Jurisprudence : We Helped John Roberts Construct His Image as a Centrist. We Were So Wrong.

[Passages]

Nice of them to admit it. duh

By Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern
Sept 16, 2024

On Sunday, New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak published a blockbuster article about the conservative justices’ efforts to shield Donald Trump from any consequences for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. This is what Supreme Court reporting needs to become: less credulous academic translating of a handful of judicial opinions and more cultivation of inside sources, procuring of confidential memos, and production of massive scoops. More to the point, their piece—about how the three Jan. 6 cases decided last year in favor of Donald J. Trump came together—contains several remarkable news bombshells, including the fact that Justice Samuel Alito had the opinion in the Capitol assault case, Fischer v. United States, taken away from him by Chief Justice John Roberts; that the liberal justices were working to try to get the majorities to moderate maximalist positions in all three cases; and that Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch would have pushed the immunity case to be decided after the 2024 election. But the biggest revelation here is that the character John Roberts plays as an affable centrist steward of the court’s reputational interests—created largely in the press and played to the hilt by him—is a total fiction. It was Roberts who decided that Trump and Trumpism would prevail in all three insurrection cases and he did not, in this instance, follow in the wake of the court’s aggressive conservative maximalists. He was the aggressive conservative maximalist. And he created majority opinions in his own image.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/09/scotus-john-roberts-image-fail-phony-false.html

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Here is a post and a free link to the NYT story referenced in OP

Here is a NYT article on Roberts' role is the SCOTUS efforts to help re-elect TFG. Roberts actions in these cases are really sickening and show that Robert and the other five conservatives have been actively attempting to help TFG in his legal issues. I have had issues with Roberts since the Shelby County case where Roberts gutted the voting rights act. Robert has now confirmed that he is a partisan hack.

This a NYT article that has some good facts. I think that the facts in this article show that Roberts is a partisan hack. The NYT does not go that far but provides enough facts to show that control of the SCOTUS is a key issue. This immunity ruling needs to be either overturned by adding more justices to the court or with the Presidential Immunity Act which contains a provision divesting SCOTUS with jurisdiction over this issue. The naked partisanship of the SCOTUS needs to be addressed if VP Harris wins and the Democrats have control over the Senate and the House.

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/subscription/onboarding-offer?EXIT_URI=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.nytimes.com%252F2024%252F09%252F15%252Fus%252Fjustice-roberts-trump-supreme-court.html%253Funlocked_article_code%253D1.K04.mC2X.k9K6vnKaQdt6%2526smid%253Dem-share&auth=login-google1tap&campaignId=7JFJX&login=google1tap

Last February, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. sent his eight Supreme Court colleagues a confidential memo that radiated frustration and certainty.

Former President Donald J. Trump, seeking to retake the White House, had made a bold, last-ditch appeal to the justices. He wanted them to block his fast-approaching criminal trial on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that he was protected by presidential immunity. Whatever move the court made could have lasting consequences for the next election, the scope of presidential power and the court’s own battered reputation......

The chief justice wrote the majority opinions in all three cases, including an unsigned one in March concluding that the former president could not be barred from election ballots in Colorado.

Another case involved a highly unusual switch. In April, the chief justice assigned Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. to write a majority opinion saying that prosecutors had gone too far in bringing obstruction charges against some Capitol rioters. But in late May, the chief justice took it over.

I read the immunity opinion and was shocked at how poorly reasoned such opinion was. This opinion looked like it was written by a non-lawyer like Stephen Miller. Robert's analysis was really weak. I am happy to see that I was not the only lawyer who was truly offended by Roberts' reasoning in the immunity opinion

In his writings on the immunity case, the chief justice seemed confident that his arguments would soar above politics, persuade the public, and stand the test of time. His opinion cited “enduring principles,” quoted Alexander Hamilton’s endorsement of a vigorous presidency, and asserted it would be a mistake to dwell too much on Mr. Trump’s actions. “In a case like this one, focusing on ‘transient results’ may have profound consequences for the separation of powers and for the future of our Republic,” he wrote. “Our perspective must be more farsighted.”

But the public response to the decision, announced in July on the final day of the term, was nothing like what his lofty phrases seemed to anticipate.......

“It’s a strange, sprawling opinion,” said William Baude, a University of Chicago law professor and a former clerk to the chief justice. “It’s hard to tell what exactly it is trying to do.”

Others said the ruling was untethered from the law. “It’s certainly not really tied to the Constitution,” said Stephen R. McAllister, a law professor at University of Kansas and former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas.

Roberts has shown himself to be a partisan hack. The immunity ruling was really poorly reasoned and has the effect of making the POTUS into a king as noted by Justice Sotomayor

Chief Justice Roberts’s language in the opinion seemed intended to stay above the fray, extending protections to “all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy or party.” But in a withering dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the majority opinion gave Mr. Trump “all the immunity he asked for and more.” It also, she wrote, protected “treasonous acts,” transformed the president into “a king above the law” and ultimately caused her to “fear for our democracy.”

The court’s leader shot back that the liberal justices “strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the court actually does today.”

There at least two proposals pending to undo the immunity ruling that need to be addressed. Roberts proving himself to be a partisan hack makes control of the SCOTUS a key issue this cycle.

[Passages]

6. Yes. The Roberts court has big plans, and hopefully we outnumber the cons this fall

as much as possible. We must have a concerted plan to address it, which should include expansion of the court.

By Nancy Gertner and Laurence H. Tribe
December 9, 2021 at 5:01 p.m. EST
Nancy Gertner is a retired U.S. District Court judge. Laurence H. Tribe is Carl M. Loeb University Professor emeritus and professor of constitutional law emeritus at Harvard Law School. Both served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/09/expand-supreme-court-laurence-tribe-nancy-gertner/

[stopdiggin]

2. here's another take

Chief Justice Roberts image as a centrist - has largely been created (driven) by the extremism of others on the court. I give you Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch ...

In point of fact - Roberts has only ever been centrist - when viewed from the far margins of extreme legal theory.

[patphil]

3. Unfortunately he's only 69 yrs old. He's probably going to be on the court for 15-20 more years.

[FakeNoose]

4. Roberts takes orders from the Federalist Puppetmasters, just like they all do

[Passages]

7. Yes and then some.

[dalton99a]

5. Kick

[Hekate]

8. Kick