Posted on 06/25/2022 8:33:34 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts cites the horrendous Korematsu and Plessy v. Ferguson cases as profiles in judicial courage to right the wrongs of the past. But when given a chance to right an unconstitutional wrong on abortion, he wimped out.
When the draft Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked in May, the vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and its replacement, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, was at 5-4. After Friday’s decision, it’s still 5-4.
Roberts is the man who refashioned the “taxing power” of Obamacare so he wouldn’t have to spike the first black president’s signature legislation — at great cost to American freedom. Roberts is known as a traditionalist who cares more about the institution of the Supreme Court and whether it’s staying out of the press than about the actual decisions. His moves in Obamacare angered his conservative colleagues and were “not consistent, and his legal arguments were not entirely coherent. But he brought people and their different interests together,” according to a book about Roberts.
Roberts is known to whittle, chop, wheedle and trim cases so that the court votes only on a small sliver of the case, leaving remaining issues for another day. And that’s what he tried — and failed — to do in the abortion decisions. In the Dobbs decision, he tried to have it both ways, but none of the conservative justices were picking up what he was throwing down.
Instead, they threw their lot in with Justice Samuel Alito’s painstaking review of the lies, misstatements, and wrong-headed “history” conjured in the Roe and Casey decisions.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Roe found that the Constitution implicitly conferred a right to obtain an abortion, but it failed to ground its decision in text, history, or precedent. It relied on an erroneous historical narrative; it devoted great attention to and presumably relied on matters that have no bearing on the meaning of the Constitution; it disregarded the fundamental difference between the precedents on which it relied and the question before the Court; it concocted an elaborate set of rules, with different restrictions for each trimester of pregnancy, but it did not explain how this veritable code could be teased out of anything in the Constitution, the history of abortion laws, prior precedent, or any other cited source; and its most important rule (that States cannot protect fetal life prior to “viability”) was never raised by any party and has never been plausibly explained. Roe’s reasoning quickly drew scathing scholarly criticism, even from supporters of broad access to abortion.
The decisions were completely unmoored from the Constitution. But that didn’t seem to bother Chief Justice Roberts all that much.
Trump’s biggest mistake.
Roberts is now the prime suspect in the ruling leak ...
Roberts care more about the cocktail circuit than he does about making sensible rulings.
“Trump’s biggest mistake”
****************************
This shameful toad has been Chief Justice since 2005. Trump bears no responsibility for him… he’s a Bush judge.
???
Trump’s biggest mistake.
_____
He was appointed by Bush the Younger.
RE: Trump’s Biggest Mistake
That would be GW Bush’s biggest mistake. Trump had NOTHING to do with John Robert’s appointment.
Robert is a politician. He wants to please everybody.
He does not want to make any tough decision.
We call it wishy washy.
Roberts is a HUGE pussy with NO SPINE!! This court belongs to Clarence Thomas now and I think Justice Thomas is making inroads bringing Kavanaugh along!! I think when Kavanaugh first went on the court he had his nose so far up Roberts ass it was hard for him to see!! I think Kavanaugh is feeling more comfortable there now and starting to follow Gorsuch and Thomas more now!! Kavanaugh just MIGHT be able to be saved!! Roberts not having the guts to do what was right is nauseating!!
He was a bush appointee.
Even Justice Blackmun would have voted to overturn his own Roe decision, given clear scientific evidence of life and pain regarding the unborn child. He said so in his original opinion. ““if this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the 14th Amendment.” Blackmun said science and medicine had not yet established that personhood. This was before even ultrasounds. There is no question that personhood has been established for many years now.
“...Trump’s biggest mistake...”
-
You continue to demonstrate your ignorance.
I agree
I knew this guy was a plant when, at his age, he was appointed Chief Justice.
How does that happen??
This guy is compromised! Has to be!!!
Almost nothing this guy does makes sense based off his judicial philosophy& rulings , prior to his SC appointment
This is part of the evil that is the Bush family. Not only did Bush appoint Roberts, but then inexplicably (or so it seemed) elevated him directly to Chief Justice. We have since seen exactly why he was chosen to nuke conservatism as a Trojan Horse.
The objection that Roberts raises to the reasoning in Dobbs is that it goes further than Roberts believes necessary. He’s willing to uphold the Mississippi law but he would just update the Roe/Casey mess with another rule. He agrees with the critique of Roe by the majority but doesn’t want to get rid of a constitutional right to infanticide. Rather than right a wrong decision, Roberts would rather make the decision only a little less wrong.
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Chief Justice’s opinion get a smackdown like this from other members of the majority he joined. Justice Alito succinctly summed up Roberts’ approach: “The concurrence’s most fundamental defect is its failure to offer any principled basis for its approach.”
Roberts’ concurrence reads very much like that of a man who has lost control of the Court and the respect of his colleagues. The only reason I can see that Roberts concurred with the opinion is that he didn’t want to be repudiated by the Court in what will likely be the most significant decision of his tenure as Chief Justice.
The bottom line is the justices of the SCOTUS conservative wing don’t trust him and don’t trust his finger-in-the-wind incrementalism. The Court is clearly being led by the Thomas-Alito partnership that is providing the willpower and guts to motivate the conservative majority to decide cases based on the law and not worry about what the editorial boards of the Washington Post and New York Times say.
He is. It’s disgusting too because during his Senate hearings, Roberts was absolutely mind-numbingly brilliant. I mean, it was arguably the greatest performance of a nominee I’ve ever seen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.