The emerging divide between the Supreme Court's Republicans

[turbinetree]

The Republican justices are at a crossroads.

IAN MILLHISER
JAN 14, 2019, 12:59 PM


The Supreme Court handed down an easy-to-miss order on Monday holding in favor of Larry Lamont White, a Kentucky man sentenced to death for a 1983 murder. The order in White v. Kentucky is just one paragraph long and it is paired with a dissent from Justice Samuel Alito that is also only a paragraph long.

Neither the Court’s order in White nor Alito’s dissent offer much guidance on how lower courts should handle death penalty cases in the future — the order merely requires the Supreme Court of Kentucky to reconsider its holding that Mr. White is not intellectually disabled in light of the Court’s 2017 decision in Moore v. Texas. But the White order does offer a fascinating window into the internal politics of the Supreme Court.

Alito’s dissent was joined only by Justice Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. That means that at least one, and possibly both, of the Court’s remaining Republicans voted with the majority to order a reconsideration of White’s death sentence (under existing Eighth Amendment precedents, an intellectually disabled person may not be sentenced to die).

The White order, moreover, fits into an emerging pattern within the Supreme Court. Three of the Court’s Republicans — Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch — embrace a will-to-power approach to judging. Republicans control the Court right now, and these three men urge their fellow Republicans to use that power to achieve conservative ends.

https://thinkprogress.org/roberts-and-kavanaugh-versus-the-supreme-court-nihilists-2f4f182c5594/

-snip-

For the time being, the Court has not taken up these politically fraught cases. One possible explanation for the Court’s cautiousness is, as I wrote shortly after the Court turned aside the Planned Parenthood cases, is that “Roberts and Kavanaugh want to give the nation some time to forget about how Kavanaugh got his current job before they declare outright war on reproductive choice.”

If this theory is correct, the Court’s period of relative silence is likely to come to an end very soon. Maybe Roberts doesn’t want to relitigate a relatively minor case involving a limited subset of death row inmates, but it is unlikely that he’ll be willing to take a pass forever on issues such as abortion, or whether LGBTQ people should be safe from discrimination.

[AlexSFCA]

1. seems plausible

kavanaugh and roberts play center for several cases but when the most important case with generational implications comes up like overturning roe v wade, they’ll just do it. I hope I’m wrong. There is also a possibility of roberts moving to the center due to kennedy’s departure. We don’t know if roberts would be dissending in a number of cases had kennedy nor voted with the left side of the court. We know that in congress, politicians look at matters differently if their vote is the deciding one. I think repubs on the court do the same. E.g., it is possible that roberts voted to keep ACA when he learned that Kennedy was in favor of overturning it. They obviously are concerned with optics. You don’t need to go far - roberts issued a statement directly to trump recently saying that we don’t have repub or dem judges but just judges. This tells me he cares about SC and other courts being respected by both rep and dems. This is different from classical RW like thomas who doesnt give a damn.

[tymorial]

2. I dont know. Of all the Republicans on the bench Roberts appears to be the only one

Who has placed the Integrity of the Court over politics. Granted he voted in favor of citizens united but he then voted with the majority for the ACA. I don't believe he's another Souter but no one will ever be again.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. I want real investigations into these people

Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, especially, should be investigated.