53
votes
Will SCOTUS be forced to rule on birthright citizenship soon?
Probably not, because there is no legal case or controversy, and the law is clear enough. In US v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, SCOTUS held that
A child born in the United States, of parents of ...
- 216k
49
votes
Accepted
Will SCOTUS be forced to rule on birthright citizenship soon?
I think it's quite unlikely that this will lead to a Supreme Court decision on the question of birthright citizenship in general.
Consider what would have to happen to get to that point:
Someone ...
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44
votes
What happens to Donald Trump if he refuses to turn over his financial records?
According to this Washington Post story:
Vance is seeking the records from Trump’s longtime accounting firm, Mazars.
Thus Trump himself will not be able to refuse to provide the tax return ...
- 114k
39
votes
Will SCOTUS be forced to rule on birthright citizenship soon?
No. The circumstances of Kamala Harris's birth fall squarely within the terms of United States v. Wong Kim Ark. As described in the other answer, the fact that Wong's parents had a permanent ...
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38
votes
Accepted
Does Justice Sotomayor's "Seal Team 6" example, in and of itself, explicitly give the President the authority to execute opponents? If not, why not?
Independent of whether Sotomayor is right or wrong, the passage you quote is from her dissent. A dissent is not binding law and courts have no obligation to follow it.
In general, what's written in a ...
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34
votes
Would a Trump-nominated Supreme Court justice be expected to recuse themselves from a Trump case?
No, That Would not be treated as a Conflict of Interest
There is precedent. The four Justices appointed by President Nixon did not recuse themselves on cases involving Nixon, including subpoenas to ...
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34
votes
Accepted
Why did CJ Roberts apply the Fourteenth Amendment to Harvard, a private school?
Justice Gorsuch attempts to explain (at p. 20 of his concurrence):
In the years following Bakke, this Court hewed to Justice Powell's and Justice Brennan's shared premise that Title VI and the Equal ...
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29
votes
Accepted
Why did the Supreme Court vacate the ruling that Trump could not block Twitter users?
The case was appealed and taken by SCOTUS. Then the case became moot:
Trump was banned from Twitter for life, his account permanently suspended. As the Twitter account that was the core of the ...
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29
votes
Accepted
Is there precedent for Supreme Court justices recusing themselves from cases when they have strong ties to groups with strong opinions on the case?
Is there precedent for Supreme Court justices recusing themselves from
cases when they have strong ties to groups with strong opinions on the
case?
Not really.
Supreme Court justices decide ...
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28
votes
What happens to Donald Trump if he refuses to turn over his financial records?
The recent SCOTUS ruling on the ability of the Manhattan DA's office to enforce their subpoena applies to the accounting firm Mazars (who has copies of the tax returns and acts as Trump's agent in ...
- 19k
28
votes
Accepted
Can someone explain the Trump immunity ruling?
You are asking about Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. ___ (2024), the final decided case of October Term 2023 (decided on July 1, 2024, the same day as this Q&A).
These judgments are meant to ...
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27
votes
Does the Supreme Court simply rubberstamp the prevailing social consensus?
Does the Supreme Court simply rubberstamp the prevailing social
consensus?
No.
Structurally, The Supreme Court Is Designed To Lag Behind Social Consensus
U.S. Supreme Court justices are political ...
- 229k
26
votes
When an old Supreme Court ruling is overturned by a new one, how is this explained philosophically?
The Supreme Court is infallible only in that their rulings are unchallengable, at least through any judicial process. Dissents often explain how the dissenter thinks a decision is not only wrong, but ...
- 114k
26
votes
Are legislators ever asked to explain their intent in Supreme Court cases?
Many jurists do accept that it is appropriate to attempt to ascertain the "legislative intent" as part of the exercise of statutory interpretation, but legislative intent is not an aggregate ...
- 65.7k
24
votes
Does Justice Sotomayor's "Seal Team 6" example, in and of itself, explicitly give the President the authority to execute opponents? If not, why not?
Justice Sonia Sotomayor is correct. The majority's test explicitly allows for Presidential immunity in each of the cases she identifies. This demonstrates that it is a poor choice of a legal standard.
...
- 229k
24
votes
Accepted
What happens if all nine Supreme Justices recuse themselves?
As a preface, recognize that this has never happened, so we can't know for sure. We can only interpret the relevant statutes, constitutional provisions, and vaguely analogous precedents, and consider ...
- 229k
23
votes
Accepted
Have draft SCOTUS opinions been leaked before?
Politico, who published this most recent leak, also has an article about prior SOCTUS leaks. Most of them were very minor or speculative, along the lines of the following two examples given:
In 1972,...
- 3,078
23
votes
Accepted
What happens when the opinion of the Court misrepresents the facts of the case?
What are the legal consequences of substantive factual errors in an
opinion?
None.
I assume that this specific ruling is not affected in any way by the
text of the opinion?
Correct.
I assume that ...
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22
votes
Accepted
Are children allowed to pray at goverment schools?
This is roughly accurate, but there are nuances. The real US issue with teacher-led prayer is that a teacher's authority can make it effectively coercive, or seem so, even if this is not intended by ...
- 114k
22
votes
Could the right to "life" in the constitution be used by the supreme court to reject a federal law forbidding abortion bans?
The 5th amendment of the US constitution reads:
No person shall ... be deprived of life ... without due process of law
and the 14th amendment reads:
... nor shall any State deprive any person of ...
- 1,347
22
votes
Accepted
On the (Equi)Potency of Each Organic Law of the United States
Does this mean that all four of the above are "equipotent"?
No. The inclusion of these foundational documents in the Front Matter of the United States Code does not indicate anything ...
- 6,233
21
votes
How willing is the US Supreme Court to declare itself wrong?
As for SCOTUS being willing to overrule itself, here is a table of such cases, starting with Hudson v. Guestier 10 U.S. (6 Cr.) 281 (1810) which overturned Rose v. Himely,
8 U.S. (4 Cr.) 241 (1808) up ...
- 216k
20
votes
Why did the Supreme Court vacate the ruling that Trump could not block Twitter users?
The Supreme Court has a lot of things they can do in theory, but in reality, there are only two options the Court likely considered:
One was to simply dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently ...
- 3,271
20
votes
Would a Trump-nominated Supreme Court justice be expected to recuse themselves from a Trump case?
There is no hard law (statutory, constitutional or SCOTUS holding) regarding "conflict of interest" for Supreme Court justices. Justices have typically recused themselves in case of ...
- 216k
19
votes
What did Colorado say in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission that Kennedy found to be "neither tolerant or respectful"?
See section II B of the opinion. On page 13:
On July 25, 2014, the Commission met again. This meeting, too, was conducted in public and on the record. On this occasion another commissioner made ...
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17
votes
Why did CJ Roberts apply the Fourteenth Amendment to Harvard, a private school?
TL;DNR: You are right. Roberts says Harvard should lose because it violates the 14th Amendment. But he does not say the 14th Amendment applies directly to Harvard. He says Title VI and the 14th ...
- 8,428
16
votes
Can US Supreme Court justices / judges be "rotated" out against their will?
I will only address this part of the question:
Who would be able to authoritatively decide the constitutionality of such a question, with all Supreme Court justices having clear conflict of ...
- 30.1k
16
votes
Accepted
Can a U.S. state bring action before the Supreme Court against another state for equal rights of its own citizens when they visit the other state?
No.
The original jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court for disputes between states applies only to disputes between the state entities themselves, not suits on behalf of their citizens.
Something ...
- 229k
16
votes
Accepted
Could a justice be sued in a case that goes, ‘‘all the way up to the Supreme Court?’’
To the title question, yes, of course, Justices are subject to the law same as anyone else is (at least in theory; whether actual practice bears that out is another matter). Chief Justice Roberts (...
- 3,078
16
votes
Accepted
Could one get a declaratory judgement on which parts of the Constitution *are* self-executing?
No, a U.S. federal court will not issue a free-standing declaration of constitutional meaning outside of a case or controversy. This is a jurisdictional limit.
By way of comparison, Canada does ...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible