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I'm not at all surprised. Though I wonder if the risk of leaks going forward might act as a normalizing force on "hot take" court opinions (in either direction). I'm looking forward to a post-leak Supreme Court, at least for now. I can't foresee negative outcomes yet so I'm open to a counter-thought to the one I presented above.
Aka a chilling effect (a phrase invented in high court opinion) on justice, if unpopular
This sort of leak, likely from a law clerk given that it was a draft opinion, is not a good development. Nobody has any loyalty to their institutions anymore. Every institutional loyalty has been subjected to team red or team blue.
SCOTUSblog’s Twitter has an on point take on the significance of the leak within the Court: https://twitter.com/SCOTUSblog/status/1521295411545260035?t=... It’s impossible to overstate the earthquake this will cause inside the Court, in terms of the destruction of trust among the Justices and staff. This leak is the gravest, most unforgivable sin.
Who cares. The supreme court has lost all credibility and has become just another political arm.
Like, truth is stranger than fiction levels of insane. From what I learned of the Supreme Court in the most advanced classes offered at my highschool, to then seeing that debacle go down…
Like, it’s impossible to not view the joint as one of the biggest jokes & public failures of our government.
Furthermore, it’s very much an “and this is what’s in plain view” sort of thing. I, and I presume most HN users, have always known the US gov is a bit of a gigantic joke… but I can’t really imagine how much worse things probably are in private after seeing that play out.
Oh, well. Roe is really bad law. I mean, just pure made-up gibberish. A real defilement of the Constitution. You should be able to love abortion and hate dada arguments for it at the same time. (I think?) Abortion will still be legal as a practical matter. Some people might have to travel to the next state over, of course.
We don't know if this is a majority opinion. It may be a minority opinion in the hopes of becoming a majority opinion. It may not even be real (although that seems unlikely). It could've been leaked by someone on the right to drum up on support but my guess is it's more likely to be someone liberal-leaning who leaked such a bombshell opinion as a massive regression for bodily autonomy and social rights.
If so, that person is a hero. Straight up. Just like then Bradley now Chelsea Manning leaking Benghazi video was (and is) a hero.
People have consciences whether you agree with them or not. Even in wartime and with unprecedented security measures the Manhattan Project was leaked to the Soviets basically immediately by people who saw the US having a monopoly on atomic weapons as being bad for the world.
It's also why I basically don't believe pretty much every conspiracy theory out there, particularly if it involves a lot of people (eg faked Moon landings). Governments are terrible at keeping secrets simply because they're made up of people and those people have motivations of their own.
The Supreme Court is and always has been a political institution. All of the talk about constitutionality is just moralizing and window dressing in expressing a political view as law. This is the same Supreme court that ruled that "citizens" did not include people of African descent [1]. This is the same Supreme Court that in the Reconstruction / Redeemer era completely undermined rights of former slaves.
If you concentrate on the leaker here you're missing the big picture. You're falling into right-wing propaganda about the sanctity of the Supreme Court. It's a myth and a lie.
[1]: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-americans-really-t...
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This is the bigger problem. There is a process and some people seem to think circumventing it is the right response. The courts will make a decision and then it's up to Congress to draft new laws if it wants. Undermining the process of the judicial branch is not going to end well at all.
The leak could have been done by someone who favors the draft.
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Aka a chilling effect (a phrase invented in high court opinion) on justice, if unpopular
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Why?
(And why is abortion itself not a death sentence for the aborted fetus?)