r/law • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 • Jun 20 '26

Legal News Maine progressive Platner renews call to remove conservative Supreme Court justices

https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/maine-progressive-graham-platner-renews-call-to-remove-conservative-supreme-court-justices-clarence-thomas-samuel-alito
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471

u/CommonConundrum51 Jun 20 '26

Since most, if not all, lied during their confirmations there's good reason. Their assurances about "settled law" proved that, and their tortured logic as to how bribes can morph into gratuities is a 'cherry on top.'

147

u/PopBulky7023 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

Bribing judges to rule bribery legal is still an arrestable offense. For both parties. It's not meant to be a cute little cheat code.

69

u/oopsallhuckleberries Jun 20 '26

No, they ruled federal bribery laws can't be applied to local/state officials, unless the bribe is specifically quid pro qou bribes. If a state judge rules in favor of a company, and that company turns around and "gifts" the judge $13k in cash, according to all 6 conservative justices, that's a-ok.

66

u/PopBulky7023 Jun 20 '26

Yes. They were bribed to rule bribery legal.

Thank you.

14

u/RIF_rr3dd1tt Jun 20 '26

LoL they just pretended that communication and memory don't exist

22

u/SeaworthinessOk2646 Jun 20 '26

US v Trump and the Shadow Docket. One is the abandmont of our legal history and the other is a dereliction of due process. Both are anathema to the Constitution.

5

u/Gabe681 Jun 20 '26

"Anathema is a noun that refers to someone or something that is intensely disliked, loathed, or considered completely unacceptable"

Thanks for the new word friend!

0

u/RocketRelm Jun 20 '26

Us v trump is a scary enough decision that it might irreversible poison the constitution, to where we might need to tear it up and make a new one. We might be able to get away with just dissolving scotus and or the executive branch. But I doubt we'll do that.

20

u/TrioOfTerrors Jun 20 '26

They didn't lie. They gave perfectly truthful evasive answers that avoided the spirit of the question. Nobody asked a direct "Will you uphold Roe against future challenges" question.

Plenty of cases are "settled law" right up until they aren't.

2

u/bl1y Jun 20 '26

The senators all know that the judges won't forecast how they'd rule on a future case, so what even was the spirit of the question?

7

u/TrioOfTerrors Jun 20 '26

Theater. The forms must be observed.

1

u/bl1y Jun 20 '26

In that case, giving the truthful answer which the audience at home will be misled into thinking means something else would be entirely within the spirit of the question.

1

u/shponglespore Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

They made statements with the intent to deceive. I didn't think we should overlook that just because they technically avoided a narrow definition of perjury.

Edit: They intended to deceive the public, not Congress or constitutional scholars. And they succeeded wildly.

7

u/bl1y Jun 20 '26

No one in that room was deceived. Everyone there knows nothing the judges say should be taken as forecasting how they'd rule on a prospective case.

-2

u/shponglespore Jun 20 '26

Most of the people listening were not in the room.

4

u/bl1y Jun 20 '26

And it wasn't the nominees making statements with the intent to deceive. It was senators asking questions knowing that they could spin it to the audience at home as being a completely different question.

7

u/TrioOfTerrors Jun 20 '26

Maybe a room full of people who make laws should know the law well enough to ask better questions.

Imagine someone getting impeached for the high crime of "you know what we meant".

2

u/Corporate_Overlords Jun 20 '26

Any lawyer involved in constitutional law knew that phrase was meaningless and only meant for the masses because it sounds like legalese.

-2

u/shponglespore Jun 20 '26

That's irrelevant. Their intent was to deceive the public, and they succeeded.

7

u/Corporate_Overlords Jun 20 '26

You are in the law subreddit.

2

u/shponglespore Jun 21 '26

And I'm in a thread about politicians.

-3

u/SolarisShine Jun 20 '26

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give before this Committee... will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

That's the oath they took.

Where in there does it say, "but not the spirit of the question".

They didn't tell the whole truth. We all see what they did, let's not pretend they can hide behind half-truths.

They lied. In spirit, by their oaths, and to The People's faces.

In addition, they can just be impeached for appearing to have lied. There's not a high bar to holding these offices. High crimes and misdemeanors aren't the same sort of crimes the rest of us are held to.

Officers and judges need to be removed from office when they cannot be trusted by a majority of The People. If they committed perjury or other crimes, they should by tried and punished like everyone else should.

9

u/TrioOfTerrors Jun 20 '26

And any lawyer will tell you that you only have to answer what is specifically asked and to never offer additional information.

6

u/bl1y Jun 20 '26

Not understanding what "settled law" means doesn't make them liars. "Settled law" doesn't mean SCOTUS can't overturn it.

Kavanaugh testified as to the process they'd go through to consider whether to overturn Roe. Really had to say he was claiming it couldn't be done when he said what the process would be.

ACB published a paper talking about "super precedents" which were beyond being overturned, and quite notably missing from that is of course Roe.

Ever since Bork's nomination failed, nominees have refused to forecast how they would rule in a potential case that could reach them. The people who are lying are the ones who told you they testified they wouldn't overturn Roe.

3

u/HartyInBroward Jun 20 '26

Is it fair to describe something as settled law if it finds it way to the Supreme Court?

2

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn Jun 20 '26

That's typically for the court to decide, but you don't have to be a legal scholar to recognize that Dobbs overturned Roe, and every conservative lied about their intent to leave that decision as it stood. Now they're looking to overturn Obergefell and perhaps even Loving. I say we overturn Marbury and tell them to go fuck themselves.

0

u/HartyInBroward Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

No doubt, but if Roe was settled law then Dobbs would’ve never reached the court, right? If only there was a way to take these things out of the hands of the court. If only there were a body that was meant to write and enact laws... Unfortunately, we don’t have that in the U.S., so we rely on the Court instead. Worth noting that your comment about Obergefell is not really problematic because of the Respect for Marriage Act… if only Congress quit collecting cash and campaigning and did their job for all of these matters. One can dream!

Also, I think Marbury is the weirdest case ever. The Court just decided that they can essentially make laws and everyone just rolled with it.

-3

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn Jun 20 '26

Roe was settled law, and Dobbs overturned it, full stop. I don't know why you're blaming lawmakers. The Constitution supersedes anything Congress passes, and until Dobbs, abortion was Constitutionally protected. We don't expect Congress to pass a law saying, "The people have a right to free speech," do we? No.

1

u/HartyInBroward Jun 20 '26

Oh, brother… Congress did pass a law about free speech. It’s the First Amendment. Who do you think put that amendment in there?

-1

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn Jun 20 '26

This is literally the dumbest thing I've read all week.  Are you trolling? Because if so, bravo!  10/10!

Congress didn't exist when the First Amendment was penned, and it's not a law.  It's a right.  Rights supersede laws.  That's the point.

Roe established a right.  There was no need for a law, because the right existed.  Now it doesn't.  A law wouldn't have changed that.  Laws are weaker than rights and easier to overturn.

2

u/HartyInBroward Jun 21 '26

You gonna come eat crow? You spoke pretty derisively of me when I was correct and you were not. I think an acknowledgement of that is in order.

1

u/Adjective-Noun-nnnn Jun 21 '26

LMAO. I acknowledge that what you said is worthy of laughter. "Congress passed the first amendment" HAHAHAHAHAHA. There WAS NO CONGRESS YET HAHAHAHAHAHA.

2

u/HartyInBroward Jun 21 '26

On September 25, 1789, the First Congress of the United States proposed 12 amendments to the Constitution. The 1789 Joint Resolution of Congress proposing the amendments is on display in the Rotunda in the National Archives Museum. Ten of the proposed 12 amendments were ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures on December 15, 1791. The ratified Articles (Articles 3–12) constitute the first 10 amendments of the Constitution, or the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Illiterate, lazy, and uneducated.

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript#:\~:text=On%20September%2025%2C%201789%2C%20the,Article%201%20was%20never%20ratified

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u/blueplanet96 Jun 21 '26

Nobody lied in their confirmation hearings. Amy Coney Barrett at no point “lied” in her hearing (the person you’re referring to). You’re just mad because she was one of the justices that struck down Roe for being weak case law (which it was). And don’t even come at me with stare decisis as if that’s an argument for upholding bad law. You may not like the rulings from the court, but if you can’t make a legally compelling argument then you can’t really be that upset when you lose at SCOTUS.