Justice Jackson's Judicial Meltdown: When Supreme Court Opinions Read Like Angry Blog Posts
Justice Jackson's Judicial Meltdown: When Supreme Court Opinions Read Like Angry Blog Posts
Or: How to Turn Legal Reasoning Into Performance Art (And Not the Good Kind)
Ladies and gentlemen, we need to talk about the absolute trainwreck that is Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's judicial performance because this woman is speedrunning every possible way to damage the Supreme Court's credibility. Based on her recent opinions, either she fundamentally misunderstands how legal reasoning works, or she's decided that being a Supreme Court Justice means writing angry op-eds with footnotes.
The Pattern: When Feelings Trump Legal Analysis
Let's start with the obvious - Jackson has developed a disturbing habit of turning legal opinions into political manifestos. In her dissenting opinion, she argued that the court's ruling gives the impression it favors "moneyed interests" in the way it decides which cases to hear and how it rules in them.
Hold up. You're a Supreme Court Justice, not a political pundit. Your job is to interpret law, not to psychoanalyze your colleagues' motivations or worry about "optics." "This case gives fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this Court than ordinary citizens," she wrote.
That's not legal reasoning - that's concern trolling with a law degree.
The "Textualism Bad" Tantrum: Missing the Point Entirely
Here's where Jackson really shows her incompetence. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson unloaded on her Supreme Court colleagues Friday in a series of sharp dissents, castigating what she called a "pure textualism" approach to interpreting laws, which she said had become a pretext for securing their desired outcomes
Are you fucking kidding me? Textualism - reading laws as they're actually written rather than making shit up - is somehow a bad thing now? Jackson fired back, accusing her colleagues of reaching a "stingy outcome" and willfully ignoring the "clear design of the ADA to render a ruling that plainly counteracts what Congress meant to -- and did -- accomplish" with the law.
Lady, if Congress meant something different, they should have written something different. That's how laws work. You don't get to rewrite statutes because you don't like the outcome.