52
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 Chinese descent, who,
at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but
have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are
there ...
49
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 would have to file a lawsuit in US District Court challenging Harris's eligibility.
That plaintiff would have to have standing to sue; otherwise the lawsuit would ...
45
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 information. Should the accounting firm refuse, it could be held to be in contempt of court, and fined. It is even possible that a responsible person from the firm would ...
39
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 domicile in the US was not a deciding fact in the analysis.
Some people think that a foreign student, a temporary worker, or an illegal immigrant is just as much ...
28
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 dealing with the IRS) and not Trump himself.
"...Vance is seeking the records from Trump’s longtime accounting
firm, Mazars." Supreme Court rejects ...
28
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 controversy no longer exists, Trump can't block any accounts anymore. As Trump is disallowed from making a new account, it can't arise with the same fact pattern.
...
26
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 horribly misguided. Law review articles and other publications often criticize Court decisions, and sometimes influence later results.
It is far from unheard of ...
21
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 the teacher. (And in the past it has often been so intended, by teachers and administrators who thought it was good for children to be required to engage in ...
20
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 granted due to neither party being significantly affected by the outcome of the case, as they did in Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi v. ...
19
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 specific reference to the previous meeting’s discussion but said far more to disparage Phillips’ beliefs. The commissioner stated:
“I would also like to reiterate ...
18
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 to Ramos v. Louisiana,
No. 18-5924 (U.S. Apr. 20, 2020) which overturned Apodaca v. Oregon,
406 U.S. 404 (1972) (plurality opinion) and
Johnson v. Louisiana,
...
15
It's complicated.
Rule 53 states
Except as otherwise provided by a statute or these rules, the court must not permit the taking of photographs in the courtroom during judicial proceedings or the broadcasting of judicial proceedings from the courtroom.
This is applicable not just to the Supreme Court, but to all federal courts. Rule 53 applies to criminal ...
13
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 interest on the matter?
The Supreme Court could still hear such a case, as the justices make their own decisions about when to recuse themselves. In particular, they ...
13
Less than 1% of the time
From this article:
In my forthcoming book, “Constitutional Precedent in Supreme Court Reasoning,” I point out that from 1789 to 2020 there were 25,544 Supreme Court opinions and judgments after oral arguments. The court has reversed its own constitutional precedents only 145 times – barely one-half of one percent.
However, most of ...
11
If the Supreme Court is the final authority
The Supreme court is not the final authority. The Supreme Court is the court of last resort, but that does not prevent its case law from possibly being superseded or invalidated by constitutional amendments or the enactment of legislation.
Wouldn't past and future courts be of equal authority
No. Whether in ...
11
The Supreme Court does not handle hypotheticals.
The court has interpreted Article III Section 2 Clause 1 of the Constitution, the Case or Controversy Clause as a limit on the powers of the judicial branch. The courts have jurisdiction over various types of cases and controversies but only those listed in the Constitution. This limits courts to hearing ...
10
There is a special type of law enforcement officer, called a "bailiff" who is charged with maintaining order in a courtroom, and often, a bailiff is a direct subordinate of a judge who must follow the judge's orders.
Judges can also issue special kinds of court orders, called "writs" which are a direction to a law enforcement agency ...
10
The general rule is that a governmental institution cannot bind future versions of itself. Thus a legislature can pass a law, but a later session of that same legislature can amend or repeal it, and the legislature cannot make it unamedable. Similarly, a President can issue an executive order, but later that same President, or a different one, can cancel or ...
10
While I'm not directly addressing whether Eastman's argument in Newsweek is sound, it's worth noting that Eastman wrote in Newsweek, back in 2016, that Ted Cruz was clearly a natural-born citizen, and Cruz wasn't even born in the US.
I understand that citizenship by descent and citizenship by physical location at time of birth are different dimensions to ...
10
Part of the problem you'll find is that there are so few impeachments in U.S. History (Only 21 articles of Impeachment have ever been drafted, of which only 8 resulted in convictions) and SCOTUS is so selective on cases it chooses to hear, that only one case has ever been heard and that was upheld (Nixon v. United States). In that case, SCOTUS ruled that ...
10
The Supreme Court is not infallible: rather it is unappealable*.
The Supreme Court does not claim to be, and can be rather explicit and unapologetic when denoucing past decisions. See the Trump v. Hawaii decisions (both opinion and dissent), with regards to Korematsu.
*In the court system; a law can be overwritten by Congress in explicit reaction to a ruling,...
9
If the Senate took the extreme measure of attempting to abolish the Supreme Court, there's nothing in the Constitution that requires them to confirm any of the President's nominees. However, attempting to dismantle one of the three branches would be nothing short of a coup d'etat.
The president has some options here:
He [the President] may, on ...
9
I did not find any instance in which the US Supreme Court has ever used "Natural Moral Law." However, it did use "Moral Law" 13 times.
Ogden v. Saunders
Jordan v. De George
DeWeese v. ACLU of Ohio Foundation
Van Orden v. Perry
McGowan v. Maryland
Interstate Cir. v. Dallas
Times Film Corp. v. Chicago
Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson
League v. DE YOUNG ET ...
9
Short Answer
Yes, Supreme Court decisions apply everywhere right away. (Unless the decision says it doesn't.)
No, we do not have to wait until new laws are passed.
Explanation
Judicial Review
Marbury v. Madison (1803) established the principle of judicial review under Article III of the U.S. Constitution. This allows the court[s] to interpret ...
9
Actually this is the only SCOTUS ruling on Impeachment because of what it legally means with respect to SCOTUS and impeachment. Namely, Impeachment is a congressional power and not a judicial one that has no punishment beyond the removal from office upon conviction and that therefor it is not a matter that is Judicial. That is a fancy way to say that ...
9
In the case New York Times Co. v. United States, the court issued a brief per curiam opinion basically saying that the NYT won, and then each justice wrote a separate concurrence or dissent. A few justices did join each others' opinions, and in particular, Justice Harlan's dissent was joined by both of the other two dissenters (who also wrote separately). On ...
9
There are several reasons. But a major one is the difference between the civil-law and common-law legal systems. Most European legal systems are civil-law systems, and were significantly influenced by the Napoleonic Code. In this tradition, laws, including constitutions, tend to spell out rights, obligations, and procedures in relatively precise detail, and ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible