Justice Roberts buried for smug 'sit down, little ladies' smear of liberal colleagues
Lost in the shuffle of the outrage over the conservative majority Supreme Court's 6-3 decision to hand Donald Trump a get-out-of-jail-free card with their expansive presidential immunity ruling on Monday, was presiding Justice John Roberts sneering attack on the three dissenting judges, Associate Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson in his brief.
With Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett also questioning some of Robert's reasoning while joining with the majority, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance took Roberts to task for his attack on his female colleagues in the dismissive comments he included at the end of his written opinion.
On her Civil Discourse Substack platform, Vance asserted that 69-year-old Roberts was anything but civil when he waved away their concerns about the implications of a ruling that absolves Trump of just about any criminal activities and allows the conservative court to ride to the convicted felon ex-president's rescue in the future.
Roberts read from his opinion in a matter-of-fact way, while his conservative majority mostly looked detached or preoccupied. Justice Thomas sometimes leaned back appearing to rest his eyes while Justice Alito seemed to busy himself with something in front of him with an air of smug satisfaction. Justice Kavanaugh kept his head attentively turned towards Roberts as the Chief Justice read, with an expression that reminded me of a college student trying to look like that were paying attention by sitting in the front row. Justice Coney Barrett, perhaps anticipating the coming discomfort of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent, looked straight ahead, emitting a distinctly less carefree vibe than when she quipped about her own opinion.
As Justice Sotomayor began to read her dissent, the atmosphere in the courtroom grew palpably more tense. In a powerful dissent joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan, Sotomayor called out the majority’s lack of legal reasoning, writing: “[a]rgument by argument, the majority invents immunity through brute force” and calling the majority’s conclusions “utterly indefensible.”
Pointing out the majority claims of starting with an assessment of how the Constitution treats Presidential power sound fake given that the Constitution says nothing about immunity for Presidents, Sotomayor punctuated her reading by at times turning directly towards her conservative colleagues on her left, seeming to focus particularly on Chief Justice Roberts. During these moments, Coney Barrett, physically separated from her fellow conservatives by Gorsuch’s empty chair and Sotomayor, stared stiffly ahead at some point in the back of the courtroom where the 44-foot high ceiling meets the garish red velvet drapes that run ceiling to floor.
Sotomayor’s dissent sets forth the potential parade of horribles unleashed by the majority’s ruling. Referencing the now immortal hypothetical posed by D.C. Circuit Judge Florence Pan at the Court of Appeals argument, Sotomayor wrote about the President: “When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon. Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
In her powerful conclusion, Sotomayor wrote: “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
Tellingly, she omitted the traditional use of the word “respectfully” which is a traditional salutation used in dissent closings. Justice Jackson’s dissent, in which see wrote: “I agree with every word of [Sotomayor’s] powerful dissent” also chose the same omission of the word “respectfully.”
This was a grim affair. The excited feeling of anticipation in the courtroom had completely drained out of the room by the time the announcements ended. A list read by Chief Justice Roberts thanking court staff, his colleagues and noting retirements seemed to drag on. Even Robert’s misspeak, in which he accidentally referred to his colleague justices as employees produced only a few laughs.
In Sotomayor’s strong prose, there was the tone of not just anger but isolation. The isolation of a jurist powerlessly watching the high court taken over by the brutish power of a conservative majority decades in the making. Never was that isolation clearer than in the numerous times Justice Sotomayor turned directly towards Chief Justice Roberts as she spoke. In normal conversation, when someone turns directly toward you as they speak, it is common to look back at them, perhaps even nod or smile to make them feel included and acknowledged. But Roberts never so much as looked back at her, his fellow Justice. I guess he saw no need.
In particular, Vance took exception to Robert's writing that their concerns exhibited "a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today.”
According to the former prosecutor, "The majority opinion closes with a section where the Chief Justice, in a most decidedly uncollegial fashion, criticizes the Justices who dissent," before adding that Roberts was, in essence, telling them: "Sit down, little ladies."
"Roberts tries to downplay what the Court is doing, but essentially, that comes down to saying that all that the Court is doing is saying Trump is entitled to immunity for his attempt to get DOJ to legitimize his efforts to steal the election," she wrote before adding, "Perhaps worst of all is an argument the majority offers as its own that is straight out of Trump’s playbook."
Expanding on that assertion she wrote, "The dismissive language they use towards the dissents is really outrageous," and then pointed at Roberts claiming, "Unable to muster any meaningful textual or historical support, the principal dissent suggests that there is an ‘established understanding’ that ‘former Presidents are answerable to the criminal law for their official acts.’ Conspicuously absent is mention of the fact that since the founding, no President has ever faced criminal charges — let alone for his conduct in office."
To which Vance pointed out, "We all know the answer to this one—no president has been prosecuted because no president has ever done what Trump did before. We all believe, or at least have until today, as did the Founding Fathers, that no man is above the law, not even the president. Everyone seems to understand that except for six conservative justices on the United States Supreme Court."
Noting Roberts also wrote, "Our dissenting colleagues exude an impressive infallibility,” Vance shot back with a biting, "It’s a shame he cannot see himself in the mirror."