SCOTUS once again slaps around the liberal 9th Circuit, and Breyer, Sotomayor and Ginsberg get a kick in the *** too. The willingness of liberals to ignore the Constitution and plain meaning of statutes is out of control. Here are a few quotes from the majority regarding the liberals involving the recent Supreme Court case; JENNINGS ET AL. v. RODRIGUEZ ET AL., INDIVIDUALLY AND ON BEHALF OF ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED: SCOTUS quotes about the Ninth Circuit decision: -That interpretation is inconsistent with ordinary English usage and is incompatible with the rest of the statute. -To put it lightly, that makes little sense. -Once again, that interpretation falls far short of a "plausible statutory construction." -The constitutional-avoidance canon does not countenance such textual alchemy. -but this argument defies the statutory text -That argument, however, misreads both statutory provisions. -Nothing in §1226(a)'s text even remotely supports the imposition of either of those requirements. -For these reasons, the meaning of the relevant statutory provisions is clear--and clearly contrary to the decision of the Court of Appeals. SCOTUS majority quotes regarding the liberal SCOTUS minority: But the dissent is undeterred. It begins by ignoring the statutory language for as long as possible, devoting the first two-thirds of its opinion to a disquisition on the Constitution. Only after a 19-page prologue does the dissent acknowledge the relevant statutory provisions. The dissent frames the question of interpretation as follows: Can §§1225(b), 1226(c), and 1226(a) be read to require bond hearings every six months "without doing violence to the statutory language," post, at 20 (opinion of Breyer, J.)? According to the dissent, the answer is "yes," but the dissent evidently has a strong stomach when it comes to inflicting linguistic trauma. Thus, when Congress mandated that an "alien shall be detained," §1225(b)(1)(B)(ii), what Congress really meant, the dissent insists, is that the alien may be released from custody provided only that his freedom of movement is restricted in some way, such as by "the imposition of a curfew," post, at 21. And when Congress stressed that "[t]he Attorney General may release an alien . . . only if . . . release . . . from custody is necessary" to protect the safety of a witness, §1226(c)(2) (emphasis added), what Congress meant, the dissent tells us, is that the Attorney General must release an alien even when no witness is in need of protection--so long as the alien is neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community, see post, at 25-27. The contortions needed to reach these remarkable conclusions are a sight to behold. How does the dissent attempt to evade the clear meaning of "detain"? It resorts to the legal equivalent of a sleight-of-hand trick. First, the dissent cites a passage in Blackstone stating that arrestees could always seek release on bail. Post, at 8-9. Then, having established the obvious point that a person who is initially detained may later be released from detention, the dissent reasons that this means that a person may still be regarded as detained even after he is released from custody. Post, at 21. That, of course, is a nonsequitur. Just because a person who is initially detained may later be released, it does not follow that the person is still "detained" after his period of detention comes to an end. It beggars belief that Congress would have given the Attorney General the power to detain a class of aliens who, under the dissent's reading, are already "detained" because they are free on bond. But that is what the dissent would have us believe. Consider, finally, the example of §1226(c). As noted, that provision obligates the Attorney General to "take into custody" certain aliens whenever they are "released, without regard to whether the alien is released on parole, supervised release, or probation." On the dissent's view, however, even aliens "released on parole, supervised release, or probation" are "in custody"--and so there would be no need for the Attorney General to take them into custody again But the dissent draws that 6-month limitation out of thin air. However broad its interpretation of the words "detain" and "custody," nothing in any of the relevant provisions imposes a 6-month time limit on detention without the possibility of bail. So if the dissent's interpretation is right, then aliens detained under §§1225(b), 1226(c), and 1226(a) are entitled to bail hearings as soon as their detention begins rather than six months later. "Detained" does not mean "released on bond," and it certainly does not mean "released on bond but only after six months of mandatory physical confinement." The dissent's utterly implausible interpretation of the statutory language cannot support the decision of the court below.
Here's a link to the full opinions. The issue was whether certain classes of indefinitely detained immigrants are entitled to a bail hearing. Justice Alito's plurality opinion (there was no majority) put forward what I think is the correct interpretation of the statute. Justice Breyer's dissent contended that the statute as interpreted by Justice Alito would be unconstitutional. Thus, Justice Breyer stretched the bounds of credulity to accept the 9th Circuit's interpretation, which would pass constitutional muster. As Justice Alito pointed out so passionately, Justice Breyer went too far. The 5 Justices who disagreed with the dissent (Alito, Roberts, and Kennedy for the Court; Thomas and Gorsuch in a concurrence) dodged the real question in the case -- is the statute constitutional? -- and sent that question back to the 9th Circuit for a ruling. I think they were right to do this. My guess is that the 9th Circuit on remand holds that the statute is unconstitutional, and this case will be back before SCOTUS in about 12-18 months. I then suspect that the Supreme Court will uphold the 9th Circuit ruling. At a minimum, Justice Kennedy will join his liberal colleagues (Breyer, Sotomayor, and Ginsburg). With Justice Kagan not participating, the vote would be 4-4. I also think Roberts could join Kennedy, resulting in a 5-3 vote.
