Justice Jacksons activist opinion does more damage to Supreme Court civility

For most citizens, the release of Supreme Court opinions is about as exciting as watching paint dry, particularly in a case dealing with the limits of district courts in issuing universal injunctions.Yet Friday’s Trump v.CASA case included a virtual slugfest between Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.The decision was one of the biggest of the term.

The Court moved to free the Administration from an onslaught of orders from district judges seeking to block the President in areas ranging from the downsizing of government to immigration.However, it was the departure of the normally staid court analysis that attracted the most attention.The tenor of Jackson’s language shocked not just many court watchers, but her colleagues.It seemed ripped from the signs carried just a couple of weeks earlier in the “No Kings” protests.The Court often deals with issues that deeply divide the nation.

Yet it tends to calm the waters by engaging in measured, reasoned analysis — showing the nation that these are matters upon which people can have good-faith disagreements.But that culture of civility and mutual respect has been under attack in recent years.Not long ago, the Court was rocked by the leaking of the draft of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v.Wade.

The was followed by furious protests against conservative justices at their homes and an attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.There was also a change in the tenor of the exchanges in oral argument and opinions between the justices.Recently, during the argument over the use of national injunctions in May, Chief Justice John Roberts was clearly fed up with Justice Sotomayor interrupting government counsel with pointed questions and commentary, finally asking Sotomayor, “Will you please let us hear his answer?”This hyperbole seemed to border on hysteria in the Jackson dissent.The most junior justice effectively accused her colleagues of being toadies for tyranny.It proved too mu...