re: #455 kirkspencer

Actually I’m going to make a minor defense of Thomas here. (I hate my personal ethics sometimes.)

I am willing to wager that most concurring justices assume the facts declaimed by the authoring justice are valid, and so concentrate on the assumptions and conclusions. Further, I strongly suspect that none of the justices have their own clerks do homework on the other justices’ works.

Concurrence is “I’ve read this and rather than writing my own that says pretty much the same thing, I just say ‘ditto’.”

I’ll make a guess, though. I’m going to guess that after this most if not all the justices have their clerks double-check at least Scalia’s and possibly everyone’s details. Yay, more work for the peons.

Well, at the least you’d think Scalia’s clerks would check Scalia’s opinion to see if it contradicts Scalia’s opinion in his 2001 decision.

And I do believe one of the jobs of the court clerks is to check what their boss signs off on, just because of things like this.