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Today's SCOTUS opinions
I'd like to post a little about these as they come out over the next few weeks. One of you said you like themotte's legal takes not too long ago, so I'll give my utterly uninformed ones. If there are new opinions out, and I haven't made a thread, by all means, make one.
Cantero v. Bank of America, N.A.
Written by Kavanaugh, 9-0.
This case is rather obscure. It deals with the question of a law in New York, regulating banks. There are two types of banks, national and state banks. The question is whether the statutes applying to federal banks preempt those applying to state banks. Everyone agrees that they sometimes do. In this case, the court argues that the Second Circuit should have applied a different standard than they did (they should have applied "nuanced comparative analysis" instead of a "categorical test," following the wrong set of precedents), but does not give any opinion on how that should be decided in this case, just that it should be looked at again by the lower court with a different standard.
I know, I know, exciting start.
Thornell v. Jones
6-3. Alito writes for the majority, which the conservatives join. Sotomayor and Jackson each write dissents, of which Kagan joins the former.
In 1992, Jones committed two horrific murders: he beat his acquaintance Robert Weaver, Weaver's grandmother, and Weaver's seven-year-old daughter to death in order to take Weaver's $2000 gun collection.
Under Arizona law, this was weighed, with the aggravating factors (committing multiple murders in the offence, motivated by money, heinousness, and a young child), and the mitigating factors (Jones had underwent child abuse, began abusing drugs young, suffered brain damage, and received psychiatric treatments as a child), and sentenced Jones to death.
Jones then filed a habeas petition with the 9th circuit, which they grant. Under Strickland v. Washington, he must show that he had insufficient counsel, prejudicing the case against him, and that this would make it reasonable (that is, a substantial probability) that this would have changed the sentencing.
Alito argues that the 9th circuit was wrong for 3 reasons:
(some of those sentences closely follow Alito's wording, don't come after me)
Alito then provides his own analysis of the case, considering the new evidence, and that it would be unlikely to cause any revisions (applying Strickland) to the Arizona courts judgments, because it's not really claiming all that much more, and is in the same categories, and so reverses and remands the case.
Sotomayor and Kagan agree that they should have considered aggravating factors, but did not think that Alito should have judged the merits of the specifics of the case (what I talked about in the preceding paragraph).
Jackson thought that the Ninth circuit acted sufficiently in their methodology, and just because they decided wrongly (per Alito) doesn't mean that they were procedurally wrong. Also, she disputes 1 and 2 above.
Legally, I don't have a clear enough view of what SCOTUS is willing to cover to judge whether the dissents are right.
My own (not legal) takeaways: What the heck are we doing as a country that we can't manage to carry out a death sentence 30 years after he was sentenced? Second, activist courts are really a problem. The liberal justices would all yield to those courts, as they misapply standards. If Jackson's right, their process suffices, even if they're entirely dishonest in their evaluation of the evidence. Third, I'm not a fan of a bunch of these mitigating factors. Being abused as a child shouldn't really be an argument against being put to death for murder.
NRA v. Vullo
Sotomayor (!) writes for a unanimous court. Gorsuch and Jackson each file concurrences.
Vullo, in her capacity of Superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services had pressured insurers to drop the NRA, saying that she'd found errors, but they wouldn't be prosecuted for them if they did so. Further, there were letters to businesses saying they should drop the NRA to minimise risk.
The court holds that this is illegal coercion, and violates the first amendment, by punishing the NRA for speech through government action. The indirectness of it does not change that.
Gorsuch writes to clarify that this means that some standard tests aren't always right.
Jackson thinks there is more to be said about whether there's a first amendment claim (so, I think, disagreeing with the majority), but agrees overall.
I think this deserves to be a top-level post for the next few weeks. Sort of like Trans-National Thursdays. Supreme Court Saturdays?
Well, they come out Thursdays, most of the time. Do you really want to wait two days?
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Vullo is interesting, but ultimately the court leaves qualified immunity on the table, the Second Circuit is almost certainly going to give her it, and almost any plausible future case will have some excuse for why it's just slightly different enough that they get qualified immunity too, and that makes it hard to care too much. The facts for the NRA to get here were very much outliers -- had Lockton been the slightest bit less NRA-friendly to start with, or James been the slightest bit more circumspect, and that balancing test becomes even harder to demonstrate.
It's better than the carte blanche for 'nice non-profit you have here, shame if something happened to it' the Second Circuit appeals court gave, and it's nice to see even Sotomayor willing to push back on lower courts doing this stuff, but it's more going to discourage overt acts at the margins over actually making anyone whole.
Jackson's argument is that the matter should have been handled as a retaliation case, rather than a censorship one. That's not quite a dissental, but it would be a much harsher standard to show in future or unrelated cases, and maybe even in future proceedings in this one would have made it easier to rebut.
Thanks! I could tell that Jackson's was a meaningful dispute, but I just wanted to be done, and so didn't work it out exactly.
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Standard pattern with this court: don't let horrible principles formally stand, but let the bad actors use them and lower courts accept them anyway.
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