The Tenth Circuit handed down a notable opinion this week in Poe v. Drummond, upholding Oklahoma’s law prohibiting gender transition procedures for anyone under eighteen. The opinion by Judge Joel Carson (joined by Judges Harris Hartz and Gregory Phillips) concluded that parental rights do not trump a state’s determination of what are safe treatments for minor patients. Continue reading “Tenth Circuit: Parents Do Not Have Right to Override Ban on Gender Transitioning of Minors”
Category: Supreme Court
I wrote recently about the chilling jurisprudence of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has drawn the ire of colleagues in opinions for her rhetoric and extreme positions. Many have expressed alarm over her adherence to what has been described by a colleague as an “imperial judiciary” model of jurisprudence. Now, it appears that Jackson’s increasingly controversial opinions are serving a certain cathartic purpose for the far-left Biden appointee. Continue reading ““I have a Wonderful Opportunity”: Justice Jackson’s Cathartic Jurisprudence”
Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon is back in the news for all the wrong reasons. Nixon decided to virtue signal on abortion by sending out a picture of herself lounging on a boat wearing a cap that read “Make Abortion Great Again.” In the same week, “Smile” singer Lily Allen was laughing in an interview about how she has had so many abortions that she cannot remember the precise number. It is only the latest example of how the messaging on the left could be alienating many Americans on the third anniversary of the Dobbs decision.
Continue reading “Sex and the Cringy: Celebrities Under Fire for Making Light of Abortions”
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a relatively rare clarification of its earlier opinion, which lifted the injunction on the deportation of immigrants to third-party countries. In a surprising response, Judge Brian Murphy in Boston ruled that he considered his orders regarding the eight immigrants set for deportation to South Sudan to remain unchanged by the decision. The Court quickly disabused him of that notion by declaring that he was not in compliance with its order. What was most remarkable, however, was the sharp concurrence by Justice Elena Kagan who, despite voting against the original order, called out Murphy for defying the authority of the Court. It was a commendable and principled position that escaped her colleagues, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in dissent. Continue reading “Justice Kagan Joins Colleagues in Rebuking Liberal Boston Judge Over His Defiance of the Court”
Below is my column in The Hill on the ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor in favor of parents who want to withdraw their children from LGBTQ lessons in public schools. I agreed with the majority, but it was Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent (joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson) that was the most striking in its apocalyptic take on allowing parents to remove their children from these classes. Despite the fact that various opt-outs have been allowed for parents, this one is deemed a threat to the very essence of public education.
Here is the column:
Below is my column in the New York Post on the controversial dissenting opinion of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in the injunction ruling in Trump v. CASA on Friday. The opinion seemed to fan the flames of “democracy is dying” claims of protesters, suggesting that basic limits on injunctive relief could result in the collapse of our core institutions. It was a hyperventilated opinion better suited to a cable program than a Court opinion. The response from Justice Amy Coney Barrett was a virtual pile driver of a rebuke. What was notable is that a majority of the justices signed off on the takedown. It could indicate a certain exasperation with histrionics coming from the left of the Court in recent years.
Here is the column: Continue reading “The Chilling Jurisprudence of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson”
The warning was stark. At issue was a privileged class that has long dictated policy despite countervailing public opinion. At issue, the luminary warned, is nothing short of democracy itself. No, it was not the continued rallies of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., VT) to “fight oligarchy.” It was Justice Clarence Thomas rallying his colleagues to fight technocracy, or government by experts. He warned against allowing “elite sentiment” to “distort and stifle democratic debate.” Yet, the story is even more profound of an elite class which succumbed to the Icarian gene and fell to Earth due to hubris and excess.
Continue reading “The Icarian Gene: The Rise and Fall of the Expert Class”
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued its 6-3 ruling upholding a Tennessee ban on transgender medical treatments for adolescents. The ruling has major implications for pending transgender cases, particularly the concurrence of Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejecting the claim that transgender status qualifies as a group entitled to heightened scrutiny under the Constitution. One of those cases just resulted in a major ruling in Boston against the move by the Trump Administration to restore the binary options of “male” and “female” sex designations on U.S. passports. Continue reading “The Supreme Court Delivers a Blow to Transgender Cases”
Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down three major cases with unanimous decisions. One, Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, raises additional questions over diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs that have been widely used in higher education and businesses. There is no reason to believe that DEI measures are DOA, but the decision is likely to accelerate challenges based on reverse discrimination after the Court rejected the imposition of an added burden for members of any “majority group” including straight, white males. Continue reading “Is DEI DOA? Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Added Burden for Whites in Discrimination Lawsuits”
Dan Bongino, the FBI’s deputy director, has announced that the bureau is reexamining the long-controversial investigations into the leaking of the Dobbs decision, the pipe bombs left on Jan. 6th and the cocaine found at the White House. All three investigations led to speculation over political influences on the unresolved outcome. I am aware of no credible evidence of such influence, but there is reason to hope that this reopening of the investigation into the Dobbs leak could bring accountability for the most egregious violation of ethics in the modern Court’s history.
Continue reading “Unfinished Business: FBI Moves to Reopen Dobbs Leak Investigation”
This week, The New York Times reported that the town of Toms River, New Jersey, is moving to condemn the Christ Episcopal Church through eminent domain to build pickleball courts and a park. Church members claim that the move was retaliation for a planned homeless shelter at the site. The case could raise one of the most infamous cases of the modern Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London (2005). While some have suggested the possibility of a Kelo 2.0, this may not be the ideal case for such a challenge to the Supreme Court.
St. Isidore of Seville may have overcome every obstacle in bringing knowledge and education to the world, but he could not overcome a tie on the Supreme Court. With the recusal of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School in Oklahoma City lost by default when the Court deadlocked on its constitutional challenge to being denied a charter in favor of secular schools. Tied 4-4, the result is that the lower court ruling stands against the school. Continue reading “St. Isidore Loses By Default: Supreme Court Deadlocks on Major Religious Freedom Case”
Five years ago, I wrote about a federal judge who, in my view, had discarded any resemblance of judicial restraint and judgment in a public screed against Republicans, Donald Trump, and the Supreme Court. The Wisconsin judge represented the final death of irony: a jurist who failed to see the conflict in lashing out at what he called judicial bias in a political diatribe that would have made MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell blush.
His name is Lynn Adelman. Continue reading “A Judge of Her Peers? Judge Dugan Assigned a Judge Previously Rebuked for Political Comments”
Today, the United States Supreme Court will hear three consolidated cases in Trump v. CASA on the growing use of national or universal injunctions. This is a matter submitted on the “shadow docket” and the underlying cases concern the controversy over “birthright citizenship.” However, the merits of those claims are not at issue. Instead, the Trump Administration has made a “modest request” for the Court to limit the scope of lower-court injunctions to their immediate districts and parties, challenging the right of such courts to bind an Administration across the nation. Continue reading ““A Modest Request”: The Supreme Court Hears Challenge to National or Universal Injunctions”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor has previously been criticized for making public comments that some viewed as overly political or partisan, including telling law students to organize in favor of abortion rights. This week, the Justice has triggered another controversy in calling for lawyers to “fight this fight,” presumably against the Trump Administration. Continue reading ““An Act of Solidarity”: Sotomayor Calls for Lawyers to “Fight this Fight” in Controversial Speech”