There was a question about whether he would still attend the conference after everything that has happened in the last few days (Alito, for example, cancelled his appearance at another Circuit conference). To his credit, the Chief showed up. CNN reported:
Chief Justice John Roberts said Thursday that the leak of a draft opinion that would strike down Roe v. Wade is "absolutely appalling" and stressed that he hopes "one bad apple" would not change "people's perception" of the nation's highest court and workforce.
In
his first public appearance since the leak on Monday, Roberts also said
that if "the person" or "people" behind the leak think it will affect
the work of the Supreme Court, they are "foolish."
Roberts
was speaking at a meeting of lawyers and judges at the 11th Circuit
Judicial Conference, while the court is on a brief recess. The justices
will meet together again during their closed-door conference in Washington on May 12.
Closer to home, there were two acquittals this week in federal court -- one health care fraud case in front of Judge Cooke (Frank Schwartz and Martin Roth were the defense lawyers) and one gun case in front of Judge Seitz (AFPDs Julie Holt and Ashley Kay).
6 comments:
This leaked draft is getting all the attention but IMHO the opinion that shook me more was the Alito and Thomas dissent if a president could be charged with a crime during the NY Trump subpoena argument. The Supreme Court ruled in the late 90s 9-0 that a president is not immune from civil cases. Thomas was part of that majority. Yet Thomas flips on a criminal case? Clearly we can see the politics at hand because the president was Trump and a republican. Alito and Thomas vote with their party who put them in power whether its if a republican president can be charged, republican gerrymandering and abortion. Its so blatant. Why doesnt someone ask Roberts why he lets Thomas sit on the court and decide 1//6 cases when his wife tried to overthrow the government.
With respect to Chief Justice Roberts, he should remember that no one in the land cares about the (unlawful maybe) actions of the leaker. Most people are extremely concerned with whether the radical members of his Court are about to inflict their reactionary personal opinions, stated in the draft, on the rest of us.
Nothing has been imposed. Roe was the imposition. Now the democratic process will decide what regulations apply to abortion.
@1235
This is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic. In a constitutional republic, the democratic process does not apply to fundamental rights.
It is absurd, and shocks the conscious of anyone who believes in limited government, to think that a state government could tell a woman that she MUST grow and carry a human inside of her body for 9 months while that human involuntarily feeds off her, shifts her organs, and then painfully (perhaps the most painful experience in human lifecycle) erupts from her body.
Abortion isn't a fundamental right so it's left to the democratic process in the states. 13 weeks like most of Europe has seems appropriate but the voters in the states will ultimately decide.
What happens if …. Just for fun ….two conservative justices have to leave the court this term. The reasons don’t matter for this. The republicans lose a lot of seats in the midterm senate elections. And Biden appoints two justices.
Do they revisit this abortion case and return to Roe?
That makes the court a tennis court. The ball going back and forth across the net. Whichever side has a majority reversing the other side’s decisions.
Not a likely scenario. But what if?
What does emerge from this mess is this. The court is political. The justices do have an agenda based on their view of the law and the way to interpret the constitution. Most of the justices - from both sides have made statements that the court is not political and the justices have no agenda. But that is just not true and it is very clear now.
Based on the far right’s increasing acceptance of violent disobedience, might we soon see a day where the court issues a ruling, and a president like Trump tells his supporters to disobey it and orders federal officers to not enforce it?
We are in very very dangerous times.
I think I just found my blog topic for today.
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