SCOTUS Watch

As the abortion draft leak continues to fester, the Supreme Court continues to do its work. The Order List was relatively uneventful though two cases were granted. Another in the conservative campaign to micromanage the structure of the administrative state. And, a habeas case that some are worried about given the leaning of the Court.

The two opinions split basically along ideological lines, a finding person deportation had no statutory right to access to the courts written by Barrett, an expected result in a Ted Cruz campaign case by Roberts. Kagan, as she did in the past, wrote a strong dissent in the second case. A limit on loans to campaigns is not some free speech violation, even beyond the dismissive "money isn't speech!" line, which is overblown since money is necessary for it. 

[A typo in this opinion was later fixed.]

A mild surprise, at least to those not aware of his past actions, is that Gorsuch wrote the other dissent. He does from time to time have a libertarian quality when federal power is involved. Not in the Muslim Ban case and in various other instances. 

But, his vote here is not really surprising. A 6-3 Court allows a judge to bleed off from time to time, anyways.  As to the right result, again, I'm not going to pretend to know what the exact law is.   I do think there should be a strong understanding here [basically cited by Gorsuch] to allow judicial review.  The Biden Administration supported that at lease, an amicus invited to argue the position ultimately accepted. 

If there was a clear statutory bar, such a constitutional / fairness principle would not necessarily rule the day.  Unless, you could make an independent constitutional argument.  But, a constitutional avoidance argument is valid here.  And, I doubt in a 5-4 case, there isn't enough room to you know, avoid it.  

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Meanwhile, an execution -- involving a crime from over four decades ago -- was scheduled today in Georgia.  Clemency was denied.   It was a horrible crime, but there is a basic injustice (Breyer again repeatedly cited this) about executing someone so long after the crime and conviction.  

A hold was place, an argument made that the state agreed to a COVID hiatus that has not truly been completed.  The real failure of judgment is to decide that after all this time that an execution is warranted. If you dug, you probably could find various reasons for the delay.  But, at this point, such reasons are a bit besides the point.  Forty plus years is just too long.

If he is executed all the same, I will update this piece.