Because there were not enough justices for a quorum—the court needs at least six and only Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson remained—the court affirmed the judgment of a lower court to dismiss the lawsuit.
Clever. Appearing to do the right thing at face value coincides nicely with getting the case against you dropped. It's likely impossible to sue a majority of the Supreme Court if they don't care to be sued.
Also sounds like a good justification for Biden to increase the number of Justices.
Statement could go like this:
"There are not enough sitting justices to adjudicate important issues before the court as demonstrated by the recent actions of honorable recusals. Therefore I calling for the addition of new seats on the court to supplement the body so it can carry out its important work as a check on Legislative and Executive branches of our government, just as the framers intended. We will begin confirmation hearings for new justices next week"
Also sounds like a good justification for Biden to increase the number of Justices.
Biden has had ample reason to seat additional justices, particularly in the wake of the ACB nomination. But he's far too friendly with the US Senate to try such a thing.
If you want someone willing to break ranks on this question, you're ultimately going to need to wait for a governor. If DeSantis had a shot in hell of being president and taking a Senate majority in the process, I could see him trying to pack the court out of spite after losing a few court cases. If a guy like Sanders was a governor and not a Senate buddy-buddy with Schumer and Graham, maybe he would have tried it (but even then I wouldn't bet on it). I could absolutely see Trump pulling this shit if someone whispered it into his ear at the right moment, but he'd fumble the bag without McConnell sheepdogging the candidate through.
This is a tactic Oregon representatives use quite often. So we voted on a bill stating that if you miss 10 or more sessions you're in eligible to run for office again.
In his Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that he is an inventor of “Tele-Sex or Tele-Mining on Jupiter and other planets of the Solar System,” and appears to assert a claim for copyright infringement and constitutional violations.
In his brief, Plaintiff makes fantastical allegations, stating, for example, that “Defendants are dangerous liars, criminals, traitors and co-conspirators.” Dkt. 18 at 31. He further states that Supreme Court Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett “deserve the death penalty or at least to be disbenched from the U.S. Supreme Court.” Dkt. 18 at 40.
So any four justices can do this. And it's not a coincidence they didn't pull this out of their sleeves until there was only 3 non conservative justices.
Conservatives can make their own quorum, and they don't expect to lose that majority for a very long time even worst case scenario.
The whole system is broken. One party exploits it and one tries to ignore it's broken.
If you read the article, it says that the justices are following the code of ethics that they agreed to, which precludes a justice from judging a case against them.
The decision of the lower court also was sound as the plaintiff did not have standing to sue, being a NJ resident suing over TX law.
These are simple facts, easy to understand, and hatred of the justices won't change that. It's important to take an objective look at facts to be fair to your own mind.
I mean, they could have just as easily voted to just not accept the case.
Recusal is literally the only ethical option available, and they had other perfectly routine ways of getting the same result.
Like, what would you have had them do instead? Vote to hear it and then decide their own guilt? Vote to hear a case and then recuse themselves from hearing it?
Or just say "no, we believe the lower court ruled correctly/the case doesn't meet our criteria"?
"the court affirmed the judgment of a lower court to dismiss the lawsuit"
They upheld the judgment from the lower court. Should they instead preside over their own case? That hardly seems like a better choice than upholding the lower court's judgement.
I think this was a clear message: "Don't sue the Supreme Court Justices for their official work, because we won't even dignifiy it with a response." Otherwise, they could have just voted not to hear it.
Supreme Court Justices are absolutely immune from suit for their official acts and decisions. All judges are. The remedy to a bad call by a judge is an appeal, not a collateral lawsuit.
Crank lawyers will file this shit anyway, because they've got no real dog in the fight. It isn't as though they expect to win, much less to collect, and their sucker clients are footing the bill so what do they care?
Other plaintiffs named in the suit include the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, President Joe Biden, California Governor Gavin Newsom, actors George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Tesla Founder Elon Musk, singer Britney Spears and media expert Norah O'Donnell.
A pure shotgun blast of nonsense. It was a desperate grab for attention and, hey, I guess you got your article in Newsweek, so it succeeded. Hope it was worth whatever you paid.
You're right except I don't think this dude was looking for attention. I've seen these people around the courts. People with hundreds of civil lawsuits. People filing lawsuits with a straight face for trillions of dollars. I don't think this dude has a lawyer, these types are usually pro se.
When you sit there reading the law over and over it's like when you read a word over and over, and you might start to think it means something other than what it does. I think this dude is detached from reality to begin with when he reads these statutes and constitutions and whatnot, and then just strings a bunch of nonsense together. It's like one of those people who think a group of people is following them and controlling their lives, and this dude just latched onto filing legal papers as an outlet for his crazy.
I agree though, where there's a will, there's lawyer who will draft the papers. I will argue that the other lawyer's socks clash with his tie if that's what you want and you pay my hourly rate.
It's pretty much that any 4 SC justices can do this now, to preserve a lower courts opinion they agree with.
Right now there's 6 conservative appointed justices, and three appointed by Dems.
So I don't think it's a coincidence they didn't pull this out of their hat till they had enough so it only works for them.
They can do this with any lower court decision, and I don't think the Dems will try to do anything about it, because then they'd have to admit they stood by and let the system get this corrupted.
SYAC:
"In a rare move, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett all sat out deciding whether to hear MacTruong v. Abbott, a case arguing that the Texas Heartbeat Act (THA) is constitutional and that the state law violates federal law. The six justices were named as defendants in the case. They did not give a detailed justification as to why they chose not to weigh in, and are not required to do so."
The six justices were named as defendants in the case. They did not give a detailed justification as to why they chose not to weigh in, and are not required to do so.
As Hunter Thompson said: "To ask the question is to answer the question."
Badas noted that MacTruong has other pending cases involving the same issue, but it is likely that they will end like this case, "with him losing and the courts issuing decisions arguing that he lacks standing."
6 of the worst human beings in the world. Dead women's and dead girls, for that matter, blood is on their hands. I do not understand how it has been one and a half years since they literally made women unequal in law and nothing has been done about the monopoly they have on the entire country.
They are not enacting the will of the people. They do not represent the common voice. Why should they be allowed to force disease death and suffering onto millions of women? Why should they be allowed to do that? What kind of democracy allows such a thing?