Deadline: Legal Blog-Judge in Harvard case calls Justice Gorsuch's comments 'unhelpful and unnecessary'

[LetMyPeopleVote]

A remarkable footnote held up a mirror to the Trump appointee’s criticism of lower court judges in Donald Trump’s second term.

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/harvard-case-appeal-neil-gorsuch-criticism-rcna229043

A federal judge’s ruling for Harvard on Wednesday was significant in rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to exert financial control over the educational institution. But just as notable was a footnote in the ruling that directly called out Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch for his criticism of lower court judges.

“The Court is mindful of Justice Gorsuch’s comments in his opinion in APHA and fully agrees that this Court is not free to ‘defy’ Supreme Court decisions,” U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs wrote in the ninth footnote of her 84-page ruling. “APHA” refers to the high court’s shadow docket decision last month in National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association, in which the majority backed the Trump administration’s bid to cut NIH research grants.

The NIH case divided the justices to such an extent that five of them wrote separate opinions. Joined by fellow Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh, Gorsuch’s separate opinion cited multiple recent cases in which he said lower court judges bucked clear high court precedent. “Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them,” he wrote, lamenting that his court’s interventions “should have been unnecessary.”

He concluded that the phenomenon, as he saw it, underscored “a basic tenet of our judicial system: Whatever their own views, judges are duty-bound to respect ‘the hierarchy of the federal court system created by the Constitution and Congress.’” He was quoting a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that warned of “anarchy” if lower court judges don’t follow high court precedent.......

Burroughs isn’t alone in publicly expressing frustration with her high court colleagues. NBC News published a remarkable report Thursday that cited a whopping 10 federal judges who said the justices should better explain their emergency rulings. That they went on record at all, even anonymously, highlights the dire state of the judiciary in Donald Trump’s second term — one in which Biden appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson recently complained that her colleagues on the high court invariably find a way to side with this administration.

The administration has vowed to appeal Burroughs’ ruling in the Harvard case, so Gorsuch may have an opportunity to respond — if he thinks that would be helpful, or necessary.

[Irish_Dem]

1. I wonder how much money it took to bribe the SC traitors to sell out their country?

And turn it over to our enemies.

Destroy our democracy, constitution, and to destroy everything that made the US great.

I have a sickening feeling it didn't cost that much money to buy Supreme Court justices.

[canetoad]

2. Trump and the Supreme Court