Category: The Supreme Court

Legal Seizure.

In a challenging pop test of compassion for lefty news readers, Chief Justice John Roberts suffers a seizure at his vacation home in Maine. (He previously experienced a similar seizure in 1993.) Roberts has ‘fully recovered from the incident,’ and a neurological evaluation ‘revealed no cause for concern,’ the Supreme Court said in a statement.” (Well, I, for one, will admit to breathing a sigh of relief when I found it was Roberts, and not Justice Stevens, who suffered the scrape. In any case, it sounds like the Chief Justice is fine.)

Backcourt Violations.

“‘Conservatives got everything they could reasonably have hoped for out of the term,’ said Thomas C. Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who specializes in Supreme Court litigation.” Proving the crucial importance of the Alito-O’Connor switch (and, I’ll continue to maintain as my answer to Emily Bazelon’s line of questioning, the 2004 election), the Roberts Court flexed its muscle in depressing fashion this week, voting 5-4 (as feared) not only to gut the McCain-Feingold act in the name of “free speech” but also — seriously, no lie — to partially roll back Brown v. Board of Education. (In another well-reported case, the majority’s inordinate fear of bongs trumped this stalwart commitment to free speech.) So, if you’re keeping score, Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy came down like this: money good, corruption good, drug hysteria good; clean politics bad, youthful irony bad, integration bad. Oh, wonderful. Suddenly, the announcement that the Court will take a look at the Guantanamo cases doesn’t sound so appetizing. Update: Slate‘s slate of legal observers discuss.

Paid for by the John-Roberts-is-a-Corporate Stooge Committee.

“‘This is deja vu all over again,’ said Justice Stephen G. Breyer. ‘We’ve heard it.’” The Supreme Court hears oral arguments on McCain-Feingold…again, and word suggests the act’s fate may now be in jeopardy with Roberts and Alito on the Court. “Those justices seemed open to a Wisconsin anti-abortion group’s challenge of a provision that corporate-funded ads broadcast in the weeks before an election not mention a candidate by name.” Update: Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick was watching too, and agrees that it doesn’t look good for McCain-Feingold, which she labels a “Dead Duck Walking.”

The Other Shoe Drops.

“The government may use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman.” In keeping with a tendency to move right incrementally, without necessarily overturning any laws (one that may also pose trouble for the McCain-Feingold act in coming weeks), the Roberts Court upholds a ban against partial-birth abortion 5-4, with Justice Anthony Kennedy the swing vote. (He was joined, of course, by Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito.) Kennedy’s reasoning? According to Slate‘s always-perceptive Dahlia Lithwick, it was fear of the Inconstant Woman: “Today’s holding is a strange reworking of Taming of the Shrew, with Kennedy playing an all-knowing Baptista to a nation of fickle Biancas.” For her part, Senator Barbara Boxer sadly summed it up as such: “‘It confirms that elections have consequences,’…alluding to Bush’s re-election and the seven GOP Senate wins in 2004 which set the stage for the appointment of Roberts and Alito.“

With that in mind, all the major candidates for 2008 obviously weighed in on the decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, although everyone pretty much followed to party script, even the ostensibly pro-choice Giuliani. [Clinton | Edwards | Giuliani | McCain | Obama | Richardson | Romney] “Wednesday’s ruling raises the stakes for the 2008 presidential election, which is almost certain to pit an abortion-rights Democrat against an anti-abortion Republican.” Let’s not make the same mistake again, y’all.

Getting Warmer.

“EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change.” By a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court determines that the Dubya EPA violated the Clean Air Act when it refused to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, thus hopefully setting the stage for an (admittedly unlikely) reevaluation of global warming by the executive branch. “Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote one dissent, which was joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.” Yep, the usual suspects.

Alito’s Way?

“‘The stakes are enormous,’ said Michael E. Toner, a Federal Election Commission member who served on President Bush’s campaign in 2000. ‘We’re watching this case very closely.’” It was upheld 5-4 in 2003…can it withstand Justice Alito? The Roberts Court declares it will take another look at McCain-Feingold in the coming session, and opponents of reform are hoping Alito will help them reopen the floodgates. “Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the Supreme Court challenge is ‘going to be a prime opportunity for opponents of campaign regulations to make some headway in watering down the standards.’“

Ground Control to Justice Bill.

Newly released — and somewhat controversial — FBI files, dating from the former Chief Justice’s two confirmation battles in 1971 and 1986, disclose that William Rehnquist battled a painkiller addiction in the early ’80s while serving on the Court. “Doctors interviewed by the FBI told agents that when the associate justice stopped taking the drug, he suffered paranoid delusions. One doctor said Rehnquist thought he heard voices outside his hospital room plotting against him and had ‘bizarre ideas and outrageous thoughts,’ including imagining ‘a CIA plot against him’ and ‘seeming to see the design patterns on the hospital curtains change configuration.’ At one point, a doctor told the investigators, Rehnquist went ‘to the lobby in his pajamas in order to try to escape.’“

Taking Initiatives.

Regarding ballot initiatives, it was a bad night for same-sex marriage and marijuana decriminalization. Still, there’s cause for hope around the country in the six state minimum-wage hikes that passed, as well as the repudiation of the stringent abortion law in South Dakota (Justice Kennedy: take note.) Speaking of the Court, its eminent domain decision of last year took a beating in nine states, although California, Idaho, and Washington thankfully repudiated stronger measures that would effectively hobble any kind of federal land regulation.