Since her confirmation in 2022, Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson has established a legacy that is fast becoming one of the most radical in the Court’s history. Her sole dissents have drawn sharp criticism from both her conservative and liberal colleagues. However, for critics of some of these decisions, Justice Jackson continues to publish opinions that are not just, as she describes it, cathartic but chilling. Worse yet, the latest judicial jump scare was shared by her colleague, Justice Sonya Sotomayor, in her concurring opinion in United States v. Hemani.
At issue in the case was an effort to prosecute Ali Hemani for recreational use of marijuana, a prosecution that threatened up to 15 years and to strip him of his gun rights under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3)
Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch ruled that the provision was not “consistent with the Second Amendment.” Gorsuch noted that Hemani was not alleged to be a drug addict or to have used his guns in a menacing manner.
Gorsuch wrote that the “historical laws on which it relies targeted different kinds of people, did so for different reasons, and operated in different ways.”
However, Jackson used the concurrence to argue for overturning NYSRPA v. Bruen, a case critical to laying the foundation for interpreting the Second Amendment based on historical precedent. Jackson lashed out at the”‘history and tradition’ metric” and called for the Court to “revisit” the case.
Declaring Bruen “unworkable,” Jackson called for the restoration of the “means-end scrutiny—the approach courts applied before we adopted Bruen’s ‘history and tradition’ metric—offers a more rational way of assessing the constitutionality of firearm regulations.”
The reason for undoing Bruen? According to Jackson, “it imposes on judges the unfamiliar and difficult tasks of sifting through centuries-old evidence in order to answer ‘contested historical questions,’ and ‘applying those answers to resolve contemporary problems.'”
Justice Jackson added that “Given those challenges, it is unsurprising that Bruen’s test is vulnerable to inconsistent and arbitrary application, as judges draw different conclusions from the same historical evidence and reach divergent assessments of the same laws.”
The burden of actually seeking to understand the intended meaning of a constitutional provision is certainly greater than the more free-style approach of Jackson who focused on how to “resolve contemporary problems” under a living Constitution. However, to suggest that her outcome-determinative approach is less inconsistent and arbitrary is only true when you control the Court with justices who have like-minded “solutions” for contemporary problems.
That is precisely what many Democrats have in mind as they openly pledge to pack the Court with an insistent liberal majority if they can retake power. Moreover, Jackson is often cited as the model of the left, a justice who is unburdened by the language and history of constitutional provisions.
Just last week, liberal Wisconsin State Supreme Court justices heralded Jackson’s approach in arguing for the restoration of race-based gerrymandering. The state jurists lamented not being able to interpret the Constitution to address the “harms this country has caused to those who are marginalized, disempowered, or disenfranchised,” including the “preference for White Americans and to burden Black Americans and those of other disadvantaged races or backgrounds.”
These federal and state Supreme Court opinions are a glimpse into what awaits the country if Democratic leaders carry out their threat to take over the Supreme Court by adding four liberal justices in the image of Justice Jackson.
It is not simply the desire to immediately overturn prior cases but to establish a largely untethered jurisprudence driven by judicial fiat and impulse. It is certainly an easier way to write opinions and would clear the way for a stated agenda on the left to maintain power indefinitely.
Before voters “unburden” these jurists, they need to seriously consider the costs of eviscerating an institution that has been vital in maintaining this Republic for the last 250 years.
Here is the opinion: United States v. Hemani
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
It is evident based on the Federal Judiciary decisions coming from many District Court appointees, that the intent of Justice Jackson and her supporters is not to “pack the Court” with like minded Judges, it is to have the Federal Judiciary to be the ruler of our country. Eliminating the balance of power doctrine.
The results of affirmative action
The first thing on a dictator’s agenda after taking over a nation by force has always been the packing of the nation’s highest court. The packing of the court will then allow the elimination of the right to speak freely. A Department of misinformation soon follows. It was not long ago that a President with onset dementia proposed and acted to enforce both the packing of the court and a new department designated to police speech. These are and always have been the goals of the anointed elite.
Diligence is not only required but is also a moral responsibility lest the shooting in the back of the head will once again begin.
The long march through our institutions is almost complete
“Whoever uses the most-name calling is the winner of the debate!” This is fallacious. Only a moron would do something so fallacious.
This is what is coming out of our law schools, as well as our med schools and our journalism schools. In law school students learn to “deconstruct” the laws in order to change them into what they THINK they should be. KJB is the future of legal “reasoning” and one of the most sickening aspects of her “jurisprudence” is the fact that she is arrogant, shameless and proud to be the lone dissent using new rules that only she seems to understand.
Says the side that completely made up the idea that 2A is about an individual right to own a gun, and ignore the “well regulated” part of the amendment.
I’m sure she could score higher on a GED exam than you could. Then it would be clear who the true moron is.
Yeah the moron is in your mirror.
Sure about that? We all know she cannot pass the biology part. She told us. Probably the rest of the science part too.
It seems that some have a fear of a black planet.
DEI has concequences….100’s of legally stupid DEI judges should be removed!
Justice Jackson’s and the “living constitutionalist’s” concerns rise or fall on the Supreme Court’s ability to deal with the plane of time. In 1803 the Constitution was 13 years old, ratified in 1790. In that 13th year The Court decided in Marbury v Madison that the Constitution did not give it the jurisdiction written into the 1789 congressional Judiciary Act. The statute gave them jurisdiction to order mandamus relief to order delivery of outgoing President Adams’s midnight judicial appointment letters. That clinched the power of SCOTUS declare what the law is by deciding what the law is not. Could the political branches have changed the law? Yes. In the same constitutional amendment process as done for the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Bruen was decided 230 years after ratification. It stands on the same legs as Marbury’s 13 years after ratification. The message of court packing and living constitutionalist’s is that SCOTUS can not decide what the law is after 230 years, but could after 13. The Framers told us better in the Constitution. Article Five.
Bravo
KJB should be removed…Biden wasn’t a valid president…and she is a MORON!