Earthquake: Supreme Court leak shakes Washington

US Supreme Court in Washington, DC. AFP FILE PHOTO

WASHINGTON — The leaking of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn nearly 50 years of abortion rights in the United States is an extraordinary breach of the often jealously guarded secrecy of the country’s highest judicial establishment.

With the fallout from the bomb leak to the Washington media, attention has shifted to the identity and motives of the leaker with blame placed on both the left and the right.

Supreme Court opinions are tightly held until formally announced with only a small circle of law clerks and permanent court staff having access to the closed deliberations of the nine justices.

The case in question, a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks, was discussed in December, and in the course of business as usual, the court will publish its ruling by the end of June.

According to a draft majority opinion obtained by Politico, conservatives in the nation’s highest court, by 5-4 votes, will reject the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized women’s right to abortion in the United States.

Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday confirmed the draft opinion was valid but stressed that it did not represent “any member’s final position”.

Roberts said the leak was a “single and serious betrayal” of trust and the leader of the court ordered an investigation into the source.

“To the extent this betrayal of the court family was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed,” Roberts said. “The work of the court will not be affected in any way.”

Referring to the leak, SCOTUSblog, which covers court affairs, said it was “impossible to overstate the earthquake that will occur inside the court, in terms of destroying trust between judges and staff.”

“This leak is the most serious and unforgivable sin,” SCOTUSblog said.

We’ve had leaks from the Supreme Court before. “But this is a whole new order in terms of the size of the leak,” said Oren Kerr, a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley.

Neil Katial, who has debated cases before the Supreme Court in his capacity as acting attorney general for President Barack Obama, said it was “equivalent to leaking the Pentagon Papers,” referring to the leaked documents outlining US involvement in Vietnam.

Institutional patent

Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, argued in USA Today that the Supreme Court had lost its “institutional innocence.”

Even in a city perched on a gushing sea of ​​leaks, the Supreme Court has always been an island of integrity and secrecy,” Turley wrote.

“This was clearly a politically calculated act by someone who was willing to abandon every moral and professional principle for the sake of a political cause,” he said. “There is no apparent reason for the leak other than external pressure on the court.”

Republican lawmakers have suggested the leak may be an attempt to pressure a potential swing vote in the case — Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of three conservatives nominated to court by former President Donald Trump.

Conservatives currently hold a 6-3 majority in court, but CNN reports that Chief Justice Roberts, who generally aligns with the conservative faction, does not fully support overturning Roe v. Wade.

“This leak is a shameless effort to intimidate the majority of the court,” said Albert Mohler, an anti-abortion activist and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Mohler said the draft was disclosed “in a subversive attempt to undermine or marginalize the court’s decision and possibly to divide its majority before any decision is announced.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the leak “another escalation in the radical left’s ongoing campaign to bully and intimidate federal judges and replace mob rule with the rule of law.”

Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, speculated that the order may have come from abortion opponents seeking to garner support.

“Let’s say you’re a conservative judge committed to overruling Roe and Casey,” Vladek wrote on Twitter. There were five votes for that result.

Now, the opponents are coming, and you are worried about losing the majority. What are you doing?” he asked.

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