As universally known, the U.S. Supreme Court (“SCOTUS”) is the highest in the federal judiciary. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal cases, as well as State Court cases which involve constitutional issues or Federal law.
Until recently, the venerable High Court was, creditably seen as an avatar of justice, interpreter of the Law and the Constitution, and the ultimate source of American Justice. With few exceptions, its judicial rulings shored up the legal context of the Nation, as intentionally authored by the Founders, and were a consistent guardian of the rights of its citizens. The Court’s high revered Justices included John Marshall, Oliver Wendal Holmes, William Brennan, Benjamin Cardozo, Earl Warren, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and William Douglas. Where there anecdotally existed an ambiguity or inconsistency in the law, as between States, in the lower courts, or esoteric issues concerning appellants and institutions, such legal dilemmas were resolved and morphed into National legal precedent.
The wise, precedential decisions of SCOTUS were espoecially revered by us as idealistic law students, and, in our subsequent fifty-year- long, professional practice, they served, when relevant, as an ultimate guide. Many of the justices, in addition to their juridical acumen, were gifted enough to express their legal opinions in admirably aesthetic language, adding to the recognition of the Court’s erudition and our profound respect. It is our view that the written opinions of Justice Benjamin Cardozo, were authored in a style reminiscent of the great English novelists; this feature seemed to add significant persuasive impact to his brilliant judicial decisions.
By precedential law, an appellant desirous of having his case reviewed (and hopefully, overturned, or modified), as a mandatory prerequisite, had to file an application (motio denominated as a “Writ of Certiorari,” successfully demonstrating that no “political” issue, direct or indirect, was involved in the case. The intention of this salutary procedure was to avoid a violation of the “Separation of Powers.” The exclusion of politics ensured the objectivity of the Justices’ decisions, and with rare exception, SCOTUS was universally revered as the ultimate guardian of citizens’ rights and an existental keystone of our sadly Constitutional Democracy.
The year 2000, sadly, brought with it a democratically undesirable change; a gravely impactful transmogrification of SCOTUS, sadly evidenced by the acceptance and consideration of the inarguably, “political” case of Gore v. Bush. As an empirical concomitant, the precedentially appropriate objectivity of the High Court was suddenly and unexplainably transmogrified to an institution, inappropriately vulnerable, to the influence of outside interests.
Approximately a decade thereafter, the High Court unexplainably chose to exacerbate the democratic problem of money influence in government, by its aberrant ruling (Citizens’ United Taxpayer case) which tragically eschewed all previous,. salutary considerations of non-politically influenced jurisprudence by its elimination of statutory limits on campaign contribution. The effect on the individual voter was tautologically undemocratic, and, revealingly, the ludicrous written opinion was evident proof of its un-judicial, pro-large corporation intent. The exoticly strained rational, bizarrely recited, that since corporations are legally treated as “people,” any limitation on their campaign contributions would be a violation of “freedom of speech.”
Such a surprisingly ludicrous rationale would be (comically) rejected by any first-year law student and doubtless. most corporate businessmen. The fictional status of corporations as “persons” is a universally recognized “legal fiction” for the protection of a proprietor of (an incorporated) business from personal financial liability ande thereby encourage new business enterprise. No humanistic”personhood” was ever intended by this universal law. In fact the legal fiction of corporate “person” was first legislated in the Statutes of Elizabetrh, in an era when a debtor in England was subject to incarceration.
It has been frustratingly painful to observe the moral and professiional decline of impartial objectivity by the Court’s unprincipled four Justice, right-wing majority of the extant Supreme Court. It is our v iew that their venerable predecessors would be incredulously astonoshedv at the unprecedented decline of judicial morality and fiduciary responsiblity of the Court, exemplified by the four conservative Justices; Justice Samuel Alito has [publicaly shown himself to be partial to the religious lobby and a devotee of the White e Christian Malitias (viz,. flying militia style flag, unfaillingly rendering decisions in accordance with the interest of the Nation’s religious lobby. and Justice Clarence Thomas admission of being the tecipient of lavish gifts and vacations from rich conservative donors. The revealed level of the determinative right-wing majority is disappointingly incompatible with the vaunted history of SCOTUS up to twenty five years ago
It is the myriad acts of preferential dispositions, granted by such corrupt Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, that enables the cancer and morally bankrupt metastasis of the Trump-MAGA pandemic, ( viz., I.C.E., National Guard, Tariffs, etc.) amply delineated in prior writings, and, frustratingly leading to the impressive patrriotic participation of seven million American citizens at the “No Kings” demonstrations thoughout the Nation.
It is passing strange, to observe the lower Federal Courts, reliably ruling in accordance with the tenets of the U.S, Constitution and Rule of Law, while, bizarrely. America’s Highest Court, remains shamefully and unptrecedently ensnared in such a disappointing moral morass. Perhaps the dubious decisions of this aberrational iteration of SCOTUS should, in the salubrious interest of our precious but vulnerable, Democratic Republic, be usefully appealable to the lower Federal Courts.
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