Jackson Speech
Justice Jackson has been the only justice of the current court to provide transcripts (three) on the website's speech page.
The latest was "Remarks for the Harry S. Truman Good Neighbor Award." She used the chance to talk about Truman's desegregation of the military and a grave wrong involving the blinding of a black military veteran. Trump is segregating the military (trans).
Busy Thursday
Thursday involved an opinion announcement, bar admissions, an oral argument, and a conference. An order list will come on Monday.
Roberts also said a few words in memory of Souter. We only got to hear the oral argument involving universal injunctions in the birthright citizenship lawsuits. Ah, selective open government.
Fourth Amendment
The opinion (nine pages) was a unanimous decision by Kagan rejecting a "moment-of-threat rule" to determine reasonableness. Kavanaugh (six pages) for four justices (the conservatives other than Roberts and Gorsuch) wrote a concurring opinion to remind: In analyzing the reasonableness of an officer’s conduct at a traffic stop, particularly traffic stops where the driver has suddenly pulled away, courts must appreciate the extraordinary dangers and risks facing police officers and the community at large.
The case was brought by the estate of a man who was killed by a police officer who pulled him over for unpaid tolls. When the man started to drive off, the officer jumped onto the doorsill of the car and shot the driver. (SCOTUSblog live blog summary.)
The short opinion used a totality of circumstances rule, not just focused on the moment of the violence, and sent it back to the lower courts to deal with the dispute once more.
More Trump Stuff
The Supreme Court handed down an opinion late one Friday night to hold up some imminent Texan deportations involving the Alien Enemy Act. They handed down another unsigned order with Alito (with Thomas) dissenting on Friday.
SCOTUS points out that the Trump administration claims it can't retrieve migrants once they've been sent to CECOT, adding: Well, if that's true, then migrants must receive especially robust due process protections before they're expelled to El Salvador.
Steve Vladeck argues this ruling is pretty serious stuff. Check him out for some of the technical but important legal details.
They did add: "The Government may remove the named plaintiffs or putative class members under other lawful authorities." I wouldn't trust them.
Kavanaugh concurred, logically favoring the Court to take a case to decide the substance. I would hope that would lead to a good result. The misuse of the AEA here is not quite as bad as the Administration's birthright citizenship argument, but it is up there.
Other News
We separately dealt with the order that rejected a final appeal in a capital case. The Supreme Court also selected someone to defend a decision in a case where the government decides not to do so.
