426
submitted 11 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

New York Times reports conservative supreme court justice had no changes to 98-page draft of opinion that removed right to abortion

The conservative supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch took just 10 minutes to approve without changes a 98-page draft of the opinion that would remove the federal right to abortion that had been guaranteed for nearly 50 years, the New York Times reported.

According to the paper, Samuel Alito, the author of the opinion in Dobbs v Jackson, the case that struck down Roe v Wade, from 1973, circulated his draft at 11.16am on 10 February 2022.

Citing two people who saw communications between the justices, the Times said: “After a justice shares an opinion inside the court, other members scrutinise it. Those in the majority can request revisions, sometimes as the price of their votes, sweating sentences or even words.

“But this time, despite the document’s length, Justice Neil M Gorsuch wrote back just 10 minutes later to say that he would sign on to the opinion and had no changes.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] derf82@lemmy.world 47 points 11 months ago

Yeah, of course. No doubt Alito circulated the opinion to allies before circulating to the rest is the court. Hell, I’m sure Alito has had it in his drafts folder for since he was appointed.

The bigger surprises:

  • Breyer was willing to join a plurality opinion that would have allowed the 15 week ban, but upheld the right to an abortion before then. That likely lead a conservative (probably Alito, which is just personal speculation) to leak it to solidify votes.
  • They agreed to hear the case before Ginsburg’s body was even cold. They just pretended to relist it so it didn’t look like they were going to do it immediately. It was enough to even cause Barrett to vote to not hear the case.
  • They let Mississippi completely change arguments midway, a tactic usually punished by the court but rewarded here.
[-] cybersandwich@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Most people probably don't realize that this is super common in senior leadership roles. You'll share drafts and get buy in for critical things well before you send it out officially. It's much easier to handle issues outside of official processes that might include certain procedures or ceremony. At the very least you'll know what type of push back you can expect.

This probably is more indicative of them coordinating prior to release of the opinion. Possibly in an attempt sway other justices by how quickly it was signed off on.

this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
426 points (98.6% liked)

News

23301 readers
1079 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS