It's really not that complex. The question is NOT whether the plan was a good idea or reasonable. The question was whether the Bankruptcy Code authorized the bankruptcy judge to approve the plan. It doesn't. It's really not more complex than that.
Courts cannot legislate from the bench. Why not? Because the Constitution says so; i.e., Congress gets to say what the statutes say, while the Judiciary gets to say what the Constitutions says. That's the balance of power under the Constitution.
To me...the waaaaaaay bigger and more intriguing thing is: the story underlying this split 5-4 decision.
I mean this spit the "right" justices and the "left" justices. J Jackson came out of nowhere and sided with four "right" justices. Like, what?
Also, I can't for the life of me understand how J Sotomayor and J Kagan could ever come to the conclusion that this sweetheart deal for rich billionaires, who made their money killing $247k humans, was a good idea and totally fine. Again, what? But no the efficacy of the deal doesn't legally matter and is irrelevant.
Nevertheless, we don't know that the victims will be harmed by this decision. However, we DO KNOW that the rich billionaires would have benefited if this decision went the other way.
Remember that.
There's gotta be a Pulitzer worthy story behind this split.
The wild part is how the justices were split: Gorsuch wrote for the majority, joined by Thomas, Alito, Barrett and Jackson. You won't often see these 5 seeing eye to eye in a split decision.
This ruling breaks my usual test that the conservative majority will nearly always side with corporate intersts because this decision definitely isn't pro-corporate.
The settlement would essentially shield the Sacklers from all liability and allow them to keep the proceeds of their crimes while paying a fine over a long period of time essentially from future earnings on thse ill-gotten gains.
The dissent seemed to say this was bad for 100,000 opioid victims. That's not a reason to legally shield the crooks who profited from their death and suffering. I'm shocked that Kagan and Sotomayor, in particular, went for that line of reasoning.
In a just world, the Sacklers would die pennieless in a 6x8 cell. Fines are just the cost of doing business. Intentionally addicting hundreds of thousands (if not millions) to opioids for profit, knowingly, should lead the loss to both your freedom and every dollar you earned from that endeavour.
The fact these cases made it to SCOTUS basically ensures there were multiple legal theories that arguably correct. If there was only one true interpretation, the cases would have been solved by a lower court. Then SCOTUS itself was split (along partisan lines no less).
There’s also the stage where the court decides whether to take on a case which requires only 4 justices to vote for it, and we don’t know what happened at conference, eg how forcefully Alito was arguing. Thus, a 7-1 majority does not make a conflict of interest unproblematic.
$100k: yes but it’s unclear they would have flown the private jet if Alito had said “no thanks I’ll fly commercial and pay for the ticket”
Despite the politics around the court and the idea that the court is divided, most Supreme Court decisions are unanimous or close to it. Opinions like this one provide alternate legal theories to use later.
That's basically the argument made in the dissenting opinion. I find the split among the justices here very interesting as it is not along party lines, as such splits usually are.
It was a 4-3 decision in a 8 member court (with Justice Kagan recusing herself, as you mentioned). It's a 5-4 reverse decision now based on ideology alone.
I see that you haven't let facts get in the way of a good theory.
I don't think you've read the dissenting arguments yet.
The core of this case is how do you interpret legislative text. The current Court is taking a radically strict view of legislation. They act like they are only reading the words. But in fact everyone has to interpret written words somehow. The question is what context do you use when you interpret the words.
Also keep in mind how the conservative justices were picked. Even if the justices truly decide cases based on non-partisan judicial ideologies (doubtful), the composition of the court has been picked in such a way that their decisions have conservative outcomes written all over them.
The decision 9-0 but with two separate opinions, and boy is the split weird: Scalia-Roberts-Kennedy-Thomas-Sotomayor on the broader interpretation; and Alito-Ginsburg-Breyer-Kagan on the narrower interpretation.
Indeed. It's almost fairer to categorize this as a 5-3-1 decision. Gorsuch tricks you into nodding along with his dissent, which reads very much like a concurrence holding _Katz_ over _Smith_, etc, until bam, there's a dissent.
To my reading, he's saying two things in his conclusion:
* His dissent would be a concurrence if he could have found in Carpenter's favor on propertarian grounds, but Carpenter's lawyers didn't raise any 4A property arguments, so he couldn't
* A finger-wag to future lawyers to please bring him some property arguments so that he can rule the way he wants to.
On the whole though, I honestly think that if he didn't already know that the majority would carry the day with 5 justices, he might have been okay just offering a concurrence.
a concurrent not dissenting opinion was filed so it wasn't a 5-4 split or something, the other justices came to the same conclusion just via a different route.
I wonder if anyone else finds this disturbing? I thought the Supreme Court was supposed to be beyond partisan politics. Why would "party lines" have anything to do with this case, or is it some kind of coincidence? And which party has more reason to help credit card companies, and why?
I hate America sometimes. All that shit we learned in civics class was just idealistic propaganda if it all comes down to party lines.
It seems like a bunch of people got high on their own supply and convinced themselves this was a slam-dunk case. A more impartial person would look at it and see a dozen ways the SCOTUS could say "nope."
Yes, the people saying this is no big deal I think have failed to notice that SCOTUS just overturned a major previous SCOTUS decision that has stood for over 40 years and which is going to have a massive influence on a large category of class action lawsuits in the future. That this is understood to be an important decision is verified by the stock market response which was to immediately go into freefall. The reaction was swift and not anticipated in advance by market uncertainty because this decision was a huge surprise since no one thought they had the votes, the assumption being that conservative Kavanaugh would side with the conservative majority on issues of unquestioned corporate power. This may be an indicator that in many other cases involving corporations there exists a SCOTUS majority that will be overturning other past decisions and in general not be automatically deferential to business interests.
There is actually a whole podcast called 5-4 that goes over how illogical and partisan the court is and always has been. Every episode is a specific case. They go over the actual arguments and show why they don't work. You can educate yourself there.
Also, you're pointing out that the rulings are consistent with the views of the judges. This is missing the point because what if you have set A of judges with views X and set B of judges with views Y afterwards and they overturn or gut A's rulings? It's an admission of partisanship and outcome bias, which the supreme Court is not supposed to have. The problem isnt that an individual judge is inconsistent, it's that different sets of judges are inconsistent. It be like if when a company changes it's board they go from car company, to gamedev, to crypto, to defense, etc. How would that be a desirable result?
Even if your interpretation is correct, that's just one justice writing a separate and solo concurring opinion.
And that justice comes from a different generation than the other 5 who voted to overturn, so there's even less reason to assume the others share his views.
I think the dissenting opinion on this one makes a lot of sense. Even so, making legal sense doesn't mean they are not biased, seeing as the court decides which cases to rule on, and which ones to ignore.
Basically. Sotomayer wrote one concurring decision, Alito wrote the other, and the rest were with Alito. Alito's not all bad; this decision really brought out the anti-government side of him.
Courts cannot legislate from the bench. Why not? Because the Constitution says so; i.e., Congress gets to say what the statutes say, while the Judiciary gets to say what the Constitutions says. That's the balance of power under the Constitution.
To me...the waaaaaaay bigger and more intriguing thing is: the story underlying this split 5-4 decision.
I mean this spit the "right" justices and the "left" justices. J Jackson came out of nowhere and sided with four "right" justices. Like, what?
Also, I can't for the life of me understand how J Sotomayor and J Kagan could ever come to the conclusion that this sweetheart deal for rich billionaires, who made their money killing $247k humans, was a good idea and totally fine. Again, what? But no the efficacy of the deal doesn't legally matter and is irrelevant.
Nevertheless, we don't know that the victims will be harmed by this decision. However, we DO KNOW that the rich billionaires would have benefited if this decision went the other way.
Remember that.
There's gotta be a Pulitzer worthy story behind this split.
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