Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization argued that the constitutional right to abortion must be eliminated so that state governments may enjoy free rein to criminalize abortion as they see fit. The problem with Alito’s opinion is that it stands at odds with the text and history of the 14th […]
After a leaked draft opinion revealed in May that the Supreme Court was likely to overturn Roe v. Wade and upend U.S. abortion laws, one big question that hung in the air was whether states with abortion bans would be able to stop residents from traveling out of state to get abortions. The answer to […]
At the heart of Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturns Roe v. Wade (1973) and eliminates the constitutional right to abortion, is Alito’s objection that “the Constitution makes no mention of abortion.” For Alito and the many legal conservatives who think like him, unenumerated constitutional rights are inherently […]
Getting the Supreme Court wrong. Supreme Court decisions can have a big impact, so it’s understandable that people react to them seriously and sometimes emotionally. But reactions to recent Court decisions have been a bit…extra. There are a lot of pundits and court watchers out there catastrophizing the results, often based on misunderstandings or misrepresentations […]
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021-2022 term is not yet over and it is already going down in the books as a terrible term for criminal justice reform. A pair of recent dissents by Justice Sonia Sotomayor spotlights the sorry state of affairs. First, in Shinn v. Ramirez, the Court held that a death row inmate […]