Undaunted from the Bench

Sotomayor pulls back the curtain on MAGA Supreme Court hackery

The six MAGA justices on the Supreme Court have obliterated the notion that they are impartial jurists bound by precedent. This week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor did a magnificent job stripping away the veneer of legitimacy they have tried to sustain. In dissenting from a widely criticized emergency docket decision running roughshod over the 4^th Amendment and effectively greenlight racial profiling, Sotomayor let it rip.

She explained:

A Federal District Court found that these raids were part of a pattern of conduct by the Government that likely violated the Fourth Amendment. Based on the evidence before it, the court held that the Government was stopping individuals based solely on four factors: (1) their apparent race or ethnicity; (2) whether they spoke Spanish or English with an accent; (3) the type of location at which they were found (such as a car wash or bus stop); and (4) the type of job they appeared to work. Concluding that stops based on these four factors alone, even when taken together, could not satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of reasonable suspicion, the District Court temporarily enjoined the Government from continuing its pattern of unlawful mass arrests while it considered whether longer-term relief was appropriate.

Instead of allowing the litigation to proceed, the Supreme Court leapt into the fray and—without briefing, argument, or explanation—summarily stayed the order. “That decision is yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” Sotomayor wrote.

“We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.”

She had no majority “opinion” to critique since the majority could not be bothered to write one. She did, however, shred Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s lame concurrence. Citing 45-yr. old precedent, she reminded us, “Critically, a set of facts cannot constitute reasonable suspicion if it ‘describe[s] a very large category of presumably innocent’ people.”

Even by the government’s reckoning (albeit without factual support) the order would allow stops and detention of millions of people simply because they “look” Hispanic, speak Spanish, or, for example, work in construction. Sotomayor also excoriated a ruling blessing ICE abductions: “the Government has provided no evidence showing that its seizures were based on credible intelligence about a particular employer at a particular location.”

In debunking the government’s complaint that it would be hampered in enforcing immigration law, Sotomayor cited its own actions and rhetoric, thereby illustrating its brazen contempt for courts and determination to resort to ever-increasing levels of violence:

Since the issuance of the TRO, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has called the District Judge an “‘idiot’” and vowed that “‘none of [the Government’s] operations are going to change.’” The CBP Chief Patrol Agent in the Central District has stated that his division will “turn and burn” and “go even harder now,” and has posted videos on social media touting his agents’ continued efforts “[c]hasing, cuffing, [and] deporting” people at car washes assertion that it will suffer irreparable harm.

Sotomayor blasted Kavanaugh’s ridiculous assertion that these raids involve only brief stops or questioning. (Does he follow any non-Fox News?) She pointed to voluminous evidence that ICE is violently “seizing people using firearms” and then warehousing them. Moreover, “United States citizens are also being seized, taken from their jobs, and prevented from working to support themselves and their families.” In other words, she exposed Kavanaugh for inventing facts to support his untenable conclusion.

Finally, Sotomayor took a righteous swing at the justices who misuse the emergency docket. “In the last eight months, this Court’s appetite to circumvent the ordinary appellate process and weigh in on important issues has grown exponentially,” she wrote. “Yet, some situations simply cry out for an explanation, such as when the Government’s conduct flagrantly violates the law, or when lower courts and litigants need guidance about the issues on which they should focus.” It is no wonder district courts are baffled. “For each of those complex issues,” she wrote, “it will be anyone’s guess whether the majority thought there were evidentiary deficiencies, legal errors, or a combination of both.”

We owe a debt of gratitude to Sotomayor for this and many other stinging dissents as well as her expert questioning at oral arguments. Her candor from the bench is not just refreshing; it is essential in educating the public that the six MAGA justices are not engaged in judging; their opinions are not the product of intellectually honest legal reasoning. (Indeed, they frequently provide no reasoning.) As such, their rulings have lost legitimacy, which depends on intellectual and ethical integrity.

That conclusion, so aptly bolstered by Sotomayor’s dissent, can fuel a robust movement to reform the Supreme Court in significant ways. Americans must demand that it once again resembles an impartial court reflecting the highest ethical standards. Our democracy will depend on it.

Throughout, we will honor her commitment to remain undaunted, unbowed, and unwilling (in her words) to “sit idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost.” She remains an essential voice in debunking the MAGA justices’ blatant hackery dressed up as jurisprudence.