SCOTUS

Unprecedented Leak: SCOTUS Draft Ruling Shocks The Nation

The Supreme Court has actually voted to overrule the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to a preliminary draft ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito leaked from inside the court and obtained from SCOTUS by POLITICO. The decision was not expected to be released until at least June. And the leak has left the entire legal system in utter shock with many suggesting nefarious motives.

The draft viewpoint is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 choice which ensured federal constitutional securities of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 choice– Planned Parenthood v. Casey– that mainly kept the. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.” “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

An individual knowledgeable about the court’s considerations stated that four of the other Republican-appointed justices– Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett– had voted with Alito in the conference held amongst the SCOTUS Justices after hearing oral arguments in December, which line-up stays the same since today.

Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”

-Justice Samuel Alito in an initial draft majority opinion

The three Democratic-appointed justices– Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan– are working on several dissents, according to the individual. How Chief Justice John Roberts will eventually vote, and whether he will sign on to the currently written decision or draft his own, is uncertain.

The file, identified as an initial draft of the majority decision, consists of a notation that it was distributed amongst the justices on Feb. 10. If the Alito draft is embraced, it would rule in favor of Mississippi in the carefully viewed case over that state’s effort to prohibit most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

A SCOTUS representative declined to make another agent or comment of the court readily available to respond to concerns about the draft file.

Politico writes,

“POLITICO received a copy of the draft opinion from a person familiar with the court’s proceedings in the Mississippi case along with other details supporting the authenticity of the document. The draft opinion runs 98 pages, including a 31-page appendix of historical state abortion laws. The document is replete with citations to previous court decisions, books and other authorities, and includes 118 footnotes. The appearances and timing of this draft are consistent with court practice.

The disclosure of Alito’s draft majority opinion – a rare breach of Supreme Court secrecy and tradition around its deliberations – comes as all sides in the abortion debate are girding for the ruling. Speculation about the looming decision has been intense since the December oral arguments indicated a majority was inclined to support the Mississippi law.”

Justice Alito concludes his decision in a fitting historical fashion,

“We end this opinion where we began. Abortion presents a profound moral question. The constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey Arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”

Almost immediately protestors and counter-protestors descended upon the Supreme Court with barricades put in place surrounding the building within less than an hour of the report on May 2nd.

H/T Politico

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