Tag: scotus

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson Applauds Taking Away Americans’ Second Amendment Rights

Future Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson praised New Zealand’s ban on semi-automatic long guns, which included a “mandatory government buyback,” during a commencement speech at Harvard University.

Brown-Jackson applauded the comments from leftist New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s commencement speech championing her government “banning military-style semi-automatics and assault rifles.”

Brown-Jackson can be seen in the video applauding the statement by Arden. It comes as an apparent approval of the removal of Second Amendment rights for Americans and a signal of support for President Biden’s anti-gun agenda. 

President Biden called for enacting more restrictions on the Second Amendment in response to the Uvalde shooting during his speech last week.

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Supreme Court Expands Government Secrecy Powers in Torture-Related Case

The US Supreme Court ruled recently on the government’s use of the state secrets doctrine in an opinion that will make it easier for intelligence agencies to evade accountability in future individual rights cases. In US v. Zubaydah, government torture policy and state secrets converge. A torture victim requested information related to his treatment at a CIA “black site,” and the government blocked that request, citing national security interests. Seven members of the Court joined parts of an opinion siding with the government, with only Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch dissenting. The case has implications for other torture-related cases and for government accountability more broadly as it expands state secrecy powers based on a doctrine that was already overbroad, and suspect in its origins.

The Zubaydah case is procedurally unusual. Abu Zubaydah is currently detained at Guantanamo, but the history of his confinement and treatment at numerous sites over the past two decades is well known. The government has admitted to waterboarding him and subjecting him to other forms of torture, and the 2014 Senate Report on Torture refers specifically to Zubaydah at numerous points. Moreover, former President Obama conceded that Zubaydah was tortured. In the course of seeking a tribunal that would hear his claims, Zubaydah asked the Polish government to investigate criminally the interrogations that took place at a CIA black site in Poland, Stare Kiejkuty. Since much of the supporting evidence was located in the United States, Zubaydah had to petition a US District Court for an order compelling its production. Federal law allows for such a petition, but when it was filed, the US government objected, citing the state secrets doctrine. The case worked its way up to the Supreme Court and the Court ruled for the first time in years on the scope and application of the doctrine.

The state secrets privilege (SSP) is an evidentiary doctrine originating in the 1953 case of US v. Reynolds, a Cold War-era dispute involving the crash of a military aircraft. In Reynolds, the victims’ families sought information about the crash, specifically survivors’ statements and an accident report. The government objected, claiming that revealing this information would endanger national security. The Supreme Court agreed, and their ruling gave birth to the SSP, which expanded in use over the ensuing seven decades. In short, the ruling says that the government is entitled to withhold information, in the course of litigation, where there is a “danger that compulsion of the evidence will expose military matters which, in the interest of national security, should not be divulged.” But the potential for such a broadly stated secrecy power to be abused is self-evident and was so even in the Reynolds case itself. As Louis Fisher has shown, the information withheld in Reynolds surfaced on the Internet in the 1990s and was quite mundane, containing not military secrets but evidence of government negligence instead.

Courts have applied the SSP to thwart discovery of evidence in a case where a twelve-year-old boy came under CIA scrutiny for writing letters overseas, where government workers sought information about deadly chemicals to which they had been exposed (so they could get treatment for their illness), and where the victim in an earlier torture case sought relief. But some questions had not been settled. Could the very subject matter of a case be a state secret, so that no discovery requests could even be made? Could trial courts order production of alleged secret evidence in chambers so a judge could view it before ruling on the SSP? And most centrally relevant to Zubaydah’s case, could the SSP apply to information already in the public domain (in other words, to non-secrets)?

It is this last question – whether the SSP applies to already-known information – that the Court took on in its recent opinion. The existence of Stare Kiejkuty is well-known, described in various sources. And the witnesses whose testimony Zubaydah sought to procure had already testified in similar proceedings. James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were government contractors – psychologists specializing in family therapy who developed coercive interrogation protocols and then supervised their use by the CIA on-site. One of them even wrote a book about his exploits, and both had already testified about their interrogation work in other cases, such as the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

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Is Big Tech Bum Rushing The Supreme Court On Censorship?

NetChoice v. Paxton—the lawsuit that may determine the fate of free speech on social media platforms—has taken a dramatic turn. Just short of two weeks ago, the large platforms—including the likes of Amazon, Google, Twitter, and Facebook, all acting through their trade group, NetChoice—made an “emergency application” to Justice Samuel Alito.

This sort of application is familiar in cases involving grave harm, such as an execution. But is there really any risk of such harm or other emergency in this case? Or are the platforms trying to bum rush the Supreme Court so as to sidestep the ordinary course of judicial inquiry? The Supreme Court needs to be careful that it is not being manipulated.

The case arises out of the Texas free speech statute that bars the largest social media platforms from discriminating on the basis of viewpoint. In response, the platforms claim their censorship of speech is protected by the First Amendment.

Texas counters that they are common carriers, which serve as conduits for other people’s speech, and so can be barred from discriminating on the basis of viewpoint. In other words, the platforms are not being restricted in their own speech, but only barred from discriminating against the speech of others that they carry in their conduits.

These are complex questions, and even the slightest hint from the Supreme Court as to its answers will have outsize implications in the courts below. It therefore is disturbing that the platforms, speaking through NetChoice, have asked the court to take a position in a rushed “emergency application.” Such portentous questions should not be decided in a hurry. So why do the platforms want them resolved in proceedings that were briefed on only a few days’ notice?

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Left-Wing Group Targets Homes Of 6 Conservative SCOTUS Justices

A left-wing group published its plans for protests outside of the six conservative Supreme Court justices’ homes, calling them “extremist.”

The group, going by “Ruth Sent Us,” published what it claims are the addresses of Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts, seemingly in response to the Monday SCOTUS draft opinion leak that signaled the majority of the court may vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“ANNOUNCING: Walk-by Wednesday, May 11, 2022! At the homes of the six extremist justices, three in Virginia and three in Maryland. If you’d like to join or lead a peaceful protest, let us know,” the website of “Ruth Sent Us” states.

“Our 6-3 extremist Supreme Court routinely issues rulings that hurt women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights. We must rise up to force accountability using a diversity of tactics,” it adds.

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The Irrational, Misguided Discourse Surrounding Supreme Court Controversies Such as Roe v. Wade

Politico on Monday night published what certainly appears to be a genuine draft decision by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito that would overturn the Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. Alito’s draft ruling would decide the pending case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which concerns the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi law that bans abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy except in the case of medical emergency or severe fetal abnormalities. Given existing Supreme Court precedent that abortion can only be restricted after fetal viability, Mississippi’s ban on abortions after the 15th week — at a point when the fetus is not yet deemed viable — is constitutionally dubious. To uphold Mississippi’s law — as six of the nine Justices reportedly wish to do — the Court must either find that the law is consistent with existing abortion precedent, or acknowledge that it conflicts with existing precedent and then overrule that precedent on the ground that it was wrongly decided.

Alito’s draft is written as a majority opinion, suggesting that at least five of the Court’s justices — a majority — voted after oral argument in Dobbs to overrule Roe on the ground that it was “egregiously wrong from the start” and “deeply damaging.” In an extremely rare event for the Court, an unknown person with unknown motives leaked the draft opinion to Politico, which justifiably published it. A subsequent leak to CNN on Monday night claimed that the five justices in favor of overruling Roe were Bush 43 appointee Alito, Bush 41 appointee Clarence Thomas, and three Trump appointees (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett), while Chief Justice Roberts, appointed by Bush 43, is prepared to uphold the constitutionality of Mississippi’s abortion law without overruling Roe.

Draft rulings and even justices’ votes sometimes change in the period between the initial vote after oral argument and the issuance of the final decision. Depending on whom you choose to believe, this leak is either the work of a liberal justice or clerk designed to engender political pressure on the justices so that at least one abandons their intention to overrule Roe, or it came from a conservative justice or clerk, designed to make it very difficult for one of the justices in the majority to switch sides. Whatever the leaker’s motives, a decision to overrule this 49-year-old precedent, one of the most controversial in the Court’s history, would be one of the most significant judicial decisions issued in decades. The reaction to this leak — like the reaction to the initial ruling in Roe back in 1973 — was intense and strident, and will likely only escalate once the ruling is formally issued.

Every time there is a controversy regarding a Supreme Court ruling, the same set of radical fallacies emerges regarding the role of the Court, the Constitution and how the American republic is designed to function. Each time the Court invalidates a democratically elected law on the ground that it violates a constitutional guarantee — as happened in Roe — those who favor the invalidated law proclaim that something “undemocratic” has transpired, that it is a form of “judicial tyranny” for “five unelected judges” to overturn the will of the majority. Conversely, when the Court refuses to invalidate a democratically elected law, those who regard that law as pernicious, as an attack on fundamental rights, accuse the Court of failing to protect vulnerable individuals.

This by-now-reflexive discourse about the Supreme Court ignores its core function. Like the U.S. Constitution itself, the Court is designed to be an anti-majoritarian check against the excesses of majoritarian sentiment. The Founders wanted to establish a democracy that empowered majorities of citizens to choose their leaders, but also feared that majorities would be inclined to coalesce around unjust laws that would deprive basic rights, and thus sought to impose limits on the power of majorities as well.

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Supreme Court gives victims of malicious prosecutors new weapon

People who are victimized by malicious prosecutions in America’s court systems have been given a new weapon – confirmation that they no longer have to “prove” their innocence by using the court system’s own documentation.

The Supreme Court in a 6-3 ruling in Thompson v. Clark has found that individuals have a Fourth Amendment right to hold police accountable for maliciously arresting and charging them without probable cause.

“At a time when the courts routinely shield police from accountability for misconduct, this ruling is at least an encouraging glimmer in the gloom,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, which joined a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.

“For too long, Americans have been treated as if they have no rights at all when it comes to encounters with police. This is an overdue reminder that freedom is not secondary to security, and the rights of the citizenry are no less important than the authority of the government,” he said.

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Climate Activist Dies After Lighting Himself Ablaze On Supreme Court Steps

A Colorado man has died 24 hours after lighting himself on fire in front of the United States Supreme Court on Earth Day as part of what appears to be a religious protest against the use of fossil fuels and in order to bring attention to climate change.

On Friday evening, Washington, D.C., first responders airlifted Wynn Bruce, a 50-year-old climate activist, to a local hospital after he engulfed himself in flames. He later died Saturday evening despite medical efforts to save his life.

Those reportedly close to Bruce are emphasizing that he did not consider this to be an act of suicide, rather that he was simply practicing Shambhala Buddhism and viewed the intentional act as one of self-immolation in order to draw attention to the supposedly damaging effects of climate change.

On Twitter, Zen Buddhist priest and environmental scientist Dr. K Kritee tweeted, “This guy was my friend. He meditated with our sangha. This act is not suicide. This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis.”

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Justice Sotomayor: People Who Know FBI Crime Stats Must Be Banned From Capital Case Juries

Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent on Monday arguing that anyone who is familiar with FBI crime stats must be banned from Capital case juries for “racial bias.”

She was backed in her dissent by Justice Kagan and retiring Justice Breyer.

Steve Sailor posted highlights from Sotomayor’s dissent as shared by the Supreme Court:

Cite as: 596 U. S. ____ (2022) 1
SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
KRISTOPHER LOVE v. TEXAS
ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TEXAS
No. 21–5050. Decided April 18, 2022
The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and
JUSTICE KAGAN join, dissenting from the denial of summary vacatur.

[…] The seating of a racially biased juror, therefore, can never be harmless. As with other forms of disqualifying bias, if even one racially biased juror is empaneled and the death penalty is imposed, “the State is disentitled to execute the sentence,” Morgan v. Illinois, 504 U. S. 719, 729 (1992).

In this case, petitioner Kristopher Love, a Black man, claims that one of the jurors in his capital trial was racially biased because the juror asserted during jury selection that “[n]on-white” races were statistically more violent than the white race. […]

“You’ll notice that Justice Sotomayor capitalizes ‘black’ but uses lower case for ‘white,’ which proves she’s not racially biased,” Sailor commented.

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Ketanji Brown Jackson chose leniency even in baby sex torture cases

In the eight child-porn cases that came before her court, former D.C. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson heard horrifying details of “sadomasochistic” torture of young kids — including “infants and toddlers” — yet challenged the disturbing evidence presented by prosecutors and disregarded their prison recommendations to give the lightest possible punishments in each case, according to transcripts of sentencing hearings obtained by the Post.

In some cases, she even apologized to some of the kiddie-porn perverts for having to follow the statutes, which she called “substantially flawed.”

Over and over, the records reveal, Jackson made excuses for the sex fiends’ criminal behavior and cut them slack in defiance of investigators and prosecutors — and sometimes even probation officers serving her court — who argued for tougher sentences because the cases were particularly egregious or the defendants weren’t remorseful.

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