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In the month since the Supreme Court granted former President Donald J. Trump substantial immunity from prosecution, a recurring critique of the decision has emerged. Lawyers and scholars say the ruling bears a striking resemblance to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion. They point to at least four features of the immunity decision that also figured in Roe, which was overturned in 2022 as “egregiously wrong” in a slashing majority opinion from Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. He wrote that there was nothing in the text of the Constitution about abortion, that the majority had concocted a three-part test for enforcing the right out of whole cloth, that a revision of that three-part test had introduced a vague and unpredictable “undue burden” standard and that the ruling had removed an important question from the legislative process. “The judicial method employed by Trump v. United States resembles Roe v. Wade in the ways that matter,” Richard D. Bernstein, who filed a supporting brief in the case on behalf of conservative critics of Mr. Trump’s legal positions, wrote in a blog post a week after the decision.
Persons: Donald J, Trump, Roe, Wade, Samuel A, Alito Jr, ” Richard D, Bernstein, Mr Organizations: Trump v . Locations: Roe, Trump v . United States
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., rejecting calls for their disqualification, participated in the case, siding with a member of the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Experts in legal ethics have said that the activities of the justices’ wives raised serious questions about their impartiality. Virginia Thomas, known as Ginny, helped shape the effort to overturn the 2020 election. But he recused himself in October from a case concerning John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who had advised Mr. Trump. Justice Thomas, for whom Mr. Eastman had served as a law clerk, gave no reasons for his decision to disqualify himself from that case.
Persons: Clarence Thomas, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Virginia Thomas, Ginny, “ Biden, Ms, Thomas, Mark Meadows, Donald J, Trump’s, John Eastman, Trump, Justice Thomas, Eastman Organizations: Capitol
Superficially, abortion rights had a good run at the Supreme Court this term. Two weeks ago, the justices unanimously let an abortion pill remain widely available. Some supporters of abortion rights called the rulings Pyrrhic victories, ones they feared would set the stage for more restrictions, whether from the courts or from a second Trump administration. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court signaled that it sought to get out of the abortion business. “The authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the majority.
Persons: Trump, Dobbs, Roe, Wade, Samuel A, Alito Jr Organizations: Jackson, Health Organization
The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that members of the wealthy Sackler family cannot be shielded from lawsuits over their role in the opioid crisis as part of a bankruptcy settlement that would channel billions of dollars to victims and their families. In a 5-to-4 decision, written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a majority of the justices held that the federal bankruptcy code does not authorize a liability shield for third parties in bankruptcy agreements. Justice Gorsuch was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote that the “decision is wrong on the law and devastating for more than 100,000 opioid victims and their families.” He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The decision jeopardizes a carefully negotiated settlement Purdue and the Sacklers had reached in which members of the family promised to give up to $6 billion to states, local governments, tribes and individuals to address a devastating public health crisis.
Persons: Sackler, Justice Neil M, Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Amy Coney Barrett, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Brett M, Kavanaugh, John G, Roberts Jr, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan Organizations: Chief, Purdue
A former Texas city councilwoman may pursue a lawsuit claiming that officials had abused their power by arresting her in retaliation for exercising her First Amendment rights, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday. The court’s five-page opinion was unsigned, which is unusual in argued cases. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. issued a 16-page concurring opinion, writing only for himself. The unsigned opinion said an appeals court had taken “an overly cramped view” of the evidence required to prove a retaliatory arrest. The appeals court should have considered, the opinion said, objective evidence presented by the councilwoman, Sylvia Gonzalez, that the criminal law under which she had been charged had never been used in the county in similar circumstances.
Persons: Samuel A, Alito Jr, Clarence Thomas, Sylvia Gonzalez Locations: Texas
Supreme Court Upholds Trump-Era Tax Provision
  + stars: | 2024-06-20 | by ( Abbie Vansickle | ) www.nytimes.com   time to read: 1 min
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a tax on foreign income that helped finance the tax cuts President Donald J. Trump imposed in 2017 in a case that many experts had cautioned could undercut the nation’s tax system. The vote was 7 to 2, with Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh writing the majority opinion. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., and Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. The question before the justices appeared narrow at first glance: Is the tax in question allowed under the Constitution, which gives Congress limited powers of taxation? In the majority opinion, Justice Kavanaugh wrote that the tax fell within the authority of Congress under the Constitution.
Persons: Donald J, Trump, Brett M, Kavanaugh, John G, Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, Justice Samuel A, Alito Jr, Clarence Thomas, Neil M Organizations: Chief
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. have long been a jarring study in contrasts. The chief justice is guarded, embodying a cautious and conventional conception of the judicial role. Justice Alito, an eager combatant in the culture wars, tests the limits of that behavior. Their differing approaches were on display in surreptitiously recorded comments at a Supreme Court gala last week. That’s not for lawyers.”
Persons: John G, Roberts Jr, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Justice Alito, Justice Roberts, That’s,
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s wife, Martha-Ann, recently told a woman posing as a conservative supporter that she wanted to fly a Catholic flag at the couple’s Virginia home in response to a Pride flag in her neighborhood. “You know what I want?” the justice’s wife said to the woman, Lauren Windsor, who secretly recorded the conversation during a black-tie event last week at the Supreme Court. “I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month.”But Ms. Alito said that after she suggested the Sacred Heart of Jesus flag as a retort to the symbol for L.G.B.T.Q. rights, her husband said, “Oh, please, don’t put up a flag.”She said that she had agreed, for now, but that she had told him that “when you are free of this nonsense,” “I’m putting it up and I’m going to send them a message every day, maybe every week. I’ll be changing the flags.”
Persons: Samuel A, Alito Jr, , Martha, Ann, Lauren Windsor, , Alito, don’t Organizations: Supreme Locations: Virginia
It turns out that the New Jersey vacation home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was not the only surprising place where a provocative flag adopted by Jan. 6, 2021, rioters has flown recently. For 60 years, residents in San Francisco could have spotted the flag in a public pavilion just a stone’s throw from the mayor’s balcony at City Hall. The “Appeal to Heaven” flag was among the 18 historic banners that billowed over a central plaza in one of the nation’s most liberal cities, where fewer than 13 percent of voters supported former President Donald J. Trump in the 2020 election. Few people, including Mayor London Breed, made much of the white flag with a green pine tree. A San Francisco resident raised concerns that the “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flying over the city, after revelations in The New York Times that the same flag had flown outside Justice Alito’s second home on Long Beach Island, N.J.
Persons: Samuel A, Alito, Jan, Donald J, Trump, Alito’s, Joe Biden Organizations: Hall, London Breed, New York Times, U.S . Capitol Locations: New Jersey, San Francisco, Francisco, Long, N.J
Supreme Court justices seldom give reasons for their decisions to recuse themselves. Even rarer are explanations for deciding to participate in a case when they have been accused of conflicts of interest. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. is an exception. But whether his explanation has helped or hurt his cause is open to question. Experts in legal ethics said they welcomed Justice Alito’s decision to explain himself.
Persons: Samuel A, Alito, Justice Alito, Alito’s, Donald J, Trump
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Thursday declined requests to have Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. recuse himself from cases related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack after provocative flags flew on the justice’s properties. The justices make those calls on their own, Chief Justice Roberts wrote in a letter to Democratic senators. “Members of the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the practice we have followed for 235 years pursuant to which individual justices decide recusal issues,” he wrote.
Persons: John G, Roberts, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Justice Roberts, Organizations: Democratic, Supreme
In the 18 years since her family left their home in New Jersey and stepped into some of the most rarefied circles in Washington, Martha-Ann Alito has never sought or cultivated a particularly public identity. As the wife of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., Mrs. Alito has described keeping a largely private life since his confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2006 — one grounded by raising two children and standing in support of her husband through scrutiny and sharp-elbowed politics. On the handful of occasions she has stepped forward to address an audience or converse with reporters, Mrs. Alito has often spoken about herself in terms of her role within a tight-knit nuclear family, holding it together through her husband’s meteoric, and at times trying, rise within the judiciary. “The most amazing part is, why do people care about our life,” she said in a 2006 interview, looking back on Justice Alito’s confirmation hearing, which at one point left her in tears and stirred discussion about the toll partisanship can take on nominees’ relatives.
Persons: Ann Alito, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Alito, , Alito’s Locations: New Jersey, Washington, Martha
A young couple claimed they were being harassed by the wife of a Supreme Court justice. The officer on the line responded that there was little the police could do: Yelling was not a crime. The couple placed the call after a series of encounters with Martha-Ann Alito, wife of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., that had gone from uneasy to ugly. The clash between the wife of a conservative Supreme Court justice and the couple, who were in their 30s, liberal and proud of it, played out over months on a bucolic block in Alexandria. But three years later, that neighborhood spat — which both sides said began over an anti-Trump sign — has taken on far greater proportions.
Persons: , , Martha, Ann Alito, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Emily Baden, Alito, Baden, Organizations: The New York Times, Court, Trump Locations: Fairfax County, Va, Alexandria, America
The Alitos and Their Flags
  + stars: | 2024-05-28 | by ( Michael Barbaro | Jodi Kantor | Mooj Zadie | ) www.nytimes.com   time to read: 1 min
The discovery that an upside-down American flag — a symbol adopted by the campaign to overturn the 2020 election result — had flown at the home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. elicited concerns from politicians, legal scholars and others. And then came news of a second flag. Jodi Kantor, the Times reporter who broke the stories, discusses the saga.
Persons: , Samuel A, Alito Jr, Jodi Kantor Organizations: Times
Had Al Gore won the presidency in 2000, a lot of people thought, he would have put Judge David S. Tatel on the Supreme Court. The judge had a towering intellect, was a model judicial craftsman and, only incidentally, had been blind since his 30s. But George W. Bush prevailed, with an assist from a closely divided Supreme Court. Judge Tatel served for 23 more years on the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit. He relied on people who would read to him, increasingly sophisticated technology and an astounding memory to produce a widely admired body of judicial work that included major opinions on voting rights, the environment and the internet.
Persons: Al Gore, David S, Tatel, George W, Bush, John G, Roberts Jr, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Judge Tatel Organizations: U.S ., District of Columbia Circuit
A growing number of Democratic lawmakers called for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. to recuse himself from cases related to Jan. 6, 2021, and demanded new ethics rules for the Supreme Court after revelations that flags carried by rioters at the Capitol were flown outside his homes. With the Supreme Court just weeks away from issuing decisions on two major cases concerning former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the events of Jan. 6, lawmakers said the symbolism of the flags called into question Justice Alito’s neutrality. In an interview on Thursday, Representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee who has introduced a resolution to censure Justice Alito, said Congress needed to take the firm position that the justice’s actions were a violation of judicial propriety. “He’s not going to resign, he’s not going to recuse himself, and I don’t think Justice Roberts is going to be able to influence him in that regard,” he said, referring to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. “So the best we can do is to kind of put a scarlet letter on him.”
Persons: Samuel A, Alito Jr, Donald J, Steve Cohen, Justice Alito, “ He’s, he’s, Roberts, , John G Organizations: Democratic, Capitol Locations: Tennessee
Last summer, two years after an upside-down American flag was flown outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another provocative symbol was displayed at his vacation house in New Jersey, according to interviews and photographs. This time, it was the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms. Three photographs obtained by The New York Times, along with accounts from a half-dozen neighbors and passers-by, show that the Appeal to Heaven flag was aloft at the Alito home on Long Beach Island in July and September of 2023. A Google street view image from late August also shows the flag.
Persons: Samuel A, Alito Jr, Donald J, Trump, Alito Organizations: Capitol, The New York Times Locations: Virginia, New Jersey, Long
In coming weeks, the Supreme Court is expected to issue two key decisions involving the storming of the Capitol on that day. The cases will shape the degree to which former President Donald J. Trump can be held accountable for his efforts to subvert the election. “These cases were always going to be seen through an ideological and partisan lens,” Michael C. Dorf, a Cornell law professor and former clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy, said in an interview. An upside-down flag, a popular symbol with Trump supporters contesting President Biden’s victory, appeared on Justice Alito’s front lawn in January 2021, The New York Times reported based on photographs and interviews with neighbors. It hung on the Alitos’ flagpole days before the inauguration, a little over a week after the Capitol riot and while the Supreme Court was considering taking up an election case.
Persons: Samuel A, Alito Jr, Donald J, Trump, Michael C, Anthony Kennedy, , you’ve, Clarence Thomas’s, Virginia Thomas, Biden’s Organizations: Capitol, Cornell, Republican Party, Trump, The New York Times
It is a tale as old as Adam and Eve: A husband, faced with accusations of misconduct, blames the wife. It is also a time-honored, bipartisan political strategy. This week, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey pointed ringed fingers at their wives for episodes that have landed each man in political or legal trouble. The justice’s wife, Martha-Ann Alito, was in a feud with neighbors at the time over an anti-Trump sign, The Times reported. In the case of Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, it was his lawyer who did the finger pointing.
Persons: Adam, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Bob Menendez, Alito, , Donald J, Trump’s, Biden’s, Martha, Ann Alito, Menendez, Avi Weitzman Organizations: Bob Menendez of New, New York Times, Times, Democrat Locations: Bob Menendez of, Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Manhattan
How Election Deniers Claimed the Upside-Down Flag
  + stars: | 2024-05-17 | by ( Michael Levenson | ) www.nytimes.com   time to read: +1 min
It has been a widely recognized symbol of distress since the nation’s founding, when sailors turned the American flag upside down to signal that their ships were sinking, on fire or trapped in ice. But over time, the upside-down American flag became a symbol brandished more often by protesters across the political spectrum to signal that they believed the nation itself was in grave peril. After President Biden won the 2020 election, supporters of former President Donald. J. Trump rallied around the inverted flag, displaying it at their homes, on their cars and on social media to show that they believed Mr. Trump’s lie that the election was stolen. At the time, the Supreme Court was still contending with whether to hear a 2020 election case.
Persons: Biden, Donald . J, Trump, Samuel A, Alito Jr Organizations: New York Times Locations: Alexandria, Va
The justice has said that his wife put up the flag in response to a neighbor’s anti-Trump yard sign. It is the most recent disclosure about the Supreme Court to fuel concerns about impartiality and the appearance of bias. Some of those controversies have involved Justice Alito. That billionaire later had cases before the Supreme Court. In September, Justice Alito rejected demands for recusal in a major tax case after he gave interviews to one of the lawyers involved, David Rivkin, for The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page.
Persons: Joseph R, Biden, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Alito, Justice Alito, David Rivkin Organizations: Trump, recusal Locations: Virginia
But the ruling falls far short of eliminating the bureau’s legal obstacles. Immediately after the ruling was announced, lawyers for the bureau, which is charged with preventing consumer abuse in the financial industry, began preparing dozens of legal filings to try to unfreeze its activities. Among them are requests to federal judges to end stays on new rules and on subpoenas to financial firms. While the Supreme Court’s ruling should resolve a few of the stays, the bureau will still struggle to overcome other roadblocks. He noted that Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s dissent cited three recent consumer bureau actions that, in Justice Alito’s view, would be “major changes” in consumer protection law.
Persons: , Graham Steele, Samuel A, Alito Jr, , Alito’s Organizations: Consumer, Treasury Department
The upside-down flag was aloft on Jan. 17, 2021, the images showed. President Donald J. Trump’s supporters, including some brandishing the same symbol, had rioted at the Capitol a little over a week before. Word of the flag filtered back to the court, people who worked there said in interviews. While the flag was up, the court was still contending with whether to hear a 2020 election case, with Justice Alito on the losing end of that decision. Their decisions will shape how accountable he can be held for trying to overturn the last presidential election and his chances for re-election in the upcoming one.
Persons: Biden, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Donald J, Trump’s, Biden’s, Justice Alito, Trump Organizations: Trump, Supreme, Capitol, The New York Times Locations: Alexandria, Va
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. warned on Saturday that freedom of speech was under threat at universities and that freedom of religion was in peril in society at large. “Troubled waters are slamming against some of our most fundamental principles,” he said. He made his remarks at a commencement ceremony at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, a Catholic institution. “Support for freedom of speech is declining dangerously, especially where it should find deepest acceptance,” he said. A university, he said, should be “a place for reasoned debate.” But he added that “today, very few colleges live up to that ideal.”
Persons: Samuel A, Alito Jr, Organizations: Franciscan University of Steubenville Locations: Ohio
The Major Supreme Court Cases of 2024No Supreme Court term in recent memory has featured so many cases with the potential to transform American society. In 2015, the Supreme Court limited the sweep of the statute at issue in the case, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. In 2023, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked efforts to severely curb access to the pill, mifepristone, as an appeal moved forward. A series of Supreme Court decisions say that making race the predominant factor in drawing voting districts violates the Constitution. The difference matters because the Supreme Court has said that only racial gerrymandering may be challenged in federal court under the Constitution.
Persons: Donald J, Trump, Anderson, Sotomayor Jackson Kagan, Roberts Kavanaugh Barrett Gorsuch Alito Thomas, Salmon, , , Mr, Nixon, Richard M, privilege.But, Fitzgerald, Vance, John G, Roberts, Fischer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A, Alito Jr, Alito, , Moyle, Wade, Roe, Johnson, Robinson, Moody, Paxton, Robins, Media Murthy, Sullivan, Murthy, Biden, Harrington, Sackler, Alexander, Jan, Raimondo, ” Paul D, Clement, Dodd, Frank, Homer, Cargill Organizations: Harvard, Stanford, University of Texas, Trump, Liberal, Sotomayor Jackson Kagan Conservative, Colorado, Former, Trump v . United, United, Sarbanes, Oxley, U.S, Capitol, Drug Administration, Alliance, Hippocratic, Jackson, Health, Supreme, Labor, New York, Homeless, Miami Herald, Media, Biden, National Rifle Association, Rifle Association of America, New York State, Purdue Pharma, . South Carolina State Conference of, Federal, Loper Bright Enterprises, . Department of Commerce, Chevron, Natural Resources Defense, , SCOTUSPoll, Consumer Financial, Community Financial Services Association of America, Securities, Exchange Commission, Exchange, Occupational Safety, Commission, Lucia v . Securities, Federal Trade Commission, Internal Revenue Service, Environmental Protection Agency, Social Security Administration, National Labor Relations Board, Air Pollution Ohio, Environmental, Guns Garland, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, National Firearms, Gun Control Locations: Colorado, Trump v . United States, United States, Nixon, Florida, Gulf of Mexico, Dobbs v, Idaho, Roe, Texas, States, New, New York, Grants, Oregon, . California, Martin v, Boise, Boise , Idaho, Missouri, Parkland, Fla, Murthy v . Missouri, . Missouri, ., South Carolina, Alabama, SCOTUSPoll, Lucia v, Western
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