The #SupremeCourt would allow #EmergencyAbortionCare in ID despite the state’s #AbortionBan, acc/to Bloomberg #Law, which viewed a copy of a not-yet-released opinion that was briefly posted on the court’s website Wed.
Prof Melissa Murray commented that this ultra #RightWing#SCOTUS may be aware of the fact that their #Dobbs decision had an enormous impact on the 2022 elections & not in favor of their preferred candidates, & so they are hoping to temper that same effect on the #2024election by seeming more moderate on #abortion. Which would be crazy #unethical. Basing decisions on #politics not #law.
Also, w/this accidental leak, the country isn’t talking about them procrastinating on #Trump’s #immunity case.
Dan Rather notes the long, long foot-dragging of the Supreme Court on an immunity case that most legal scholars consider ridiculous — foot-dragging that only serves Trump's interest in delaying trial.
He (and the media in general and public) expected a ruling yesterday, but…. As Rather states,
"With every delay, the court is giving the former president exactly what he wants: a silent pass on prosecution."
"By shielding Donald Trump from standing trial before a jury in two of his felony cases, Trump’s three appointments to the Supreme Court, along with the even more MAGA Justices Alito and Thomas and Judge Aileen Cannon, have already irreparably interfered in the 2024 election."
It’s been SIX months since Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court for an expedited ruling on immunity so we could get to a trial on the January 6th case. But hey, no rush. The Justices have been busy revising incomplete ethics forms, flying weird flags, and laboring over patent law — Bill Kristol #quotes#quote#immunity#SCOTUS#TrumpCrimes#TrumpProsecution
"We have the rule of law so as not to have a culture of revenge.
For much of human history, it was an eye for an eye, as we read in the Bible. In a revenge culture, a chieftain decides who is to blame, and the shamans explain how the blood and chaos is just and necessary."
"The legal theory of Trump's coup attempt, made explicit in argument before the Supreme Court, is that the chieftain is immune to law. There is magic around the chieftain's person, such that he need respond only to himself. The words 'presidential immunity' are an incantation directed to directed to people in black robes, summoning them to act as the chieftain's shamans and confirm his magical status."
"Some of the people in black robes, Supreme Court justices, like being shamans. Our shamans are allowed to take bribes from those who support the chieftain, and also allowed to claim that as magicians, people unlike others, they are unaffected by them. If there is any doubt, our shamans tell us, they can be trusted to be judges in their own case."
"Shamans thus installed will protect their chieftain, and surround him with their magical aura. Unlike other courts, the Supreme Court can make things up as it goes along, and there has been a good deal of that lately, especially on the part of Mr. Alito. Its members can claim fidelity to the words of the Constitution, then cast all that aside when the chieftain is threatened."
#SCOTUS is supposed to render a decision on the question of #immunity, & the ruling will go towards determining when the case will go to trial.
There’s a narrow path for a trial to be held before Nov. But it’s more likely that it will be sent back to district court Judge #Chutkan, to determine which of the charges stemmed from ofcl acts & which should be thought of as strictly private ones. That process, which could affect the scope of the charges the #jury hears, could take wks or even months.
Jesse #Barrett is a trial lawyer & managing partner at SouthBank Legal. He heads the firm’s Washington, DC, office, which opened after Justice Barrett joined the high court.
“I do believe the Supreme Court should step in,” Johnson told #FauxNews. “Obviously, this is totally unprecedented.” neither the [#law or not the #crime are unprecedented, plenty of #precedent, it’s just the #criminal committing the crime that’s new].
Trump fails to understand the difference between decisions presidents make as part of their job and efforts by a candidate to steal an election he lost. It's not that difficult — Joyce White Vance #quotes#quote#Trump#immunity#CoupAttempt#Insurrection
While the flag was up, the court was still contending w/whether to hear a #2020election case, w/Justice #Alito on the losing end of that decision. In coming wks, the justices will rule on 2 climactic cases involving the storming of the Capitol on #Jan6, incl’g whether #Trump has #immunity for his actions. Their decisions will shape how accountable he can be held for trying to overturn the last presidential election & his chances for re-election in the upcoming one.
They’ve yet to rule on either Trump’s #immunity claim or the #Jan6 case disputing the use of the #obstruction of an official proceeding by defendant Fischer that could impact #Trump as well as other #J6 defendants.
When Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Donald Trump’s lawyer, “If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military or orders someone to #assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get #immunity?”, he replied, “It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that would well be an official act.” Based on that one line of questioning, Trump’s argument should be going down in flames 9-0. A democracy cannot survive when its supreme leader can arbitrarily decide that it’s in the nation’s best interest to rub out his opponents, and then leave it to some future court to decide whether it was an official act, because he’ll get away with it as long as there aren’t 67 votes in the Senate to impeach. And given that it will have been established that the president can put out a contract on political foes, how many senators are going to vote to impeach? — Brynn Tannehill #quotes#quote#Trump#OfficialActs
Every day of these proceedings, he should surround the Supreme Court with armed soldiers. Make all those judges walk past rows of soldiers on their way in and out of court. Make them think long and hard about the consequences of declaring presidents above the law.
If you were listening yesterday, you heard an unbelievably calm discussion by the Supreme Court about whether it might be acceptable or a President to assassinate their opponent and have "immunity" to break any law they please without prosecution.
Judge Wendell Griffen on the day fascism appeared in the Supreme Court:
"Yesterday a lawyer stood in the well of the Supreme Court of the United States and boldly declared that a President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution if he/she commits murder, bribery, sedition, conspiracy to overthrow the government, or any other crimes as an 'official act.'”
"The lawyer argued to Justices who refused to focus on the allegations in the indictment issued by a federal grand jury against Donald Trump for attempting to overthrow the 2020 presidential election result, including allegedly suborning false sworn statements about baseless claims that the election was fraudulent."
"And he made that argument as the senior Justice, Clarence Thomas, looked down from the bench despite the fact that Virginia 'Ginny' Thomas, his wife, was allied with the movement that tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of office in January 2021.
"He made that argument before several Justices who have professed to base their rulings on the original intent of the actual words in the U.S. Constitution but who did not challenge him.
Presidential immunity is nowhere in that document."
“'I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S. Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act,' lawyer Marc Elias, whose firm defends democratic election laws, wrote today on social media. He added: 'I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.'”
"The Roberts Court is a corrupt institution which operates in concert with and on behalf of the Republican Party and to an ambiguous degree right-wing anti-regulatory ideology. If we believe in a different set of policies or even democratic self-governance we will have to succeed at that with the Supreme Court acting as a consistent adversary."