(Simple: Keep it safe and legal)
Nationally important cases are now before the U.S. Supreme
Court as their new term starts listed here
from ABC News with this headline:
“Supreme Court pivots to abortion, guns, and death
penalty as public approval slides”
Facing an onslaught of political and plunging public approval, the U.S. Supreme Court sails into a new term (commencing October 1) and set to decide some of the most divisive cases in decades on abortion, gun rights, the death penalty, and religious freedom.
By the end of June 2022, the court's conservative majority has the
potential to roll back 50 years of abortion rights precedent; declare a right to carry a handgun outside the home; bolster the
death penalty; and, allow some American parents to use taxpayer funds for religious schools.
Various views and legal opinions follow (formatted to fit the blog).
Many observers say
the court's opinions remain impossible to view without a political lens despite
some recent Justice comments.
Farah Peterson, University of Chicago Law Professor and
Legal Historian said: “This is not a court that has the opportunity to inch
forward and tip toe around issues. We should all be watching these cases very
closely because suddenly the court has new members interested in taking up issues
of grave public concern.”
Irv Gornstein, Executive Director of Georgetown Law's
Supreme Court Institute said: “Not since Bush v. Gore has the public perception
of the Court's legitimacy seemed so seriously threatened. If right-side
judicial philosophies always produce results favored by Republicans and
left-side judicial philosophies always produce results favored by Democrats,
there is little chance of persuading the public that there is a difference between
the two.”
Carrie Severino, President of the Judicial Crisis Network (conservative
advocacy group of abortion cases) said: “We're going to have a huge explosion whichever
direction they rule. If they try to rule down the middle and come up with a
middle ground, you're going to have outrage from the left or serious concerns
from the right.”
What is pending
and what is at stake:
The justices are also expected to address challenges to the
Biden administration's nationwide vaccine mandate; continuation of Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals (DACA for young immigrants brought to the U.S.); partisan
drawing of congressional districts with new census data; and,
Harvard's use of racial affirmative action.
The blockbuster docket will play out as public approval of
the Supreme Court in Gallup polling hits its lowest point in more than two
decades – 40% in September, down precipitously from a ten-year high of 58% just
last year.
On the heels of a term marked by moderation and unanimity,
most court watchers are braced for a sharp pivot to more polarizing decisions,
foreshadowed in part by the justices' 5-4 vote this summer to allow Texas
to ban nearly all abortions across the state on technical
grounds.
Together with a presidential commission weighing an overhaul of the
bench, and mounting pressure on the court's oldest liberal member to retire,
veteran legal analysts say it could be one of the most consequential years for
the Supreme Court in a generation.
Several justices have tacitly acknowledged in recent
high-profile speeches and interviews that stubborn public perception of them as
a politically-motivated group – combined with the hot-button decisions on the
horizon – may significantly undermine the Court's credibility.
The court announced last month that it would continue live-streaming oral arguments to the public at least
through the end of the year, continuing an act of transparency prompted by the
pandemic but even as the justices return to in-person sessions on October 4.
What the Justices say:
Justice Stephen Breyer said in an interview on Good Morning America: “We don't trade
votes, and members of the court have different judicial philosophies. The great
divisions are probably much more along those lines than what we would think of
as political lines.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett used a joint appearance with
Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the University of KY to
reject the notion that the justices are simply politicians in robes, telling students: “To say the court's reasoning is flawed
is different from saying the court is acting in a partisan manner. I think we
need to evaluate what the court is doing on its own terms.”
Justice Clarence Thomas used a speech at the University of Notre Dame to warn
critics: “Against destroying our institutions because they don't give us what
we want, when we want it.”
To many observers, however, the court's opinions remain
impossible to view without a political lens.
Last year, the justices handed down unanimous or near-unanimous decisions in roughly 60%
of cases, according to an ABC News analysis. On several hot-button social
issues, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett
joined liberal Justices Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, to forge common ground.
Laura Bronner, Five Thirty Eight contributor said: “Barrett, for example, voted with Roberts and Kavanaugh over 90% of the time. Based on what we know so far she seems like she's going to be a core component of the conservative triad at the center of the court.”
That triad could be the key to
just how quickly the court continues its shift to the right and whether it's
prepared to set into motion major societal changes on several controversial
issues.
Irv Gornstein, Executive Director of Georgetown Law's
Supreme Court Institute said: “The conditions for the right side running the table
have never looked better. But I don't think sweeping right-side rulings in all
politically salient cases is inevitable.”
Abortion: The court's coming term will be dominated by the
issue of abortion rights, centered on a case out of Mississippi that asks the justices to
directly reconsider the landmark precedent in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood
v. Casey.
Mary Ziegler, FL State University Law Professor and Abortion
Law Historian said: “Roe v. Wade is on thin ice. At the moment it really feels
more as if it's a question of when, not if; and how, not whether.”
Guns: As Americans snatch up guns at record pace and
shooting deaths soar, the justices will also decide a major case out of New
York on whether the Second Amendment creates a right to carry a handgun outside
the home.
Eric Ruben, Southern Methodist University Law Professor,
said: “It would mean that you could expect more people to be carrying handguns
in places like NYC, Boston, and LA if the court affirms such a right. One of
the things that the ‘institutionalist justices” are going to be considering is
ripple effects that could undermine a decade's worth of precedent and the lower
courts.”
Death Penalty and
Gitmo Detainees: The court will decide whether to reinstate the death
sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhohkar Tsarnaev, and whether
a Texas man sentenced to death has a First Amendment right to his pastor
praying aloud and laying hands on him in the execution chamber.
A pair of cases
will also test the government's power to keep national security secrets:
A former alleged associate of Osama bin Laden detained for decades at Guantanamo Bay is demanding
the CIA turn over information on alleged torture at black sites overseas.
A group of Muslim men in California is seeking to sue
the FBI for alleged unlawful surveillance.
The Proverbial
Bottom Line: Analysts say the conservative Supreme Court supermajority
is at a crossroads, the cases ahead set to reveal how far and how fast they'll
move the court's jurisprudence to the right.
My 2 Cents: I purposely
posted the gun advocates’ picture above (or as many of us call them: Gun nuts)
and seriously ask: Is this the new face and kind of America we want for the
nation’s future? That is armed to the teeth and ready for what, pray tell.
To me a 30-year retired Marine (both enlisted and officer) and a Vietnam three-time wounded Vet who supports a rational 2nd Amendment, I say we do not need “open carry laws” period.
That image above to me is sickening and I’m sure to millions of others and world-wide, too. The “Wild-Wild West” is long gone – what that picture shows is utter madness, setting the stage for massive violence.
Just image that at another January 6 Capitol riot.
Folks, we are better than that, aren't we?
Thanks for stopping by.
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