Brett Kavanaugh says he doesn't owe the public an explanation - Ian Millhiser @ Vox [View all]

[In It to Win It]

Vox

Justice Brett Kavanaugh defended the Supreme Court’s recent practice of handing victories to President Donald Trump without explaining those decisions, while speaking at a judicial conference on Thursday.

For most of its history, the Supreme Court was very cautious about weighing in on any legal dispute before it arrived on its doorstep through the (often very slow) process of lawyers appealing lower court decisions. There are many reasons for this caution, but one of the biggest ones is that, if the justices race to decide matters, they may get them wrong. And, on many legal questions, no one can overrule the Court if the justices make a mistake.

Beginning in Trump’s first term, however, the Republican justices started throwing caution to the wind. When Trump loses a case in a lower court, his lawyers often run to the Court’s “shadow docket,” a once-obscure process that allows litigants to skip in line and receive an immediate order from the justices, but only if the justices agree. Unlike in ordinary Supreme Court cases — argued on the “merits docket” — the justices do not often explain why they ruled a particular way in shadow docket cases.

Before Trump, the Court was hypercautious about granting relief on the shadow docket, because doing so often required them to decide high-stakes matters without much deliberation, full briefing, or an oral argument.

Brett Kavanaugh says he doesn’t owe the public an explanation www.vox.com/scotus/42203...

— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser.bsky.social) 2025-08-01T18:55:31.786Z