• BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    The six justices were named as defendants in the case.

    Makes sense they sat out then. Presiding over your own trial doesn’t make much sense.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Nope that’s not it.

      They have the majority, so if they all sit out the SC can’t hear the case.

      So it’s more of a pocket veto than anything else.

      Especially since the lower courts decision was to dismiss the case against the Justices who vetoed the SC case

      • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        If you read the article, it says that the justices are following the code of ethics that they agreed to, which precludes a justice from judging a case against them.

        The decision of the lower court also was sound as the plaintiff did not have standing to sue, being a NJ resident suing over TX law.

        These are simple facts, easy to understand, and hatred of the justices won’t change that. It’s important to take an objective look at facts to be fair to your own mind.

        • Kyre@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          They deserve the scrutiny and criticism regardless of their legal status. Anything they do at this point is suspect. If it was reversed and it was a court of all democrats, you better believe that a bunch of redneck fucktard assholes would be using their second amendment rights in an attempt to “fix” the court. With lifetime appointments, it doesn’t leave much room for options.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        I mean, they could have just as easily voted to just not accept the case.
        Recusal is literally the only ethical option available, and they had other perfectly routine ways of getting the same result.

        Like, what would you have had them do instead? Vote to hear it and then decide their own guilt? Vote to hear a case and then recuse themselves from hearing it? Or just say “no, we believe the lower court ruled correctly/the case doesn’t meet our criteria”?

        • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I think this was a message. “Don’t sue the Supreme Court Justices for their official work, because we won’t even dignifiy it with a response.”

          Supreme Court Justices are absolutely immune from suit for their official acts and decisions. All judges are. The remedy to a bad call by a judge is an appeal, not a collateral lawsuit.

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_immunity

          https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/collateral_attack

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Yeah, but this way they can pretend theyre taking the high road and also flex that they control the SC…

          My point is when 6 members of the SC are all defendants in a case the Supreme Court has been asked to rule on, we’ve got some serious fucking problems with our system.

          We’ve tried ignoring it for a decade now. And shit is clearly just getting worse

      • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        So it’s more of a pocket veto than anything else.

        “the court affirmed the judgment of a lower court to dismiss the lawsuit”

        They upheld the judgment from the lower court. Should they instead preside over their own case? That hardly seems like a better choice than upholding the lower court’s judgement.

        • Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          They could have provided enough SC justices to have a quorom but not provided any input into the quorom. Essentially, be present and go along with whatever the other justices decide.

          • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            There’s nothing in the Constitution about how many justices there has to be. I would argue that if the Supreme Court can’t get quorum we need to nominate Justices until they get it.

            • nicetriangle@kbin.social
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              10 months ago

              There does appear to be some law on the books stipulating the rules around a quorum and such a law is considered valid unless struck down by said court, I suppose.

              https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1

              The Supreme Court of the United States shall consist of a Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices, any six of whom shall constitute a quorum.

              Same way the court technically is not limited in headcout by the constitution, either. In that case, it’s set by congress.

          • IHeartBadCode@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Just my opinion, but that sounds janky af.

            Because it’s vastly different if the four to maintain quorum were Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett versus Roberts, Gorsuch, Thomas, and Barrett.

            Basically you can stack justices to fit an outcome and that’s kind of what we don’t want.

    • snooggums@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      In a vacuum, sure. But with the context they were able to get the result they wanted by doing sitting out.