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Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
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23 Apr, 4 tweets, 2 min read
New Supreme Court class photo. RBG is out, Amy Coney Barrett is in. Justice Sotomayor is seated for the first time.
Note: The Supreme Court only takes a new class photo when a new justice joins OR every ten years, whichever comes first. This one was delayed because of COVID.
Also, this picture isn't the official portrait! The Supreme Court will reveal that at a later time. Great, fun background on this tradition from @adamliptak: nytimes.com/2018/12/10/us/…
Here’s a better picture!

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More from @mjs_DC

Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
22 Apr
Oops: When the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about juvenile life without parole in 2019, I wrote that there was a real chance Brett Kavanaugh might uphold Kennedy's legacy and preserve strict limits on JLWOP. I really, really wrong! slate.com/news-and-polit…
Sorry about that. I will say that in the intervening two years I have realized that Kavanaugh LOVES to assume a pose of moderation, reasonableness, compromise, and respect for precedent, then write opinions that abandon those principles while pretending to adhere to them.
My early optimism about Kavanaugh (here's another example) was fed by a belief that his words and tone at oral arguments would reflect the substance of his rulings. But I was very wrong. Kavanaugh performs moderation then implements Federalist Society law.
slate.com/news-and-polit…
Read 5 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
22 Apr
First opinion of the day is in Jones v. Mississippi. By a 6–3 vote with Kavanaugh writing, the court rules that a sentencer need NOT make a separate factual finding of permanent incorrigibility before sentencing a defendant under 18 to life without parole. supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…
Today's decision is a huge blow against the movement to end juvenile life without parole. As Sotomayor correctly notes in her dissent, the court "guts" precedents that had strictly limit JLWOP. This is a major defeat for JLWOP reform. supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…
Sotomayor's dissent is brutal. Kavanaugh claims to follow precedent limiting juvenile life without parole, but Sotomayor writes: "The Court is fooling no one. Because I cannot countenance the Court’s abandonment of Miller and Montgomery, I dissent." supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…
Read 13 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
19 Apr
The Supreme Court once again takes no action in Dobbs, the challenge to Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban. Order list here: supremecourt.gov/orders/courtor…
SCOTUS takes up just one new case, a very interesting dispute over Confrontation Clause, Hemphill v. New York. We'll finally learn where Kavanaugh and Barrett stand on the Confrontation Clause, which often divides conservative justices. scotusblog.com/case-files/cas…
Justice Sotomayor, alone, dissents from the Supreme Court's refusal to take up a case with these appalling facts. supremecourt.gov/orders/courtor…
Read 10 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
13 Apr
By a 9–7 vote, the 6th Circuit lifts an injunction that had blocked an Ohio statute prohibiting doctors from terminating a pregnancy because of Down Syndrome. The decision effectively defies Roe by upholding a total ban on certain abortions pre-viability.
opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/2…
The dissenters have thoughts on the conservatives' opinions:

•"self-devouring and logically untenable"
•"perverse and deplorable"
•"overly simplified and grossly inaccurate"
•"simply analytically unsustainable"
•"enormous and terrible ramifications"
Several conservative judges accused women of participating in eugenics when they terminate a pregnancy due to Due Syndrome. In addition to being profoundly offensive (please do not compare abortion to the Holocaust), this claim badly botches history. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Read 5 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
10 Apr
The Supreme Court uses an unsigned shadow docket opinion on Friday night to confirm that it has altered 3+ decades of precedent. This is not a plausible reading of Smith or Church of Lukumi. It’s a new rule—most-favored nation status for religion.
supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…
Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett have used the shadow docket to establish a new First Amendment rule: Whenever the government grants an accommodation to secular activities or establishments, it MUST give that same accommodation to churches and religious activity.
Anyway, these COVID orders strongly suggest that the Supreme Court will side with the anti-gay foster care agency in Fulton v. Philadelphia and force the city to fund it. The extreme sensitivity to alleged religious discrimination on display here does not bode well for Philly.
Read 5 tweets
Mark Joseph Stern Profile picture
5 Apr
The Supreme Court once again takes no action on Dobbs, the challenge to Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban, or the pending gun cases. It takes up one habeas case, Brown v. Davenport. Orders: supremecourt.gov/orders/courtor…
🚨Clarence Thomas suggests that social media companies may NOT have a First Amendment right to regulate speech on their platforms, analogizing them to "common carriers" and "places of public accommodation." supremecourt.gov/orders/courtor…
In other words, Clarence Thomas is inviting Congress to ban social media companies from engaging in content moderation by stripping them of their own First Amendment rights and transforming them, for legal purposes, into common carriers or public accommodations.
Read 10 tweets

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