I think the hangup is that he demanded that they explicitly lie? If it was just that he didn't want to be named as a source that would be standard operating procedure.

That's my guess anyway. My entire knowledge of the situation comes from that tweet.

Could they say they talked to Bart O'Kavanaugh?

Often times producers create controversy to market their products.

pretty much my same reaction.

Thanks for the follow-up.

Surprised there's not any discussion of this. There is a very real chance that states will be able to prevent legal abortion in practice, if not by law, after this case.

I’ve been following it. There is a theoretical world where the Supreme Court destroys abortion rights, sides against workplace protections for gay and transgender people, protects the president’s tax returns, and as a result experiences a full blown legitimacy crisis just as America enters into a chaotic election where the Court’s presumed impartiality and legitimacy is needed the most.

Just what I needed to read on this Monday morning.

If all those cases swung left, would you still fear a legitimacy crisis?

I guess my somewhat shocking guess is that there's not much to discuss. It's been well known that social conservatives have been pressing hard for years and years to get an anti-abortion majority on SCOTUS. They may now have it, hence the expected cert grant here.

It's only a legitimacy crisis if the entirety of the other two branches are in firm opposition to whatever the Court's decided.

Right now, Republicans control the presidency and the Senate. So if you're going to make sweeping changes to law that favor their ideology, now might be the time to do it, even if it risks electoral backlash later.

Sorry. By legitimacy crisis, I mean the majority of the public loses faith in the court's impartiality just in time for it to have to step in and make a call related to the election or impeachment.

In each of the topics listed above, more than 70% of the country polls opposite to the scenario I described. If you have any doubt that three strikes of the magnitude and impact those cases have would decimate people's trust in the court, you only need to look back at the Roe panic during the Kavanaugh hearings/aftermath. Imagine the three decisions above being handed down in succession, and then the Court siding with Trump on an impeachment-related case shortly thereafter.

Agreed. Your previous post mentioned a theoretical world, but I don't think it's that far fetched. The saving grace will probably be Roberts' fear of exactly the loss of legitimacy that you describe, so I'd expect him to be extremely tactical about what he does, because let's be honest, it's up to him and him alone. It's too early to predict specifically, but I'll do it anyway. My guess is that he'll strategically side with the libs a few times when its least costly to do so, like he did in the bureaucratic discretion case in June, but he'll give the conservatives big wins on abortion and guns.

But isnt the exact role of the court to determine the intent of the law as written and the constitutionality of the law's application in a specific case, not comply with what the majority of people want it to be? While I favor the left leaning position in those cases, a right wing win on all three would not erode the legitimacy of the court outside of the punditry uproar that would cause. The court would be viewed as a sham because every media outlet would be telling people the court is shame for not agree with "the right side of history".

Also, is it a correct reading that the workplace discrimination law could force genderless bathrooms be the norm or businesses could be subject to lawsuits? I'm not down with that (trans people can use the bathroom of the gender they are transitioning to at a time of their choosing).

Well, "determin[ing] the intent of the law as written and the constitutionality of the law's application" has plenty of subjectivity to it.

And while SCOTUS should have the strength to rule in spite of any tyranny of the majority, from a practical standpoint, if all the other branches of government are opposed to its rulings, there's nothing it can do to prevent itself from be losing legitimacy, even if you think it's making the correct decisions. It happened in the New Deal era when FDR threatened to pack the Court and Owen Roberts backed down, and it happened with Brown v. Board of Education when the South flat out ignored SCOTUS, and the executive and legislative branches did nothing for three years until Eisenhower sent the National Guard into Little Rock.

Now, I don't know whether McParadigm is correct as to whether the cases he cites as popular will delegitimize SCOTUS. The GOP would have to get wiped out to the point where Democrats could have the power to threaten a court packing like FDR did, or have the popular power to allow the White House, or state governments sympathetic to it, to ignore SCOTUS rulings. But it's certainly something the justices should be aware of.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/supreme-court-juvenile-justice-political-rights-leniency.html

Holy shit that is ridiculous (from an Ivy League prof as well)

I have some objections to that too, but I don't know if they'll be the same as yours.

I have never bought into the idea that there can be a bright line of age that can determine whether people are mature enough to understand what they did. The idea that being 17 days and 364 days old versus 18 and one day makes a huge difference has never made sense to me. I would determine that question on a case by case basis--in some cases, the juvenile may be considered mature, and the young adult may be considered immature depending on the facts of the case.

Now, I do find Yaffe's argument that a political bright line of the disenfranchisement of various rights makes more sense than any precise age. However, I would dispute whether those rights should be disenfranchised in the first place. Yaffe states that "[c]hildren lack the vote, and their right to freedom of speech is severely curtailed", but I see no reason why they should be. Indeed, if you gave children all these rights, it strikes me as a backdoor way to possibly punish them excessively for committing a crime.

Now, I have no idea whether Malvo should be considered mature enough to have known what he was doing way back when he was 17. I'd have to see the detailed facts of his case to learn. But I don't think the fact that he was 17 when he committed those crimes, nor that he was not granted full rights when he did so, should be the determining factors as to whether his life without parole sentence is constitutional.

What do you think about proposals that people choose for themselves when to become a legal adult, with both the privileges and responsibilities that come with it?

We are largely in agreement here, there nothing magical about your 18th birthday that makes you capable of assuming 'adult' responsibilities and I agree that the sentencing judge should be taking the mental condition of the accused into account.

This particular part is what trigger me:

"As a matter of conscience, nobody should favor a sentence of life without parole for a child, no matter what that child has done"

1.) That sounds like a person whose privilege isolates from the effects of victimhood and 2) Malvo shot or aided in the murder of 17 random people and seriously wounded 10 more when he was seventeen. This is a mass murderer who spents weeks on his killing spree and the idea that he wasn't up to some highly subjective standard of 'maturity' or crossed the magical 18 year barrier should influence how long he spends in jail makes no sense to me. The whole thing feels like a hint of the progressive 'OMG crime stats are racist and we need to do something!' logic hidden in a 'won't somebody think of the children' panic.

From a legal standpoint, I'm having a problem thinking of many adult responsibilities that aren't linked to criminal sentencing. But I can think of a bunch of rights that we bar to people due to being too young, most of which in my opinion should not exist.