Tag: supreme court justices
Not A Joke! Retired Justice Kennedy Praises Supreme Court's 'Independence'

Not A Joke! Retired Justice Kennedy Praises Supreme Court's 'Independence'

Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is very concerned about what is happening with the courts, you guys. No, he didn’t have anything to do with it. Why do you ask?

Kennedy’s remarks came during his Thursday speech at a forum titled “Global Risks to the Justice System—A Warning to America.” He was one of several speakers, including judges from countries where authoritarian crackdowns threatened the independence of the judiciary.

The bravery of those judges most definitely did not rub off on Kennedy, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan. In the face of repeated and ongoing attacks on the judiciary by President Donald Trump and his administration, the best Kennedy could do was praise judicial independence, as if that exists on the nation’s highest court any longer.

“Judges decide issues which have political consequences, but they don’t decide in a political way,” Kennedy claimed. “We have to honor the fact that judicial independence does not mean judges are put on the bench so they can do as they like—they're put on the bench so they can do as they must.”

Come on, Tony. Your cute little deal with Donald Trump in 2018, where you personally lobbied him to choose your former clerk Brett Kavanaugh to succeed you, was step two in Trump’s transformation of the court into a conservative grievance machine, following on the heels of Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation the previous year.

You were perfectly aware that opposition to abortion was one of Trump’s litmus tests for Supreme Court nominees—he even campaigned on it. You were also perfectly aware that many of his lower court picks during his first term openly held anti-LGBTQ+ views. Trump explicitly chose judges because they would rule “as they like” instead of ruling “as they must.”

Indeed, when judges do rule as they must, and Donald Trump doesn’t like it, he attacks them personally. He called for Judge James A. Boasberg to be impeached after he blocked the administration from deporting Venezuelan immigrants.

At least 11 judges have had their families threatened with violence after they ruled against the Trump administration. Many of the threats occurred over at Elon Musk’s Nazi bar, X, where Musk himself amplified some of them. High-profile Trump supporter Laura Loomer shared a photo of Judge Boasberg’s daughter, alleging that she was helping undocumented gang members and calling for Boasberg and his daughter to be arrested and his entire family to be deported. James Boasberg was born in California to U.S. citizens, so the deportation demand is equal parts chilling and weird.

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour faced both a bomb threat and a swatting incident after he ruled Trump’s birthright citizenship order was unconstitutional. During his speech, Kennedy fretted that “Judges must have protection for themselves and their families. Our families are often included in threats” without ever acknowledging who is whipping up those threats.

Congressional Republicans have attacked judges on every front. They’ve called for the impeachment of judges who block Trump’s illegal actions. The Senate tried to get a provision in the Big Beautiful Bill restricting lower courts from issuing preliminary injunctions against the government unless the plaintiff posted a bond equal to whatever the government said were its costs and damages from not being able to do illegal things right away.

Whenever conservatives want to both-sides the threats to the judiciary, they have literally one example: At a 2020 rally outside the Supreme Court, Sen. Chuck Schumer called out Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch and said, “You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You will not know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Roberts immediately issued a statement quoting Schumer and saying that “threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.”

But when Trump relentlessly attacks the judiciary, including routinely defying court orders, and elected officials call for judges to be impeached, the best Roberts could come up with was, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

This is equally as mealy-mouthed as Kennedy’s comments that the judiciary should stand for the rule of law and “we must always say no to tyranny and yes to truth.” Notably absent is any mention of who is attacking the rule of law. Notably absent is any mention that the rule of law went out the window when the conservative majority granted Trump immunity. Notably absent is any mention of who is saying yes to tyranny and no to truth.

Kennedy doesn’t deserve praise or a cookie for these vague statements. If he genuinely cared about attacks on the rule of law, he would need to challenge his former colleagues. He would need to challenge Trump, the man he cut a deal with to get Kavanaugh a lifetime appointment. He would need to say that the threats of violence against judges only occur when they rule against the administration. He would need to call out the ceaseless attempts by GOP elected officials to knee-cap the courts.

Kennedy is not going to do any of those things, but he’s probably going to continue to make a lot of high-minded speeches. Feel free to ignore him until he tells the truth.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

What Wisconsin's Supreme Court Election Could Mean For Abortion Rights

What Wisconsin's Supreme Court Election Could Mean For Abortion Rights

On April 1, Wisconsin voters will elect their next Supreme Court justice. A seat that opened up after Justice Ann Walsh Bradley announced she would not seek reelection when her term expires on July 31 will be filled by either conservative candidate Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel or liberal candidate Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford. The new justice will take office in August.

If Schimel is elected, he would flip control of the high court from its current 4-3 liberal majority and possibly determine the ruling on the validity of an 1849 statute that could ban abortion in the state.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and the federal constitutional right to abortion in June 2022, Wisconsin’s 1849 law went into effect, and for over a year, it was used to ban abortion in the state.

In December 2023, Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled that the law pertained to infanticide and not to abortion, but challenges to the law continue through the courts. The state Supreme Court heard oral arguments in November 2024, and a ruling is expected in the coming months.

Where it specifically mentions abortion, the 174-year-old statute provides exceptions for “therapeutic abortion” performed by a physician and deemed necessary “to save the life of the mother.”

Schimel has said he believes that “life begins at conception,” and in a recent debate with Crawford on March 12, when he was asked about the 1849 statute, Schimel said, “It was passed by two Houses of the legislature and signed by a governor. That means it’s a valid law.”

An expert in health care law and a physician told the Wisconsin Independent that the wording of the law is vague and could put patients’ lives in danger.

Richard Davis, a Milwaukee attorney with the firm Quarles and Brady, said that while the law was being enforced as a ban on abortion, he advised his clients to meticulously document every case in which an abortion was required to save the life of the patient.

“The key there is medical documentation, making sure the physician involved in the procedure or ordering the procedure is able to clearly and accurately state why the procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother, and keeping thorough records of that,” Davis told the Wisconsin Independent.

“Just kind of thinking forward from that physician’s perspective, if the state were to try to bring a case here, having that clear documentation of saying, No, this was necessary to save the life of the mother in my medical judgment for X, Y and Z reasons, and the more clearly and effectively they could state that, the lower the liability here is under the statute.”

Davis said that if the 1849 law were to again be interpreted as an abortion statute as opposed to a feticide statute and be enforceable by the high court, his greatest legal concern is a lack of clear parameters guiding physicians in practice.

“From a legal perspective, there’s only so much we can say, this is what the law says, and it really does boil down to the physician’s medical judgment,” Davis said.

Dr. Shefaali Sharma, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Madison, said that she’s concerned that the vague wording of the 1849 statute will result in more maternal deaths.

“When you put in vague wording that scares people in terms of how they practice, and instead of practicing based on the clinical picture in front of them and the science and the data and the evidence and objective standpoints with shared decision-making with the patient after they’ve been counseled, and instead you use fearmongering and political agendas to define what a life is and how on the edge it needs to be before you can intervene to save it, we’re going to see more maternal deaths,” Sharma said..

Sharma said that the 1849 law would devastate the state’s medical system and that patients would seek care from providers outside of the state in crisis situations such as a miscarriage or a desired abortion.

She also said that some physicians might leave the state.

“That means that more women are going to be at risk for complications,” Sharma said. “We’re going to see changes in the quality and the rigor of the training and the caliber of physicians that stay in state, because we’re going to lose those skills, and that’s going to result in so much devastation to the health care of women in the state of Wisconsin.”

Reprinted with permission from Wisconsin Independent.

Alito's Disclosure Report Reveals $900 Gift From Far-Right German 'Princess'

Alito's Disclosure Report Reveals $900 Gift From Far-Right German 'Princess'

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's annual financial disclosure report, "filed late after requesting an extension" last week, listed $900 concert tickets gifted to him by German Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis,The Guardian reports.

Per the report, Alito and colleague Justice Brett Kavanaugh met with von Thurn und Taxis — who's "known for her unabashed conservative views and ties to rightwing activists," as well as her connection to Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon — during her visit to the Supreme Court in 2019.

Alito's filing comes a year after ProPublica published a bombshell report revealing that Justice Clarence Thomas has received "luxury vacations" from billionaire Harlan Crow "for over 20 years."

The Guardian notes that Alito, too, allegedly "accepted a private jet free travel gift for a luxury salmon fishing trip from a conservative billionaire who had cases pending before the" high court.

Following these reports, President Joe Biden vowed to make changes to the court's ethics code before leaving office next year.

In July, the president announced that he's "calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court," as "the Court's current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced."

The reform would require the justices to promptly disclose gifts.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Republicans Block Senate Bill To Impose Ethics Code On Supreme Court Justices

Republicans Block Senate Bill To Impose Ethics Code On Supreme Court Justices

Democratic efforts to impose a shred of accountability on the Supreme Court failed in the Senate Wednesday when South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, joined by some of his fellow Republicans, blocked the bill as he had threatened to do on Tuesday.

“It's important that we make the effort because the American people know something has gone very wrong,” Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said in a floor speech.

The bill, which Whitehouse authored with Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin of Illinois, would require the Supreme Court to adopt a binding set of ethics rules. It’s the only court in the country without one.

This comes after months of reports of ethically dubious relationships that Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas have with various billionaire GOP donors.

Durbin’s attempt to pass the bill by unanimous consent comes a day after secret recordings of both Alito and his wife were released. The Alitos’ public displays of election denial have spurred calls for ethical guardrails to be applied to the court.

Democrats held an informal roundtable on Capitol Hill Tuesday to discuss what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described as a “crisis of legitimacy” on the court due to dark money corruption.

“These are the only governmental officials in the land who are not governed by a binding ethics code,” Rep. Jamie Raskin told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “There's no process by which we can hold any of them accountable.”

Ocasio-Cortez said that she and Raskin are working on legislation to ban the Supreme Court from accepting gifts of more than $50, matching ethics rules followed by Congress.

“The private corruption of the justices mirrors the public corruption of justice,” Raskin said. He pointed to recent decisions by the extremist court stripping away civil rights protections, women’s rights, and labor and consumer laws.

“So as they grow more and more removed from the experiences of the way the rest of us live,” he said, “the more they're willing to just demolish the protections the rest of us need.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that he is still considering whether to bring the bill to a regular vote.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

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