The post says that "Attempts at humor usually fall flat" but also that it's not humorless. If you've listened anytime recently, oral arguments can have semi-formal tone. Of course there's requisite formality of procedure, and I can't even recall an occasion when that has lapsed, but because these are actual discussions, there is a good amount of rather straightforward talk. Justices regularly construct absurd scenarios to test the limits of arguments, and some of the following argumentation can be pretty funny. It's worth a listening from time to time.
You'll see many comments here complaining about the corruption or partisanship of the Supreme Court. Notably, though, no actual accusations of bribery (gifts to judges from people not involved in cases is not bribery), nor are any opinions articulated on mistakes made by the court in its majorities. Which is to be expected, Hackernews is not populated by lawyers, after all!
I can certainly empathize with people who don't like the outcomes of some recent SCOTUS decisions. I don't like the outcome of Dobbs for example. But picking outcomes is emphatically not the job of the judicial branch, that is Congress' job. The judicial branch is supposed to interpret laws and the Constitution as accurately as possible, but not write them.
N.b. some interesting stats: in the 2024 term, for example,
~40% cases were unanimously decided, and only about 1 in 11 were split along ideological lines, according to this study from scotusblog (ideology calculated as Martin-Quinn score): https://cdn.sanity.io/files/pito4za5/production/d8301fc26d15...
>The judicial branch is supposed to interpret laws and the Constitution as accurately as possible, but not write them.
Yes, it is very obvious the Constitution said the president is immune. And the recent decision on the VRA is completely based on the interpretation that there is no more racial discrimination - which fell apart in the days after.
>N.b. some interesting stats: in the 2024 term, for example, ~40% cases were unanimously decided
Now do the statistics for 2025-2026, cherrypicker.
Of this comment and the its parent, this is the comment hurting America. It's unrepentantly belligerent and sarcastic without actually trying prove its contrarian view. You could have at least provided the 2025/6 statistics you claim disprove something. But instead you just levy an insult. All in all, F for effort in being a productive member of society
I struggle with this daily. If two comments state the opposite, and one is "constructive" in framing, and one is antagonistic, I agree it's easier to carry the conversation with the former. But if the latter is the factually correct one, I'm not sure it's the one "hurting America", at least comparatively. This is an assumption made by me in service of the hypothetical.
In general, I think debates (the school competition kind/internet spectacle kind) focuses entirely to much on perception, and very little on content, in that whoever wins is completely disjoint from who if any is actually right. Though I suppose it's easier to police/moderate the presentation than the veracity.
TL;DR: I agree with you in general, all else being equal, but that's not always the case.
What is hurting America is bad faith and bullshit. Not "belligerence" nor sarcasm.
This constant appeal to civility only serves to stamp down any discussion. One side is doing ugly things, but the other is put down the second they dare use a bad word or are even slightly snarky.
The parent comment is lying and manipulating his ass off - of course he is, why would he willingly mention statistics from 2024 when we are in 2026? He did it on purpose; but you find offense in my comment because I dare point it out in a not-kind-enough way. Not even unkind nor insulting: not kind enough. I am even called "contrarian". Words stopped meaning anything, apparently.
Not cherrypicking, honest, officer! Anyway, I didn't include those stats since scotusblog hasn't presented them yet... probably because they aren't even done deciding/releasing all the 2025 cases! (And the SCOTUS term is like a college year, it goes from October 2025 to April 2026.) Anyway, out of the decided cases from October 2025 to April 2026, I count 15.5 unanimous out of 28 (more than 50%). (½ unanimous because it was an 8-0 vote.)
I'll have to get back to you about the ideological split. Presumably the MQs haven't changed, so this would be a simple counting exercise. Would need to check the 2024 statpack methodology.
Edit: I counted 2/28 split ideologically. Could go up to 4/28 depending on how you define it. And of course, these stats could change a lot as more decisions come in. But presumably the public perception of ideological divisions is driven by _decided_ cases, and these statistics would suggest that's unfounded.
Citation needed? Refer to a dictionary ;). I think the big question mark is on "you subsequently decide cases along party lines." Citation needed? This I think is the major stumbling block in the public perception of the court. It's ideological divides aren't always the one's in the vernacular.
Why is a typical public servant not allowed to accept even a $20 gift to avoid the appearance of impropriety, but the Venerable Judge Thomas can accept... <checks> ...5 MILLION DOLLARS worth of gifts, nearly half of all known gifts to the Supreme Court and many of them undeclared? What in the actual fuck?
Describe this situation to anyone not deep in a political bubble and see what they call it.
All that precise language when addressing usually some old guy in black robes (I intentionally put it that way, I'm not in front of the court) reminds me a lot of Japanese formality rules.
It drove me crazy to try to remember and assess not just how to say it in Japanese, but how to change the subject to be honorific, or extra honorific. Or change my own pronoun to ore, boku, watashi, watakushi depending on whether I wanted to try to be intimate or not. Or, remember that damn conjugation rules around converting the sentence to passive, or whatever.
Those rules made me constantly insecure when talking to peers, even when they weren't technically peers. When I did aikido, I was starting as a 1st year in aikido, though I was a 3rd year in college. So, many of my "senpais" were younger but I had to address them a certain way, even when we weren't in the dojo.
All these rules from this article seem like they are designed to give the judges power over the people addressing the court. That seems really strange when I think about it that way. Why do we need to lionize the people, can't their brilliant legal minds carry the full weight of the arguments and decisions?
It is about respect for the institution, regardless of the man. It is why judges are addressed as "your honor" or "judge" as it is to their integrity and their office we plead not to them as individuals.
These are all examples where we do use honorifics. And now for ones where we don't.
"yes, planner"
"yes, assessor"
"yes, child caseworker"
In all the cases, the institution should have integrity and we're not interacting with them as individuals but as agents of the institution. Certainly tax assessors should not be acting on their own personal beliefs but are merely mechanical agents of an impartial tax machine (as judges should be in their domain). However, in some it sounds ridiculous and in others it's natural. The existence of "yes, chef" (in a kitchen) or "yes, coach" (on a team) points to a more general reason: this is a way of expressing that the person with the title has some degree of social standing in the context we're interacting with them in.
There might be a more specific reason we can come up with that is specific to judges, but the general reason suffices to explain it.
On some superficial level, sure: you have to follow the rules because if you don't, it won't end well for you. But the reason for these rules isn't just self-aggrandizement.
Ultimately, the court is there to implement a procedure. The procedure wasn't invented by the judges; in criminal cases, it's there to give you some protection from the rest of the government, which could otherwise use its police powers to put you in prison based on a whim. The protection isn't perfect, but it beats the alternative.
The court would not be able to carry out that procedure if, for example, anyone could just constantly talk over the judges and not let them get a word in. So there is a pecking order in the courtroom, but mostly because you couldn't have courts without it.
A growing portion of the population couldn't care less about what's "appropriate" at SCOTUS anymore.
When you basically let your institution be co-opted as a part of a man's effort to run the federal government as a private company intended exclusively for the benefit of himself and his associates, you can expect jokes.
I'd prefer SCOTUS to blog about when it is appropriate for a justice to fly treason flags supporting insurrectionists or decline to recuse themselves from cases involving their insurrectionist family members.
Some people are always prepared to throw political talking points at you, even if you just want to talk about the weather or whether to swear at judges, or something. Can't imagine the perpetual stress of such mental state.
"Why are people discussing SCOTUS when the topic is SCOTUS, my goodness."
Yeah, unfortunately these days you have to choose between stressful awareness or (often deliberate) complete ignorance. Sometimes I do wish I was too unintelligent to understand what's wrong, I might be able to enjoy life a bit more.
The US Supreme Court currently is a joke itself with their Kavanaugh stops laws and other agenda driven politics and mostly in the way the cowardly justices aren’t even providing reasoning or guidance on any of their brain dead rulings to lower courts.
The current Supreme Court has no regard for law and justice for the people of the USA. What a joke.
Hey, don’t say that! SCOTUS said it’s bad for the country for them to be perceived as partisan. According to them, the correct fix is to stop describing their partisan actions as partisan.
Analysis by Fix the Court identified 546 gifts valued at over $4.7 million given to 18 current and former justices, with Justice Clarence Thomas as the primary recipient.
Judicial reform bills have tried to address the issue, but these bills have very little chance of success in the current political environment.
In some sense, it is quite remarkable that the institution has survived this long considering they control outcomes of such vast power while being indirectly elected, holding the post for life, and there being such a high standard for the legislature to remove them that it has never been used successfully.
Looking it up, Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas resigned from office because he accepted $20k from a chap who he was judging a case on. It reminds me of Babe Ruth's life time earnings being under a million, while Shohei Ohtani's annual pay rewound to 1931 dollars is some 3 times that.
They're probably referring to the millions of dollars of gifts Clarence Thomas received over the years, often just prior to ruling in the gift giver's favor.
Note that, when you say "ruling in the gift givers favor," we should be careful not to imply that the gift givers were involved in any Supreme Court cases. At least, not Harlan Crow, who is the big name on this topic, was not involved in a SCOTUS case during Thomas' tenure. Not sure about the other gift givers. Presumably, someone would have pointed out by now if Thomas had received gifts from a party to case, and more likely he would have already recused before that became an issue.
> we should be careful not to imply that the gift givers were involved in any Supreme Court cases
Why does this matter? I'm not involved in any SC case but if I showed up at Clarence Thomas's door with $10 asking him to rule a certain way on a case I'm interested in, it would be called bribery by any sane definition.
I didn't say it happened, I asked why you think it matters that the bribe wasn't given by someone involved in the case.
It is possible that a bribe was given by someone who is not party to the case and the comment I replied to was explaining that someone who is not party to the case was not giving a bribe, by virtue of the fact they weren't party to the case. I was hoping you could explain your perspective in the context I described but it seems I stumped you, hence the distraction about froyo and no substance in the reply.
I think we need to review what is being discussed. The comment to which I replied said:
> They're probably referring to the millions of dollars of gifts Clarence Thomas received over the years, often just prior to ruling in the gift giver's favor.
I was pointing out that, despite the implication, those gift givers were not involved in SC cases, to cast doubt on the notion that these gifts were bribes. You countered with the example of a gift giver who has an interest in a case and expresses an interest in a case being ruled a certain way. Sure, that could be a bribe. But my response emphasized that your example doesn't accurately describe what we know about the gifts from Crow.
If you read that CNBC article you will find no mention of bribery, influence peddling, or any cases that Harlan Crow had an interest in. I even took the trouble to find some case Harlan Crow might have an interest in and found this article: https://truthout.org/articles/report-harlan-crow-has-a-stake...
The links were pretty tenuous to me.
To summarize, what the CNBC article identifies is lots of gift giving. We have no evidence the giver conditioned these gifts on an understanding of ruling a certain way on particular cases. Furthermore (IIRC from reading scotusblog) the decision record on the potentially sketchy cases (Loper Bright, CFPB, Acheson Hotels, & Moore) does not reflect a significant change in Thomas' behavior in some cases, nor a diversion from the unanimous decision of the court in others.
In other words, we've not reached the question of who can be a bribe giver, because we haven't identified a bribe, as far as I can tell. But I would agree that a gift given by a nonparty can be a bribe if conditioned properly. I apologize if my initial comment gave the impression otherwise, so as to induce a kind of goalpost-moving which might be happening now. I wasn't as familiar with the details until now when I could make a stronger statement, so I began with something basic.
I'm not sure what you mean by happen "with." But, as a random online, my prediction is that nothing will happen. The whole media hubbub came and went, and IIRC Thomas slowed down the gift getting afterwards. I don't see anyone bringing suit or admin action or something.... I guess it's not impossible if and when Democrats gain control in 2028 they'll try something, but probably not, given the time separation and the desire to avoid the appearance of lawfare.
If Thomas becomes disfavored by rich conservative activists because he refuses to retire when Trump has an opportunity to safely replace him with somebody decades younger, do you think those rich conservative activists will keep spending millions of dollars on him?
And you have only one party to blame for this, it also predates all the Trump unhinged cases/decisons and even his first mandate.
Republicans simply suceeded in their plan to take over the federal judiciary branch from the top, in great part with the help of the Federalist Society.
The only answer if Democrats ever take power back is to pack the court now, no amount of unwritten rules following and norms respecting can work against people who abuse the system and packed the court themselves (by unjustifiably blocking candidates nominations which would have balanced the court, for years)
I wonder if a two-party race to the ethical bottom is the only way to fix things because if underhanded unethical tactics only benefit one party then they won't want to fix it.
Nah, it's really just Republicans doing all the corruption these days at the SUpreme Court. Unless you can provide some decent examples of Democrats. You seem to be bothsidesing the issue when McConnell stole multiple seats.
Clarence Thomas was confirmed in a very different era of politics, when the long term right wing strategy was only just beginning to take root; the vituperative rhetoric was still on the comparative fringe of talk radio; and cooperation was still the norm from both sides.
Obama should have picked a replacement for RBG. Biden and the democratic congress should have done more to get the judiciary back in line. They had their opportunities.
RBG passed away while Trump was president. Obama did pick a replacement for Antonin Scalia though: Merrick Garland. Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to even give Garland a hearing arguing it was "too close to the presidential election", even though Obama's term had about one year to go.
Clarence and Alito have received gifts that would raise serious scrutiny if they were a “regular” government employee. Here’s a link to the series of articles covering this over the last few years.
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