archaic and unethical aversion methods historically associated with conversion therapy, like electroshock therapy, it also more broadly outlaws “providing professional services for the purpose of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including attempting to change behaviors or expressions of self or to reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.”

Kaley Chiles, a practicing Christian and a licensed counselor who, per court documents, “believes that people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design, including their biological sex,” sued the state over the law. She argued the law banned her from using talk therapy with clients who voluntarily come to her to help them align their sexuality or view of their identity with their biological reality, particularly with regard to minors.

Chiles contended Colorado banned consensual conversations based on the viewpoints expressed, in violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, and only allows counselors to push minors toward “gender-affirming care,” which includes social transition, sex change drugs, and surgeries — methods which are experimental, steeped in ideology, and pushed by large medical associations. Colorado argued that licensed health professionals in the state are subject to professional discipline for providing treatment to patients that falls “below the accepted standard of care.”

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‘Refuses to enforce its own precedents’: Sotomayor torches SCOTUS for inaction on ‘significant’ buried evidence in slaying of teen pizza delivery driver

Justice Sonia Sotomayor registered a sharp dissent Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the case of a man sentenced to life in the 1998 slaying of a teenage pizza delivery driver in Louisiana, accusing her colleagues of refusing to “enforce its own precedents.”

Joined only by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor argued that it made little sense for the Supreme Court to effectively free James Skinner’s co-defendant from death row with a decision a decade earlier but to leave Skinner in prison for the rest of his days without parole, when both men were incarcerated for the murder of 16-year-old Eric Walber based on “similar sets of evidence, which centered on the same two eyewitness accounts.”

“Equal justice under law, the phrase engraved on the front of this Court’s building, requires that two codefendants, convicted of the same crime, who raised essentially the same constitutional claims, receive the same answer from the courts,” Sotomayor said. “Here, because the Louisiana courts refused to apply this Court’s Brady precedents, including a decision by this Court involving the very same evidence, Skinner risks spending the rest of his life in prison while [Michael] Wearry walks free,” Sotomayor said. “Because the Court refuses to enforce its own precedents, I respectfully dissent from the denial of certiorari.”

Under Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors must hand over “Brady material,” evidence that is exculpatory or tends to be favorable to the defense. The “withholding of evidence that is material to the determination of either guilt or punishment of a criminal defendant violates the defendant’s constitutional right to due process,” the Supreme Court held in 1963.

The evidence of Brady violations in the case of Michael Wearry was egregious to the point that the Supreme Court ruled his conviction and death sentence had to be set aside in 2016, and a new trial was “required.” Of particular concern was what the state hid from the defense about its star witness, a “jailhouse snitch” named Sam Scott who two years after the slaying claimed a lesser level of responsibility in Walber’s death while pointing to Wearry, Skinner, and three others.

That story not only changed, but was also wrong about basic facts. For instance, the witness claimed Walber was shot to death — but the evidence showed that on that April 1998 day, the Albany High School football player was filling in for someone who didn’t show up for work at Pizza Express and was beaten and run over by his own car, local CBS affiliate WAFB reported. Skinner was allegedly behind the wheel.

Further explaining why the Supreme Court found Scott’s account “dubious,” one of his versions of the crime said Randy Hutchinson — who had “undergone knee surgery to repair a ruptured patellar tendon” nine days earlier — ran after the pizza delivery driver.

Worse yet, Scott had made statements behind bars that he wanted to “‘make sure [Wearry] gets the needle cause he jacked over me,'” an inmate reported. Neither the defense nor the jury were aware of this evidence.

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Supreme Court Set to Hear Landmark Case That Could End Birthright Citizenship Loophole and Cripple Anchor Baby Industry

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments next week in a constitutional showdown over President Donald Trump’s executive order that would end automatic birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to illegal aliens or parents on temporary visas.

The case, Trump v. Barbara, stems directly from Executive Order 14160, titled “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” which Trump signed on his first day back in office.

The order directs all federal agencies, including the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, and Social Security Administration, to stop issuing citizenship documents, such as passports and Social Security numbers, to any child born on American soil unless at least one parent is a U.S. citizen or a green card holder.

Children born to parents who are here illegally, on temporary visas (such as student, work, or tourist visas), or otherwise not subject to full U.S. jurisdiction would no longer qualify for automatic citizenship under the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.

The order explicitly interprets the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” to exclude those whose parents owe primary allegiance to a foreign country.

The Supreme Court granted review in December after multiple lower courts, including federal district judges and appeals courts, issued nationwide injunctions blocking the policy.

All lower courts that have ruled so far have declared the executive order unconstitutional, citing the 1898 Supreme Court precedent in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which held that a child born in the U.S. to Chinese immigrant parents who were legal residents at the time was a citizen.

Oral arguments are set for Tuesday, with a final decision expected by late June or early July.

If the Supreme Court upholds the order, it will represent a major shift in American immigration policy, effectively ending the “anchor baby” incentive that encourages illegal crossings and birth tourism.

Only a handful of countries, mostly in the Americas, grant automatic citizenship based solely on being born there. Most nations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia determine citizenship by bloodline or require at least one parent to be a citizen or permanent resident.

President Trump has repeatedly pointed out the national security and economic threats posed by the current system, pointing to “birth tourism” operations run out of China and other countries where pregnant women fly to the U.S. specifically to give birth and secure citizenship for their children.

Those children later return home but retain the ability to sponsor family members for U.S. visas or even claim benefits as adults.

Kayleigh McEnany, former White House press secretary and current Fox News contributor, broke down the stakes in a recent segment.

“Next week, the Supreme Court is slated to revisit President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order,” McEnany stated. “It directs all U.S. government agencies to refuse issuing citizenship documents to children born to illegal immigrants or children who do not have at least one parent who is an American or a lawful permanent resident. It’s a law President Trump says is in place all over the world, and he’s right. You’re looking at that map. And if he wins in court, he would effectively cripple the booming birth tourism industry.”

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The Senator Who Saved America From FDR’s Court-Packing Scheme

Americans can be thankful that the cynical effort to corrupt the Court in 1937 was defeated by principled legislators like Montana’s Burton K. Wheeler, a member of FDR’s own party.

“When you don’t like the message,” the old saying goes, “shoot the messenger.”

In the wake of Supreme Court rulings they don’t like, leading Democrats in Washington renewed calls last year to “pack” the Court with more liberal justices. Were that to happen, it would surely set off “tit for tat” fights the next time a Republican sits in the White House.

Democrats control the Senate today and could conceivably muster the votes to fill a vacancy if one occurs in the next two years. But a plan spearheaded by Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) to change the Court’s composition from nine to 13 has no chance to pass both houses of Congress, at least for the moment. Boosting the number of justices for purely ideological advantage is the very definition of court-packing.

Reducing the size of a court can also be seen as a form of court packing (or “unpacking”), depending on the intent. Ten years ago, then-Congressman (now Senator) Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) introduced the ironically named Stop Court Packing Act. It would have reduced the number of judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia from eleven to eight. Clearly meant to thwart President Obama’s nominees to the court, it went nowhere.

When Democrat Franklin Roosevelt attempted court-packing in 1937, a prominent member of his own party helped lead the successful fight to defeat it. That would be none other than Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler, who put country ahead of party when he declared,

Create now a political court to echo the ideas of the Executive and you have created a weapon. A weapon which, in the hands of another President in times of war or other hysteria, could well be an instrument of destruction. A weapon that can cut down those guarantees of liberty written into your great document by the blood of your forefathers and that can extinguish your right of liberty, of speech, of thought, of action, and of religion. A weapon whose use is only dictated by the conscience of the wielder.

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Wheeler earned his law degree from the University of Michigan before heading for Seattle. He never made it. His train stopped in Butte, where he lost almost everything he had in a poker game. He decided to recoup by building a law practice in Montana.

His political career began in 1910 when, at age 28, he was elected to the Montana legislature. After running unsuccessfully for Governor in 1920, he won a US Senate seat two years later. Wheeler was a staunch ally of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies, but he courageously broke with FDR over the court-packing plot.

Fresh from a landslide reelection to a second term in 1936, Roosevelt was determined to crush the independence of the Supreme Court by turning it into a rubber stamp for the White House. He was so rattled by rulings against his dubious New Deal policies that he publicly smeared the Court as “those nine old men.” Nobody had tampered with the size of the Court since 1869, when Congress established that the highest judicial body would consist of nine justices.

FDR asked lawmakers to approve a plan whereby the President could nominate a new justice every time a sitting one reached the age of 70 and failed to voluntarily retire. Roosevelt already controlled the executive branch and held sway over the legislative branch, with big Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. For Wheeler, a grab for the judicial branch was a bridge too far.

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SCOTUS Rejects Citizen Journalist’s Case Against Officials Who Arrested Her for Asking Police Questions

Priscilla Villarreal built a following in the way modern news often grows now. Not through printing presses or broadcast towers, but through a Facebook page that drew more than 200,000 people into its orbit.

In Laredo, Texas, under the name La Gordiloca, she reported quickly, conversationally, sometimes uncomfortably close to the raw edge of events.

In 2017, she texted a police officer to confirm the identities of two victims, one from a suicide, one from a car accident. She received answers. She published them.

Months later, she was arrested.

The law used against her had been sitting unused for 23 years. It makes it a felony to solicit nonpublic information from a government official “with intent to obtain a benefit.”

In Villarreal’s case, authorities argued that the benefit was popularity, more followers, more attention, more reach.

In other words, doing well at the job became the job’s alleged crime.

A state judge dismissed the charges, finding the statute too vague to stand. That might have sounded like a resolution, the system correcting itself in the end.

Instead, it became the beginning of a second act.

Villarreal filed a civil rights lawsuit against the officials involved in her arrest. The response was immediate and familiar within legal circles: “Qualified immunity.”

The doctrine protects government officials from liability unless there is already a court decision declaring nearly identical conduct unconstitutional.

No case had ever addressed the idea of arresting a journalist for asking a question over text.

A three-judge panel initially sided with Villarreal, stating, “If the First Amendment means anything, it surely means that a citizen journalist has the right to ask a public official a question, without fear of being imprisoned. Yet that is exactly what happened here: Priscilla Villarreal was put in jail for asking a police officer a question. If that is not an obvious violation of the Constitution, it’s hard to imagine what would be.”

The clarity of that statement did not last.

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Supreme Court Limits ISPs’ Liability For Online Piracy

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sharply curtailed when internet service providers can be held liable for copyright infringement committed by their subscribers, handing a major victory to broadband companies and dealing a setback to Sony Music Entertainment and other major labels seeking to combat online piracy.

In a 7-2 decision (with Justices Sotomayor and Jackson concurring only in the judgment), the justices ruled that Cox Communications Inc. cannot be held liable for the actions of customers who illegally downloaded and shared songs using its network, even after the company received more than 163,000 infringement notices from copyright holders. The ruling reverses a $1 billion jury verdict against the Atlanta-based cable and internet giant and clarifies long-standing uncertainties about secondary liability under U.S. copyright law.

The case stemmed from a 2018 lawsuit in which the labels accused Cox of willful contributory and vicarious infringement for failing to terminate repeat offenders. A federal jury in Virginia sided with the labels on both theories and awarded $1 billion in statutory damages. The Fourth Circuit upheld the contributory-liability finding but tossed the vicarious-liability verdict, leading to the Supreme Court appeal on the contributory issue alone.

Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said a service provider is liable for a user’s infringement only if it intended its service to be used for that purpose. “The provider of a service is contributorily liable for a user’s infringement only if it intended that the provided service be used for infringement, which can be shown only if the party induced the infringement or the provided service is tailored to that infringement,” he wrote.

Such intent exists only when the provider actively induces infringement – such as by marketing a product as a tool for piracy – or offers a service that is “not capable of ‘substantial’ or ‘commercially significant’ noninfringing uses,” the opinion stated, citing the court’s landmark 1984 decision in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios Inc. and the 2005 ruling in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster Ltd. 

“Mere knowledge that a service will be used to infringe is insufficient to establish the required intent to infringe,” Thomas emphasized, rejecting the broader “material contribution” standard applied by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

The decision rejects the Fourth Circuit’s holding that Cox could be liable simply by continuing to provide internet service to subscribers whose accounts were linked to repeated violations. “The Fourth Circuit’s holding went beyond the two forms of liability recognized in Grokster and Sony,” the opinion states.

Cox, which serves about six million subscribers, had argued it took reasonable steps to address piracy, including sending warnings, suspending service and terminating accounts after multiple notices. The company contractually prohibits subscribers from using its network for infringing activity. Sony Music Entertainment and other major labels countered that Cox’s efforts were insufficient.

Tuesday’s ruling is expected to have ripple effects across the telecom and entertainment industries – with industry executives long warning that expansive secondary-liability rules could force providers to monitor and police all user activity, raising costs and privacy concerns. Copyright owners have argued that without stronger accountability for intermediaries, online piracy remains rampant.

For Cox, the ruling caps years of litigation. The company has said it will continue to cooperate with copyright holders through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s notice-and-takedown process, though the court noted that the statute creates defenses rather than new causes of action.

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Liberal Supreme Court Justice Got Smacked Down During Arguments Over Mail-in Ballots

The Supreme Court heard arguments about laws that allow mail-in ballots to be counted five days after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. Fourteen states permit these ballots to be counted within that period, but a legal challenge in Watson v. RNC, which had its oral argument on Monday, could shorten this window. The court appeared ready to restrict it, potentially undermining a favored Democratic election strategy for certain elections.

The case, Watson v. RNC, challenges a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots to be received up to five days after Election Day, as long as the ballot is postmarked by Election Day. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia also allow mail-in ballots to be received after Election Day. 

Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, said the case would give an opportunity for mail-in ballot laws to be uniform across the country. 

“Federal law clearly states that ballots must be received by Election Day,” Snead told The Center Square. “Despite this, states continue to allow absentee ballots to pour in days or even weeks late.” 

In Illinois, mail-in ballots can be received up to 14 days after Election Day. Lawyers for the RNC argued that the federal government sets a date for federal elections and that all ballots need to be available for counting by that date. 

Lisa Dixon, executive director at the Center for Election Confidence, said delayed mail-in ballot receipt deadlines became more prominent during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said a ruling in favor of the RNC would still allow states to accept late mail-in ballots for nonfederal elections. 

Lawyers for Mississippi have argued that upholding a strict receipt deadline would jeopardize ballots for military and overseas voters. However, Congress’ passage of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Voting Act established requirements for states to send absentee ballots 45 days before a federal election. 

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The Supreme Court Just Dealt a Blow to the Dems’ Plan to Persecute ICE Agents If They Retake Power

The Democrats have made it painfully, frighteningly clear that they intend to weaponize the government against President Trump, his allies, and anyone who didn’t sufficiently “resist” the Trump administration if they regain power. Susan Rice said last month, “When it comes to the elites, the corporate interests, the law firms, the universities, the media…it is not going to end well for them, for those that decided…that they would act in their perceived very narrow self interest,” Rice said, “which I would underscore is a very short-term self-interest and take a knee to Trump.”

Rice added, “If they’ve done something wrong, they will be held accountable. And if they haven’t broken the law, good for them; if they’ve done the right things, good for them. That also will be noted and remembered. This is not going to be an instance of forgive and forget. The damage that these people are doing is too severe to the American people and our national interests.”

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker promised to do the same, telling the media, “I don’t think you can speak of it in shorthand, but we’ve got to restore the rule of law, and that means holding people accountable who’ve broken the law. I’m talking about the people in this administration who’ve broken the law and federal agents who’ve broken the law.” He said Democrats would do whatever it took to prosecute them, “Criminally prosecuted, civilly prosecuted. Whatever it is that we can do.”

The biggest target thus far of the Democrats’ retribution plans is ICE agents. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner vowed to hunt them down like Nazis. Eric Swalwell said he’d make their lives a living hell if he’s elected Governor of California. And several states, including Maryland and Rhode Island, have introduced legislation that would bar ICE agents from obtaining law enforcement jobs in those states, while Colorado advanced a bill allowing lawsuits against ICE agents.

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Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Arrested Christian Street Preacher

A Mississippi street preacher who sued a community over a law that banned him from preaching near an amphitheater has won his battle to challenge the law.

Gabriel Olivier claimed his arrest under a law passed by Brandon, Mississippi, violated his First Amendment rights, according to the Associated Press.

The city said he had shouted insults, and invoked the law to fine Olivier and slap him with a year of probation. Olivier paid the fine and completed his probation.

The decision allowed Olivier to move forward but does not ensure he will win the suit.

“This is not only a win for the right to share your faith in public, but also a win for every American’s right to have their day in court when their First Amendment rights are violated,” Kelly Shackelford, president, CEO, and chief counsel for First Liberty Institute, said in a news release on First Liberty’s website.

“We’re delighted that the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed Gabe’s right to his day in court. It’s just common sense that a citizen who is arrested under an unconstitutional law should be able to challenge that law. As people of faith, we look to the judiciary to protect our constitutional right to spread the gospel,” Allyson Ho, co-chair of First Liberty’s nationwide Appellate and Constitutional Law Practice Group, added.

“No American should be criminally charged for sharing their faith in public,” Nate Kellum, senior counsel at First Liberty, remarked. “This is a wonderful day for Gabe and for the First Amendment.”

Olivier himself said that “my goal from the beginning was to be granted my rights as an American citizen under our great Constitution.”

“Now all people with deeply held Christian religious beliefs who are called to share the good news can do so in the public arena.”

As noted by SCOTUSBlog, Olivier was battling an argument from the city that a 1994 ruling, Heck v. Humphrey, should be used to block his lawsuit. The ruling limits challenges convicted criminals can bring against a law under which they were convicted.

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