Biskupic claims in her analytical article Supreme Court Enters a New Era of Personal Accusation and Finger-Pointing (21 May 2021) that the Supreme Court Justices’ extensive mutual criticism reached a new level, which directly correlates with the current political climate. The Justices had been long known to confront each other in different questions regarding, for example, racial disparities or judicial practices. Although the Court’s public statements always pursue the vision of “good faith”, current heated debates between Justices belie these claims. The author gives the first example of such fights, explaining Scalia’s mocking of four liberal justices who supported Justice Kennedy’s opinion on same-sex marriages. Following Scalia, Gorsuch also suggested his colleagues’ affinities that demand them to follow not the law but the will of corporations. Biskupic also presented a more recent confrontation between Kagan and Kavanaugh, who fought dramatically about judicial “scorekeeping” and the qualities of unanimity rule.
Lastly, the author zones in on the disagreement between Roberts and Gorsuch in regard to the latter criticizing the chief justice’s actions in justifying COVID-19 restrictions. Gorsuch proclaimed that the chief justice Roberts wrongly reached into a 1905 decision about the smallpox outbreak, giving an opening to prolonged debates between him and Roberts. Moreover, Gorsuch’s statements attracted the attention of Justice’s Sotomayor, who supported Roberts in this discussion. Overall, the article provides a keen and thoughtful insight into today’s frayed state of the Supreme Court, which, despite claiming all its members to converse in “good faith”, is torn apart by controversy and quarreling. The Justices, while representing their ambitions and opinions, are quite intolerant towards each other, as they tend to make their disagreements public through official statements. The author does not pick any side throughout the article, so the overview presented by her is accurate and objective.
Reference
Biskupic, J. (2021). Analysis: Supreme Court enters a new era of personal accusation and finger-pointing. CNN. Web.