The vast majority of thinking is that it was done to lock in Roberts and/or Kavanaugh. We all know it was a right winger who leaked it (likely Alito) because they stopped giving a shit about actually finding the leaker.
But it didn't lock in anything. It just prepped the country for what was coming. Any of them could have changed their vote. Any of them could have said "You know, after seeing the outrage, I've taken a second look and changed my vote." They didn't bc they don't give a fuck.
You're completely ignoring what would've happened to Roberts/Kavanaugh in the "Federalist Society establishment" or whatever you wanna call it if the leaked brief turned out to be a minority opinion.
I get that side, but that's not what happened. Truth is they were never voting any other way so the leak didn't do shit other than give the country a glimpse into what was coming. The outrage was spread out instead of all at once. It wasn't out of the blue. I just don't think the leak affected any if their decisions. They were always voting that way.
The prevailing thought is that it likely didn’t change their votes ultimately, but there was a lot of softening that could have been done to the opinion. Leaking it basically minted Alito’s draft as the official opinion.
Disagree. Those fucks saw the outrage and didn't budge. They weren't going to budge bc a few other justices asked them to behind closed doors. They are heartless fucks and nothing wad changing that. If anything the outrage gave them an out to budge and they still didn’t.
there are a number of typos and phrasing errors in Scalia’s dissent in the 2012 Obamacare that make it clear that the dissent was written to be the majority opinion, and that Roberts caved to pressure from somewhere. Alito and Thomas would obviously have remembered that and would want to lock in Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
You think justices were susceptible to pressure in 2012 but not 2022? Or more accurately, that they were susceptible to pressure in 2012, but that Alito/Thomas would believe them not to be susceptible to pressure in 2022? When they’re having discussions about the contours of how the opinion is written?
I think these particular justices were chosen to do one thing and were going to do it no matter what. Roe was going down as soon as Kavanaugh and ACB were sworn in.
I think it was leaked to ensure that nothing would change, as literally everyone else to discuss this issue agrees. You can choose to believe that was not the motive, which really doesn’t turn on whether or not anything would have changed (an impossible question to answer beyond pure speculation without inside knowledge of the discussions between the justices) but it’s a really dull conversation to have until you can articulate a coherent theory as to why there was an unprecedented breach of confidentiality that has, say, 10% of the evidentiary backing that the Alito leak theory has.
I think you and other lawyers make it into a way bigger deal than it really was. It didn't change shit. Zomg someone leaked info that was already coming out later. It didn't lock anything in. They could have changed their opinion if they wanted. And saying "literally everyone else to discuss this issue agrees" is pretty funny when the entire right blames the left. You're in a neat echo chamber if you think everyone agrees the right did it. Idk who did it and I don't care who did it. It didn't change anything.
The result likely didn’t change, but the opinion itself would have gone through additional edits. That’s the process — a majority opinion is written to the conclusion of the majority vote, then it’s narrowed by the non-authoring, majority voting members. By releasing the early draft, it pressured the non-authors into keeping more of the draft than they otherwise might have. So, we ended up with a majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade AND the legal basis for Ogberfell, Loving, etc. People follow this closely enough to identify writing style, so any departure from the leaked draft would be identified. That’s where the pressure came in.
One wonders if the targeted comments of gay marriage etc would have made it through to a final draft. dbl: “zomg nothing matters I know all based on my gut and also don’t know anything”
Specifically, Roberts wrote a concurrence that would have upheld the abortion ban without gutting the last fifty years of case law on substantive due process. That option was readily available and all he had to do was find one more justice who wanted to curtail abortion without telling states it was okay to ban homosexuality and interracial marriage. Kavanaugh’s concurrence is basically there. bUt It DoEsN’t MaTtEr BeCaUsE tHe ReSuLt WoUlDn’T cHaNgE
Yet they all saw the outrage across the country and they STILL didn't change their opinion. Some lawyers get caught up in the minutia and can't zoom out to see what the common person can; these justices were a decades long play by the right to overturn these cases and they were going to do it no matter what. "Well they may have changed their minds!!!" is laughable. Stop acting like they are anything but evil and may have changed their mind if not for a non-binding leak.
Dude. Justices don't give a fuck about the public outcry from a side they don't agree with in the first place. That's not a motive to them.
It's also always super funny when people make it seem like being well versed in a topic makes one incapable of objective assessment instead of being a literal expert on the topic. And somehow being completely ignorant makes you more capable of assessing something.
You're completely missing the point. The leakers weren't trying to fan outrage from the general public, they were trying to fan support from their financial backers, who also back Kav and Roberts, to lock them in. Whether or not Roberts and Kav equivocating was a risk, the very conservative judges thought it was. That's the point.
Also, narrowing opinions in scope isn't nothing. At all. It's actually a huge fucking deal. Pretending that nothing changes with a narrower opinion is embarrassingly stupid.
It's bad, really bad. He violated multiple laws on gift disclosure, just does not give a fuck because he's never been held accountable and probably won't be.
Nobody has a had a rougher trump era than self important lawyers and scotuscucks who tried to pretend the supreme court was ever anything besides a fucking sham
Think it hit me during like my fourth con last class in law school that the Supreme Court justices have always reached their conclusion and then drafted an opinion to fit it glad they’re being exposed for the piece of shit institution they’ve always been fuck em
We as a society owe Anita Hill. She tried to warn us countless times about Thomas, and the system punished her for it. He's such a vile human, and more people should be ashamed that this dude has had so much power over the last three decades.