re: #413 kirkspencer

It’s an observation that should get more scrutiny by those covering the court and its decisions as they’re being handed down.

The gaffe in the EPA decision yesterday is something that he or his clerks should have caught. He penned that earlier decision, and he essentially reversed the facts, holding, and ruling from what they actually were. It also suggests that he was starting from a position of opposing the outcome, and then tried to stitch the earlier cases into the fact pattern, getting everything gummed up in the process.

The oral arguments yesterday also pointed out the bubble that the Court lives in - that there are people who might actually have more than one cell phone. Many people I know (who happen to be lawyers) have more than one phone - one for business and one for personal use. Some of that is driven by privacy concerns, some by tax considerations, and some by the need to keep work and private live separate as much as practical.

That Scalia and Roberts both thought that this was somehow odd or unusual is troubling, but in Scalia’s case, it’s another sign that he might want to follow Stevens into retirement, though I assume Scalia wouldn’t consider it as long as a Democrat is in the White House.