I still can't get it out of my head that Clarence Thomas said that stare decisis doesn't matter.

[Baitball Blogger]

You know what? I think he and Ginni were the leakers of the Alito document and Clarence is now doubling-down by marginalizing the importance of the Supreme Court's long tradition. This is the kind of bullshit strategy that sovereigntist are known for. He is just as bad as they are, though I believe the source of his problem is his wife.

The man lives with a woman who is involved with extreme right-wing radical troublemakers and activists. She has rubbed off on him and radicalized him. Look at the trail of evidence: He was the lone dissenting vote when the Supreme Court voted to allow text messages connected to January 6th investigation to be released to the plaintiff in the case. Included in those messages were texts from Ginni Thomas that implicated her involvement further. It was a case where he should have recused himself.

Red flags everywhere. My money is on Clarence and Ginni Thomas.

I honestly believe we have pro-insurrectionists on the Court and we should all be in shock.

Don't you all miss the years when he wouldn't say a word?

[no_hypocrisy]

1. If so, would CJ Roberts hold him accountable?

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Seriously, I don't think Roberts is going to do anything unless there is a long, sustained public

outcry.

He just doesn't do confrontation well, and his Court is falling apart.

[uponit7771]

5. I don't think he can, SC justices are there for life etc

[Zeitghost]

29. How would he do that?

n/t

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Just to clarify in my feeble mind, what does

stare decisis

mean? Thanks!

[Ocelot II]

4. It's a legal principal according to which courts will follow the law as established

in previous cases when deciding cases like them. It is supposed to ensure that cases with similar facts are considered and decided in the same way, so there is some predictability in the law and people can depend on how courts have ruled in the past.

[Baitball Blogger]

9. It provides stability, and not this feeling that a privilege society can go on an

ethical drunk, ignoring the laws on the books whenever it benefits their status quo. That's what happens too often in Florida, especially when Cities are out to develop property. It's a destroyer of trust and community well-being.

[milestogo]

12. Yes, but not going back to the 13th century.

[Igel]

13. Precisely.

To stand by what has already been decided.

But that isn't an ironclad rule, and precedent has often been overturned.

Roe overturned precedent, for example. If stare decisis isn't a violable legal principle, and we should all mindlessly support stare decisis, then we should all be firmly opposed the idea of Roe having been decided as it was. Even (R) I know don't think this--they just think that Roe was horribly argued and poorly based.

In such cases, where stare decisis is ignored, the Court usually finds that there were egregious errors--which, for some reason, weren't acted upon. So Brown v Board of Education. Lawrence v Texas. Obergefell.

[Ocelot II]

15. When they overturn previous cases and apply new or different principles,

courts usually explain that it is necessary to do so either because the original case was wrongly decided or because circumstances have changed so much that the old rule should no longer apply. Stare decisis is important for social stability and predictability, but sometimes the rules do have to change. However, when, as in Alito's draft opinion, a court overturns a long-standing opinion upon which millions of people have relied for 50 years and that actually revokes a right, they better have a damn good reason - much better than just concluding that the old case was wrong.

[Carlitos Brigante]

18. So you're saying that "because Jesus..." is not a good reason?! nt

[SWBTATTReg]

22. Thanks all! Makes sense, there does need to be some structure, some predictability,

in the legal application of laws to everyday situations, by the millions, otherwise, chaos!

Thanks again (all of the posters)

[In It to Win It]

6. Stare decisis only matters when it's convenience for 5 of 9 Justices who pretend to read the minds

of people who have been dead for 200 years.

[PufPuf23]

7. Legal question: Is there potential for an injunction to prevent Thomas serving as

USSC Justice based casting "the lone dissenting vote when the Supreme Court voted to allow text messages connected to January 6th investigation to be released to the plaintiff in the case" and "Included in those messages were texts from Ginni Thomas that implicated her involvement further".

Looks like blatant (and criminal) judicial misconduct but what do I know?

Seems simple to prove (if guilty of course)

1, Cast dissenting vote

2. Knows that the texts included text from Ginni (whom is a radical rightwing activist)

[Ocelot II]

8. No. Who'd have the power to issue such an injunction?

[PufPuf23]

10. The other 8 USSC Justices maybe?

Is there a body that could petition the USSC?

Admittedly I am clueless about what is possible in a legal sense, why asked question.

Maybe injunction is not right term, but suspension from active duty while under investigation (by DOJ I guess).

Realize how highly unlikely but the indiscretion is so obvious, I would argue the Justices against suspension then become complicit.

The Catholics / Federalists USSC Justices are corrupt religious bigots.

[Ocelot II]

14. The Supreme Court has no ethics rules by which they can regulate their own conduct.

It was apparently assumed that people worthy of appointment to that court wouldn't have to have ethics rules because they would necessarily be supremely ethical people.

Yeah, right.

[PufPuf23]

16. Thank you. Hard not to be cynical. nt

[spanone]

25. So they are supremely above the law.

[onenote]

28. No. And it wasn't a crime

It was a violation of 28 USC 455, which sets forth the standard to be applied for a judge (or justice) to recuse himself/herself from participating in a case.

It is not part of the criminal code. It does not specify any penalty for a violation. And it has never been prosecuted as a criminal offense.

It typically is enforced by a motion by a party, made either before the fact or after the fact. If the judge doesn't recuse, it can be appealed to a higher court. And if the higher court finds recusal should have occurred, it might order a new trial.

But there is no higher court than the Supreme Court. And in they typical case, a reviewing court will consider whether the failure to recuse was "harmless error" -- i.e., whether it had no impact on the outcome of the case. Being the only member of a multi-judge panel to dissent would almost certainly be viewed as "harmless error" since the ordinary remedy -- sending the case back to be reheard -- would be pointless.

[Hortensis]

11. I felt that stare decisis was to be abandoned was implicit in the packing

of the court with originalists, textualists, etc, to eliminate nearly 250 years of liberal interpretations from the Constitution and our body of law. The Constitution and representative government themselves are intrinsically liberal, so that requires a great deal of overturning. If they got control of enough state governments, they can call a constitutional convention and rewrite it.

As for Ginni radicalizing him, I really, really doubt it. I think they're both far-right extremists unhampered by principles anyone on any court should be committed to. Though she may not actually share his black nationalist antagonisms, they go along well enough with white nationalists in most ways, same under the skin so to speak. I'm with you in believing they're both easily capable of this.

[Caliman73]

23. Agreed on everything, but on Ginni especially.

People are giving her too much credit or blame. Clarence Thomas was always a right wing asshole. He can't be radicalized because he has always been a radical. To blame Ginni is to give Clarence an excuse. They both feed off each other.

[Hortensis]

24. Lol, just imagine an honorable, honest, moderate type bonding

for life with either of these bundles of bad traits.

Studies actually show common outlook is the single biggest factor in choosing partners -- and especially so the more extreme and narrow. This pair of RW extremists found each other in middle age. (Yuck!)

[Caliman73]

26. A heavenly match made in hell...

I don't even want to know what those to talk about in private.

[Hortensis]

27. My thought. But bet it's with real enthusiasm these days.

We're going to have to see that their previous angry resentment returns for the bitter end.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

17. Thomas is a bad SCOTUS justice and should have never been confirmed

[LetMyPeopleVote]

19. The Five Worst Supreme Court Justices In American History, Ranked

In the legal community, Thomas is considered to be one of the worst SCOTUS justices in history https://thinkprogress.org/the-five-worst-supreme-court-justices-in-american-history-ranked-f725000b59e8/

5) Justice Clarence Thomas

Justice Clarence Thomas is the only current member of the Supreme Court who has explicitly embraced the reasoning of Lochner Era decisions striking down nationwide child labor laws and making similar attacks on federal power. Indeed, under the logic Thomas first laid out in a concurring opinion in United States v. Lopez, the federal minimum wage, overtime rules, anti-discrimination protections for workers, and even the national ban on whites-only lunch counters are all unconstitutional.

Though Thomas’s views are rare today, they have, sadly, not been the least bit uncommon during the Supreme Court’s history. He makes this list because, frankly, he should know better than his predecessors. As I explain in Injustices, many of the justices who resisted progressive legislation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were, like Field, motivated by ideology. Many others, however, were motivated by fear of the rapid changes state and federal lawmakers implemented in the wake of the even more rapid changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. It was possible to believe, in a world where factories, railroads, and the laws required to regulate factories and railroads were all very new things, that these laws would, as Herbert Hoover once said about the New Deal, “destroy the very foundations of our American system” by extending “government into our economic and social life.”
But Thomas has the benefit of eighty years of American history that Hoover had not witnessed when he warned of an overreaching government. In that time, the Supreme Court largely abandoned the values embraced by Justice Field, and the United States became the mightiest nation in the history of politics and the wealthiest nation in the history of money.

[DFW]

20. I hope this will come back to bite the Court's Catholic radicals

If stare decisis no longer matters, and they repeal Roe, than it can be just as easily re-instated without respecting the Alito decision to repeal it. The radical right will, of course, scream "stare decisis!!" when the repeal is repealed, but it was their idea in the first place to discard it.

[Baitball Blogger]

21. That's why Alito's opinion is garbage in, garbage out.

The same reasoning can be used to overturn Alito's decision. And I dare say that the Left will do a better job of adding better reasoning on top of that. I hope they spend pages denouncing the strict textualist method, wherever they find it. And, maybe, even summarize how it has been used improperly to undermine the basic foundation of what America is all about.