Last three Supreme Court rulings released: Two bad, one good


The three remaining opinions in the cases I discussed earlier have been issued.

As I expected, the court ruled 5-4 against the death row inmates in Glossip v. Gross, with justice Alito writing the majority opinion and joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas. You can read more about the result here.

In the EPA case, the same five justices ruled against the EPA and in favor of the power plant industry, with justice Scalia writing the majority opinion and joined by Kennedy, Roberts, Alito, and Thomas. You can read more about that decision here.

But there was one good result and that was in the redistricting case where justice Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in a 5-4 ruling (joined by Kennedy, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor) that such independent redistricting commissions were constitutional. This is a very important case, though it has not received much attention.

So once again, Kennedy cemented his reputation as the key swing vote in close cases, providing the majority in each case.

Comments

  1. Jean says

    The death penalty: the ultimate demonstration of christian love and respect for life. And the US is in such good company with the other countries who kill as many people…

  2. mnb0 says

    Off topic: The Netherlands, a country that likes to take over everything that goes wrong in the USA, has its own version of Ferguson. Sure, it’s only kindergarten when compared, but the underlying things are exactly the same.

    http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/06/29/man-dies-in-custody-after-aggressive-arrest/

    http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2015/06/29/me-grijpt-in-bij-betoging-den-haag-na-dood-mitch-hendriquez/

    Racial profiling, coloured people overrepresented in jail, you name it.

    I suggest everybody to remember this when Geert Wilders is posing like an anti-islam hero again. If he’s short of racism I have great difficulties to discern the margin. One suggestion of his was shooting rioting Moroccans hooligans in the knees -- not rioting cheeseheads.

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