It was a divided SCOTUS, but the dissenters didn’t even say why they were dissenting.

In other words, why bother?

We have to correct ourselves. We noted this case back in November and erroneously reported that it did not involve the death penalty. We were wrong. We regret the error.

Well, maybe the poor schmuck wasn’t on death row, but if he wasn’t the only reason would be that the 9th circuit ordered him off death row. There was a habeas grant in the CA9, that is, but only on the issue of the punishment, which in fact was the death penalty.

Why did the SCOTUS take an interest this time, in this case? There’s really no good answer to that. In fact, they weren’t really that interested: there was no argument. It was a summary reversal. It was the ninth circuit. And it was an appeal from hen’s teeth rare habeas grant.

When something is hen’s teeth rare there is no reason for the SCOTUS to take it up. That an inviolable rule at the SCOTUS. But inviolable rules apply only to the rabble. The Government, as we have so often pointed out, is a favored litigant and a government’s request for relief is much more likely to be heard at the SCOTUS. And at this point there is practically a decade long tradition of summarily reversing ninth circuit habeas grants.

This particular one seems so gratuitous and unnecessary, though.

We wonder why the political left is so silent about the unprincipled conduct of the SCOTUS in favor of the government over individuals, in favor of the powerful over the powerless. It is so out in the open, so obvious to lawyers who follow SCOTUS goings on. And it isn’t limited to habeas, or to criminal matters. Some years ago we noticed a peculiar manifestation regarding the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). We figured that, like habeas, SCOTUS had effectively repealed that one.

As it happens, SCOTUS is just now confronting the consequences of its prior rulings that the ATS had no “extraterritorial application”, which as we noted in our earlier posts is the only possible application it has. Or had. We eagerly await the result in this latest kerfuffle over the ATS.

Need another example? We had a case a few years ago where the issue was whether principles of equity that are applied to everyone else can also be applied to the government. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the general rule is “no” – at least, it’s no if the party seeking to apply them is an individual. But if both parties are governments, the answer is “yes”.

You might object that the whole idea of this Let’s Hold Court Thing is that rules get applied evenly to everyone, not one rule for the government and the opposite rule for everyone else.

Meh.

Meanwhile the press is all over a different death penalty story in the news. This is the issue of President Trump and his outgoing AG William Barr being in a frenzy to carry out a bunch of executions. Of course, the SCOTUS could stop any of these execution if it wanted to. Somehow – again – that goes unremarked while the media score political points over someone being killed. Or not.

Some days we just don’t know.

Meanwhile again. It is Christmastide. Our own plans are to observe that until the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th, as is traditional. And we otherwise endeavor to adopt a celebratory mood to ring out 2020. Many of our fellow human beings are doing the same.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!