Latest news with #legalprecedent
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Will of man suspected of being army's IRA spy Stakeknife to be sealed, high court rules
The will of the man alleged to have been Britain's top agent inside the Provisional IRA is not to be made public, the high court has ruled in a legal first. Ordering that the will of Freddie Scappaticci, who is suspected of being the mole known as Stakeknife, should not be open for public inspection as is usual, Sir Julian Flaux said it was the first time this had been done for a person who was not a member of the royal family. Scappaticci, who was accused of torturing and murdering several victims while simultaneously running an IRA enforcement unit and working for the British state in the 1980s, died in hiding in April 2023 at the age of 77. He always denied being Stakeknife. In his ruling, published on Monday, Flaux said a hearing to decide whether the will should be sealed was held in private on 21 July. The application was made by a man named Michael Johnson, who had said he was prepared to act as Scappaticci's representative providing that the will was sealed. Christopher Buckley, acting for Johnson, had told the court that making the will public would be both 'undesirable' and 'inappropriate'. A barrister for the attorney general, who represents the public interest, had supported the application. Flaux said: 'There is nothing in the will, which is in fairly standard form, which could conceivably be of interest to the public or the media.' He added that there was 'the need to protect the applicant and those named in the will from the real risk of serious physical harm or even death because they might be thought to be guilty by association with the deceased'. This was demonstrated, the judge said, by 'the real risk to his life and wellbeing which the deceased faced in his lifetime'. He ordered the will should be sealed for 70 years. A seven-year investigation into Stakeknife – alleged to have been the highest-ranking British intelligence agent in the IRA during the Northern Ireland Troubles – published last year found that more lives were lost than saved because of his activities. Scappaticci, from west Belfast, was not named as the agent in the report. Scappaticci, who went into hiding in England after his identity was revealed in 2003 by the media, failed in a legal attempt to force the government to publicly state that he was not Stakeknife. He was linked to more than a dozen murders during his time as a senior member of the Provisional IRA's ruthless internal security unit known as 'the nutting squad', which was tasked with identifying and killing security force informers. Flaux said in his judgment: 'The allegation that the deceased was working for the British government was particularly inflammatory in the Catholic community in Northern Ireland given that he was alleged to have been responsible within the IRA for dealing with individuals accused of spying on the IRA.' In 2022, the Guardian revealed that senior government officials privately believed that the practice of keeping secret the wills of the royal family was legally questionable and warned ministers not to discuss it in parliament. The same year, the court of appeal dismissed a legal challenge by the Guardian to the exclusion of the media from a secret court hearing in which a judge banned the public from inspecting Prince Philip's will.
CBS News
6 days ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Federal judge in Florida denies Justice Department request to unseal Epstein grand jury material
Washington — A federal judge in Florida has denied the Justice Department's request to unseal grand jury material stemming from investigations in 2005 and 2007 into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Judge Robin Rosenberg, a federal judge with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, wrote in an order on Wednesday that "the court's hands are tied," given precedents about grand jury secrecy established by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which includes southern Florida. She noted that the government conceded that she was bound by the 11th Circuit's decisions. Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Justice Department lawyers asked several federal courts to unseal grand jury transcripts in cases involving Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime partner who is serving a 20-year prison sentence on sex trafficking charges. Epstein was convicted on state prostitution charges in 2008, and faced federal sex trafficking charges in 2019. He died in federal custody weeks later. Wednesday's ruling only applies to transcripts of proceedings by federal grand juries that were convened in West Palm Beach in 2005 and 2007. Separate grand juries in New York indicted Epstein in 2019, and Maxwell in 2020. The judges who oversaw those cases are still weighing the administration's request to unseal proceedings, and have asked the government, victims and defense teams for more information before issuing rulings. The New York federal court is bound by different circuit court precedent, meaning judges there could ultimately pave the way for more information to be released. It's not yet clear if the Trump administration will appeal the Florida court's decision. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday afternoon she will "let this president speak to whether he wants to see an appeal." Pressure has been mounting on the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress to provide more transparency in the Epstein case, even as President Trump has said he doesn't understand why so many of his supporters are interested.
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Yahoo
Where Is Michelle Carter Now? Inside Her Life, 11 Years After Encouraging Her Boyfriend to Kill Himself
Michelle Carter encouraged her alleged boyfriend, Conrad Roy III, to die by suicide in 2014 The infamous case ended in her conviction for involuntary manslaughter and sentencing Now, Carter and Roy's story has set a legal precedent and inspired multiple TV showsMichelle Carter went from a grieving girlfriend to a convicted criminal in the 2014 death of her alleged boyfriend, Conrad Roy III — and the only evidence was thousands of text messages. Roy's death initially looked like a tragic teen suicide: The Massachusetts teen died on July 12, 2014, from carbon monoxide poisoning. However, the 18-year-old's untimely death quickly evolved into a complex and controversial case. During the investigation, detectives uncovered more than 1,000 chilling texts between Carter, who was 17 at the time, and Roy. From 2012 to 2014, she attempted to discourage his death by suicide but eventually urged him to complete the act of violence and declined to notify anyone when he did, per The New York Times. 'It was one of those things where you keep reading and it just keeps getting worse. And that's what kinda put everything in motion,' Fairhaven Police Detective Scott Gordon said in an episode of Dateline: Reckless. As a result, Carter was charged with involuntary manslaughter in February 2015. She was ultimately found guilty a little over two years later and was sentenced to 15 months in prison. She was released after 11 months in January 2020 and has maintained a low profile since returning to her home in Massachusetts. But while Carter, who is now 28, may be avoiding the spotlight, her story has gained widespread media attention over the years. So, where is Michelle Carter now? Here's a look at her life over a decade after Conrad Roy III died by suicide. Born Aug. 11, 1996, Carter is the daughter of David and Gail Carter, a sales manager and a home stager, respectively, according to Esquire. She grew up in Plainville, Mass., a suburban town between Providence, R.I., and Boston. As a teen, Carter struggled with mental illness. In 2014, she was switched from the antidepressant Prozac to Celexa and, in June of that year, she was admitted to McLean Hospital — a psychiatric facility in Belmont, Mass. — for treatment for anorexia. Socially, Carter struggled to find a group to belong to, according to friends of hers at King Philip Regional High School in Wrentham, Mass. 'People walked all over her,' Carter's friend Evan Andrews told Esquire. 'Michelle wanted the confidence she saw others having.' Despite living an hour apart in Massachusetts — Roy in Fairhaven and Carter in Plainville — the teens first met in February 2012 in Naples, Fla. According to Esquire, Carter was visiting her grandparents, and Roy was visiting his great-aunt a few doors down. They spent time together on vacation and continued their relationship when they returned home to Massachusetts. Over the next two years, Roy and Carter saw each other in person no more than five times, according to his mom, but the two kept in touch with hours of phone calls, emails and text messages. In their conversations, Roy opened up to Carter about his previous suicide attempts (he had tried to die by suicide at least four times before he died in 2014, per The New York Times). The two bonded over taking antidepressants and shared mental health struggles (Roy also struggled with social anxiety and depression). By the summer of 2014, Carter reportedly asked Roy about their relationship status, texting things like 'Are we basically dating?' and 'I want to be able to say I was your girlfriend.' Roy responded by telling Carter, 'Yes you are.' However, Roy's parents were unaware that he was in a relationship with anyone at the time of his death. On July 12, 2014, Roy died by suicide in a Kmart parking lot. Authorities found his body the following day. Carter was charged with involuntary manslaughter in February 2015 for allegedly convincing Roy to die by suicide via text message. She denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty. Police leveled the manslaughter charges against Carter after uncovering more than 1,000 text messages between her and Roy. In the texts, she reportedly 'strongly influenced his decision to take his own life, encouraged him to commit suicide and guided him in his engagement of activities which led to his death,' according to a statement from the Bristol District Attorney's office. Carter suggested several methods for Roy to die by suicide, and in the hours prior to his death, she urged him to follow through with his suicide plan, writing: 'You're ready and prepared. All you have to do is turn the generator on and you [will] be free and happy. No more pushing it off. No more waiting.' More damning texts include messages that Carter sent to Roy's mother, Lynn, and a friend, Samantha Boardman, in the days following his death. She wrote to Boardman on July 21, 2014, that if police or relatives read her text exchanges with Roy, she would be 'done.' 'His family will hate me and I could go to jail,' Carter continued in her message to Boardman. Carter also texted Lynn on July 25, 2014, writing, 'It's my fault. And it's something I'll never forgive myself for.' The criminal charge and subsequent court case set legal precedent, as the prosecution was attempting to prove that blame for Roy's death could be verbal, not physical. Carter's defense, however, argued unsuccessfully that her 'only role in this is words' and even moved for dismissal on the grounds that the texts were free speech and, therefore, protected by the First Amendment. Carter faced a criminal trial for the involuntary manslaughter charge in June 2017. Though thousands of text messages were presented during the 10-day trial, the precedent-setting case came down to an exchange that Carter had with her friend, Boardman, after Roy's death by suicide. According to the text message, Roy allegedly tried to abort his suicide attempt by exiting the truck at one point, telling Carter, who was supposedly on the phone with him at the time, that he was scared and didn't want to abandon his family. Carter reportedly responded by telling him to 'get back in' and see through his initial plan. 'His death was my fault he got out of the car, and I told him to get back in because I knew he would do it all over again the next day,' Carter wrote to Boardman. While the hundreds of text messages from Carter encouraging Roy's suicidal planning were 'deliberate and reckless,' according to Judge Lawrence Moniz, they did not cause his death. However, it was her instructions to Roy to 'get back in' his pickup truck — which had become a 'toxic environment inconsistent with human life' — and her failure to notify anyone else of Roy's suicide that ultimately led to Judge Moniz's guilty verdict of involuntary manslaughter. 'She [instructed] Mr. Roy to get back into the truck, well-knowing of all of the feelings that he [had] exchanged with her: his ambiguities, his fears, his concerns,' Moniz said as he read his decision to the court. And after Roy re-entered his vehicle, 'She did nothing. She did not call the police or Mr. Roy's family,' Moniz continued. 'Finally, she did not issue a simple additional instruction [to Roy]: 'Get out of the truck.' ' Though Carter faced up to 20 years in prison, she was sentenced to 15 months in jail. She was allowed to remain free while her attorney appealed her case — but after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld her conviction in February 2019, Carter was ordered to begin her prison sentence. In July 2019, Carter's legal team appealed her conviction and sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court. That September, after seven months behind bars, Carter asked the parole board for an early release. Both requests were ultimately denied: She was denied parole, with the board stating she 'lacked sincerity,' and the Supreme Court declined to hear Carter's appeal. However, Carter did not serve her full 15-month sentence. She was released from prison on Jan. 23, 2020 — three months early — for what is called 'good time' credit, a program where inmates can take up to 10 days off their sentence per month for exemplary behavior, attending programs and classes and working inside the jail, as sheriff's office spokesman Jonathan Darling told PEOPLE. Details about Carter's whereabouts and life post-prison are scarce. Since her release from the Bristol County House of Corrections in January 2020, Carter has only been spotted once outside of her Plainville home — doing yard work in April 2022, according to photos obtained by the New York Post. Carter's probation ended on Aug. 1, 2022, as the Massachusetts Probation Service confirmed to MassLive. When her probation ended, so did its terms, which included a condition prohibiting Carter from profiting from her story or the case. Despite the conditions being lifted, Carter has yet to speak out publicly regarding Roy's death and her subsequent conviction. Though Carter's conviction is now in the past, the legal ramifications of her case have the ability to affect what constitutes a criminal act going forward. Martin Healy, chief legal counsel to the Massachusetts Bar Association, said in a statement that Carter's conviction will have 'national implications.' Healy added that 'seemingly remote and distant communications ... could rise to the level of criminal culpability' as a result of Carter's case. Matthew Segal, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, also warned that Carter's guilty verdict could threaten free speech statewide. But one person looking to use Carter's case to effect legal change is Roy's mother, Lynn. Since Carter was found guilty in connection with her son's death, Lynn has been working to criminalize suicide coercion in Massachusetts. The legislation, dubbed 'Conrad's Law,' would impose a punishment of up to five years for anyone convicted of pressuring another to die by suicide. Massachusetts is currently one of only eight U.S. states that do not criminalize suicide coercion. As of August 2023, the bill was awaiting passage in the state House of Representatives, according to the Fall River Reporter. 'With this tragedy, my son would want me to help other people, other families,' Lynn told PEOPLE. 'If we get the law passed — when we do — that's going to be a win for me, for him. I just want my son to be proud of me.' If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to Read the original article on People
CNN
02-07-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: The behind-the-scenes power John Roberts wields to ensure his influence with justices
Chief Justice John Roberts often laments that he has limited clout as he deals with his eight Supreme Court colleagues. 'You can't fire people if they don't follow you. You can't cut their pay,' he told a group of federal judges on Saturday, the day after the court released its final opinions of the term. 'You have to be able to communicate what you think is important, and sometimes that means doing it eight different ways.' But Roberts, in fact, has several powerful levers, perhaps the most valuable being the power to assign opinions that speak for the court. When the chief is in the majority – as he was more than anyone this term – he chooses which justice will write the opinion. That's important because the force of any Supreme Court decision exceeds its bottom-line vote. Its rationale sets a precedent for future cases. Even the rhetoric and tone can influence lower court judges. For the author of an opinion, the endeavor offers a chance to steer the law and can be a point of personal pride. Completing his 20th session on America's highest court, Roberts has routinely kept the most important cases for himself, including those involving presidential powers. Still, he has wielded his assignment power strategically over the years, to influence and reward colleagues. In some situations, his assignments have appeared intended to cut against type or disprove ideological generalizations of the court. And then there was last Friday, when Roberts produced a true – and tactically intriguing – surprise. As he opened the final courtroom proceeding of the 2024-25 term, he revealed from the elevated bench that Justice Amy Coney Barrett had the opinion for the court in the most awaited case. It was the case that would effectively release President Donald Trump from dozens of lower-court orders blocking his second-term policies across the country, including his effort to roll back the current birthright citizenship given all babies born in the United States regardless of their parents' legal status. The assignment was a plum one for the junior justice on the right wing – a justice who'd been lambasted by the MAGA world (and by Trump himself) for being insufficiently loyal, despite her overwhelmingly conservative record – reinforced by the decision she was about to read from the bench. The surprise was evident among some in the staid courtroom. Justice Department lawyers, seated at tables below the mahogany bench, quietly exchanged glances, as did journalists in the press section to the justices' right. Lawyers following the case had presumed Roberts would keep the opinion for himself, as he has done for all major controversies involving Trump or at least give it to a justice more senior than Barrett. Roberts' choice immediately blunted Trump's criticism. 'I just have great respect for her,' the president said of Barrett after the decision in Trump v. Casa was issued. 'I always have. And her decision was brilliantly written today – from all accounts.' For the strategic chief, the choice of Barrett also strengthened his alliance with a pivotal justice whom liberals, for their part, have been trying to entice toward the center. Barrett and Roberts did not respond to requests for comment. Like the eight associate justices, the chief holds one vote. But he dictates much of the court's agenda, as he oversees oral arguments and runs the closed-door conferences where the justices discuss and vote on cases. By tradition, the most senior justice on the majority side of a case assigns the opinion. (The chief justice enjoys seniority over all justices, irrespective of their longer tenure.) Roberts was in the majority on this conservative dominated bench more than any justice last session, and he determined who would be the author of 54 of the 56 signed opinions handed down after briefing and oral argument. This is the Roberts Court in both the colloquial and real sense; he is rarely relegated to dissent, although two exceptions are notable: the 2015 decision declaring a right to same-sex marriage and the 2022 decision striking down all federal abortion rights. All modern chiefs, to various degrees, have employed the assignment power to influence outcomes. Chief Justice Warren Burger, who served from 1969 to 1986, was known to switch his vote to ensure he would be in the majority and control the opinion. Burger, appointed by President Richard Nixon, favored colleagues who shared his right-wing ideology, often relying on then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist, for whom Roberts served as a clerk during the 1980-81 term. Rehnquist, elevated to chief justice by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, gained a reputation for being less manipulative and more even-handed. Fixated on speed and efficiency, Rehnquist also rewarded associate justices who wrote fast and avoided tangents that would cause a justice to drop off. (An author needs to hold at least five justices on the opinion for a majority.) Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who had known Rehnquist since their years together at Stanford Law School, understood Rehnquist and often finished her opinions first. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined the bench in 1993, she complained to O'Connor that Rehnquist's first assignment to her was a complicated pension dispute. 'Ruth, you just do it,' O'Connor admonished, 'and get your opinion in circulation before he makes the next set of assignments.' Roberts, at the recent judicial conference, implicitly acknowledged that the current justices let draft opinions pile up. They left six major decisions to the last day. 'People have their own ideas of a schedule,' he said of other justices. 'Things were a little crunched toward the end this year. We'll try to space it out a little better next year, I suppose.' Roberts, who succeeded Rehnquist in 2005 after being appointed by President George W. Bush, assigns a batch of opinions after each two-week sitting of oral arguments and the related conference votes. The public learns of the assignments only when final decisions are announced. The chief justice has usually kept the stand-out cases, especially those involving clashes with the executive branch, perhaps to bring the weight of his stature as chief. Until last Friday, he had penned the important cases centered on Trump, such as the 2018 decision upholding his first administration's travel ban on mainly Muslim countries; the 2019 decision impeding Trump's effort to add a citizenship question to the decennial census; and the pair of 2020 controversies over Trump's effort to keep his business dealings secret as he faced government subpoenas. Last session, Roberts wrote the decision granting Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution. Earlier this June, Roberts authored the decision in the controversy over state bans on certain medical care for transgender youths. His decision affirmed state restrictions on puberty blockers and hormone therapy but declined to adopt a rationale of fellow conservatives, including Barrett, that would further disadvantage bias claims brought by transgender individuals. Roberts has rewarded restraint (relatively speaking on this hard-right court) and crossover votes from ideological camps. In some situations, his assignments cut against type or dispel the notion that the dueling sides cannot come together. He assigned liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court's first African American woman and a jurist vigilant regarding anti-bias protections, the court's decision in a 'reverse discrimination' case. The court unanimously sided with a straight woman in Ohio who wanted to sue her employer after her gay boss refused to promote her. In a separate case issued on the same day, Roberts tapped liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor for a church-state clash that favored religious interests. Decided on a unanimous vote, the case reversed a Wisconsin court's ruling and opened the door for a Catholic Charities chapter to obtain an exemption from state unemployment taxes because of its religious status. The high court decision added to its series favoring religious conservatives. Roberts appears to try to distribute cases evenly among the nine. Although the politically charged disputes, in which liberals frequently find themselves in dissent, draw most of the public attention, there are plenty of low-profile, non-ideological cases to go around. Statistics on SCOTUSblog compiled by Jake Truscott and Adam Feldman show that of the total 56 opinions doled out, Barrett and fellow conservatives Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh each had seven; Roberts, Sotomayor, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch had six; and Jackson had five. On the left, senior Justice Sotomayor controls who writes the main dissent when liberals lose. She held onto the dissenting opinions in what many viewed as the three most significant cases and took the dramatic step of reading portions of all three from the bench. A former Notre Dame law professor, Barrett became Trump's third appointee during his first term. She was named in 2020, during the final weeks of his administration after Ginsburg's sudden death. Barrett's cautious but effective approach has given her an outsized role among the nine. Barrett sometimes casts the decisive vote or drafts the compromise rationale, as she did in an Idaho abortion controversy last year. Liberals have tried to entice her toward middle ground in other cases. During oral arguments, they often pick up on her questions as they make their own points. Roberts, too, has appeared especially attentive. When it comes to coveted decisions in high profile cases, a junior justice typically must wait years for a big opinion at this institution that prizes seniority. But in 2023, he conspicuously assigned her the decision in a major dispute over Native American rights. Barrett wrote the opinion upholding a 1978 law that prioritized the placement of Native American children with Native families or tribes in custody proceedings. Some commentators viewed the decision endorsing Native rights, on a 7-2 vote with only Thomas and Alito dissenting, as a surprising progressive turn. Gorsuch, the court's most vigorous defender of Native American rights, signed all of Barrett's opinion even as he wrote separately to further detail detail the cruel history of tribal children removed from their families and to press for greater Indian sovereignty. In more recent years, Barrett has guided compromises as the crucial fifth vote. Yet in Friday's Trump dispute, her vote was one of six and her approach was one that Roberts himself might have adopted if he'd held onto the case. The majority restricted the authority of US district court judges to impose nationwide injunctions to prevent arguably unconstitutional government policies while litigation proceeds. It was a resounding victory for Trump's legal team, although the court left open the possibility that people challenging the administration could obtain broad remedies through class action lawsuits. In her written opinion and oral summary from the bench, Barrett took a page from Justice Antonin Scalia and his 1999 decision in Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo v. Alliance Bond Fund, involving a dispute over equitable remedies between a Mexican holding company and an investment fund. Barrett was a law clerk to Scalia during that 1998-99 session as he was drafting the opinion. Adopting her mentor's originalist method, Barrett in the new case looked to early American history for an analogue to the universal injunctions judges have used to block Trump's policies and those of presidents before him. 'Nothing like a universal injunction was available at the founding, or for that matter, for more than a century thereafter,' she wrote, repeatedly citing Scalia's opinion. 'Thus, under the Judiciary Act (of 1789), federal courts lack authority to issue them.' And in a footnote targeting liberal dissenters' argument, she invoked a choice Scalia line: 'It is precisely because the universal injunction is a new, potent remedy that it poses new, potent risks. Our observation in Grupo Mexicano rings true here: 'Even when sitting as a court in equity, we have no authority to craft a 'nuclear weapon' of the law.'' Scalia, with his incendiary rhetoric and unyielding conservatism, sometimes had trouble holding a majority. He was not a safe bet for a difficult opinion assignment. Barrett is proving otherwise. Although some conservatives wrote separately to expound on their individual positions, all signed her opinion in full.
CNN
02-07-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: The behind-the-scenes power John Roberts wields to ensure his influence with justices
Chief Justice John Roberts often laments that he has limited clout as he deals with his eight Supreme Court colleagues. 'You can't fire people if they don't follow you. You can't cut their pay,' he told a group of federal judges on Saturday, the day after the court released its final opinions of the term. 'You have to be able to communicate what you think is important, and sometimes that means doing it eight different ways.' But Roberts, in fact, has several powerful levers, perhaps the most valuable being the power to assign opinions that speak for the court. When the chief is in the majority – as he was more than anyone this term – he chooses which justice will write the opinion. That's important because the force of any Supreme Court decision exceeds its bottom-line vote. Its rationale sets a precedent for future cases. Even the rhetoric and tone can influence lower court judges. For the author of an opinion, the endeavor offers a chance to steer the law and can be a point of personal pride. Completing his 20th session on America's highest court, Roberts has routinely kept the most important cases for himself, including those involving presidential powers. Still, he has wielded his assignment power strategically over the years, to influence and reward colleagues. In some situations, his assignments have appeared intended to cut against type or disprove ideological generalizations of the court. And then there was last Friday, when Roberts produced a true – and tactically intriguing – surprise. As he opened the final courtroom proceeding of the 2024-25 term, he revealed from the elevated bench that Justice Amy Coney Barrett had the opinion for the court in the most awaited case. It was the case that would effectively release President Donald Trump from dozens of lower-court orders blocking his second-term policies across the country, including his effort to roll back the current birthright citizenship given all babies born in the United States regardless of their parents' legal status. The assignment was a plum one for the junior justice on the right wing – a justice who'd been lambasted by the MAGA world (and by Trump himself) for being insufficiently loyal, despite her overwhelmingly conservative record – reinforced by the decision she was about to read from the bench. The surprise was evident among some in the staid courtroom. Justice Department lawyers, seated at tables below the mahogany bench, quietly exchanged glances, as did journalists in the press section to the justices' right. Lawyers following the case had presumed Roberts would keep the opinion for himself, as he has done for all major controversies involving Trump or at least give it to a justice more senior than Barrett. Roberts' choice immediately blunted Trump's criticism. 'I just have great respect for her,' the president said of Barrett after the decision in Trump v. Casa was issued. 'I always have. And her decision was brilliantly written today – from all accounts.' For the strategic chief, the choice of Barrett also strengthened his alliance with a pivotal justice whom liberals, for their part, have been trying to entice toward the center. Barrett and Roberts did not respond to requests for comment. Like the eight associate justices, the chief holds one vote. But he dictates much of the court's agenda, as he oversees oral arguments and runs the closed-door conferences where the justices discuss and vote on cases. By tradition, the most senior justice on the majority side of a case assigns the opinion. (The chief justice enjoys seniority over all justices, irrespective of their longer tenure.) Roberts was in the majority on this conservative dominated bench more than any justice last session, and he determined who would be the author of 54 of the 56 signed opinions handed down after briefing and oral argument. This is the Roberts Court in both the colloquial and real sense; he is rarely relegated to dissent, although two exceptions are notable: the 2015 decision declaring a right to same-sex marriage and the 2022 decision striking down all federal abortion rights. All modern chiefs, to various degrees, have employed the assignment power to influence outcomes. Chief Justice Warren Burger, who served from 1969 to 1986, was known to switch his vote to ensure he would be in the majority and control the opinion. Burger, appointed by President Richard Nixon, favored colleagues who shared his right-wing ideology, often relying on then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist, for whom Roberts served as a clerk during the 1980-81 term. Rehnquist, elevated to chief justice by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, gained a reputation for being less manipulative and more even-handed. Fixated on speed and efficiency, Rehnquist also rewarded associate justices who wrote fast and avoided tangents that would cause a justice to drop off. (An author needs to hold at least five justices on the opinion for a majority.) Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who had known Rehnquist since their years together at Stanford Law School, understood Rehnquist and often finished her opinions first. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined the bench in 1993, she complained to O'Connor that Rehnquist's first assignment to her was a complicated pension dispute. 'Ruth, you just do it,' O'Connor admonished, 'and get your opinion in circulation before he makes the next set of assignments.' Roberts, at the recent judicial conference, implicitly acknowledged that the current justices let draft opinions pile up. They left six major decisions to the last day. 'People have their own ideas of a schedule,' he said of other justices. 'Things were a little crunched toward the end this year. We'll try to space it out a little better next year, I suppose.' Roberts, who succeeded Rehnquist in 2005 after being appointed by President George W. Bush, assigns a batch of opinions after each two-week sitting of oral arguments and the related conference votes. The public learns of the assignments only when final decisions are announced. The chief justice has usually kept the stand-out cases, especially those involving clashes with the executive branch, perhaps to bring the weight of his stature as chief. Until last Friday, he had penned the important cases centered on Trump, such as the 2018 decision upholding his first administration's travel ban on mainly Muslim countries; the 2019 decision impeding Trump's effort to add a citizenship question to the decennial census; and the pair of 2020 controversies over Trump's effort to keep his business dealings secret as he faced government subpoenas. Last session, Roberts wrote the decision granting Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution. Earlier this June, Roberts authored the decision in the controversy over state bans on certain medical care for transgender youths. His decision affirmed state restrictions on puberty blockers and hormone therapy but declined to adopt a rationale of fellow conservatives, including Barrett, that would further disadvantage bias claims brought by transgender individuals. Roberts has rewarded restraint (relatively speaking on this hard-right court) and crossover votes from ideological camps. In some situations, his assignments cut against type or dispel the notion that the dueling sides cannot come together. He assigned liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court's first African American woman and a jurist vigilant regarding anti-bias protections, the court's decision in a 'reverse discrimination' case. The court unanimously sided with a straight woman in Ohio who wanted to sue her employer after her gay boss refused to promote her. In a separate case issued on the same day, Roberts tapped liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor for a church-state clash that favored religious interests. Decided on a unanimous vote, the case reversed a Wisconsin court's ruling and opened the door for a Catholic Charities chapter to obtain an exemption from state unemployment taxes because of its religious status. The high court decision added to its series favoring religious conservatives. Roberts appears to try to distribute cases evenly among the nine. Although the politically charged disputes, in which liberals frequently find themselves in dissent, draw most of the public attention, there are plenty of low-profile, non-ideological cases to go around. Statistics on SCOTUSblog compiled by Jake Truscott and Adam Feldman show that of the total 56 opinions doled out, Barrett and fellow conservatives Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh each had seven; Roberts, Sotomayor, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch had six; and Jackson had five. On the left, senior Justice Sotomayor controls who writes the main dissent when liberals lose. She held onto the dissenting opinions in what many viewed as the three most significant cases and took the dramatic step of reading portions of all three from the bench. A former Notre Dame law professor, Barrett became Trump's third appointee during his first term. She was named in 2020, during the final weeks of his administration after Ginsburg's sudden death. Barrett's cautious but effective approach has given her an outsized role among the nine. Barrett sometimes casts the decisive vote or drafts the compromise rationale, as she did in an Idaho abortion controversy last year. Liberals have tried to entice her toward middle ground in other cases. During oral arguments, they often pick up on her questions as they make their own points. Roberts, too, has appeared especially attentive. When it comes to coveted decisions in high profile cases, a junior justice typically must wait years for a big opinion at this institution that prizes seniority. But in 2023, he conspicuously assigned her the decision in a major dispute over Native American rights. Barrett wrote the opinion upholding a 1978 law that prioritized the placement of Native American children with Native families or tribes in custody proceedings. Some commentators viewed the decision endorsing Native rights, on a 7-2 vote with only Thomas and Alito dissenting, as a surprising progressive turn. Gorsuch, the court's most vigorous defender of Native American rights, signed all of Barrett's opinion even as he wrote separately to further detail detail the cruel history of tribal children removed from their families and to press for greater Indian sovereignty. In more recent years, Barrett has guided compromises as the crucial fifth vote. Yet in Friday's Trump dispute, her vote was one of six and her approach was one that Roberts himself might have adopted if he'd held onto the case. The majority restricted the authority of US district court judges to impose nationwide injunctions to prevent arguably unconstitutional government policies while litigation proceeds. It was a resounding victory for Trump's legal team, although the court left open the possibility that people challenging the administration could obtain broad remedies through class action lawsuits. In her written opinion and oral summary from the bench, Barrett took a page from Justice Antonin Scalia and his 1999 decision in Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo v. Alliance Bond Fund, involving a dispute over equitable remedies between a Mexican holding company and an investment fund. Barrett was a law clerk to Scalia during that 1998-99 session as he was drafting the opinion. Adopting her mentor's originalist method, Barrett in the new case looked to early American history for an analogue to the universal injunctions judges have used to block Trump's policies and those of presidents before him. 'Nothing like a universal injunction was available at the founding, or for that matter, for more than a century thereafter,' she wrote, repeatedly citing Scalia's opinion. 'Thus, under the Judiciary Act (of 1789), federal courts lack authority to issue them.' And in a footnote targeting liberal dissenters' argument, she invoked a choice Scalia line: 'It is precisely because the universal injunction is a new, potent remedy that it poses new, potent risks. Our observation in Grupo Mexicano rings true here: 'Even when sitting as a court in equity, we have no authority to craft a 'nuclear weapon' of the law.'' Scalia, with his incendiary rhetoric and unyielding conservatism, sometimes had trouble holding a majority. He was not a safe bet for a difficult opinion assignment. Barrett is proving otherwise. Although some conservatives wrote separately to expound on their individual positions, all signed her opinion in full.
