The Supreme Court smacked down a Republican-appointed trial judge and appeals court on standing grounds, turning away a right-wing lawsuit. No, this isn’t the recent mifepristone ruling where that dynamic was at play, but a new decision, issued Wednesday, about Biden administration contacts with social media platforms regarding misinformation.
Notably, the mifepristone decision was unanimous, while Wednesday’s ruling in Murthy v. Missouri prompted dissent from Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s ruling for the six-justice majority said the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was wrong to uphold what Barrett called a “sweeping preliminary injunction” against the government.
“To establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a Government defendant and redressable by the injunction they seek,” Barrett wrote, concluding that “because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.”
She noted that the circuit court “relied on the District Court’s factual findings, many of which unfortunately appear to be clearly erroneous.” That district court judge is Trump appointee Terry Doughty in Louisiana.
Meanwhile, Alito’s dissent for the GOP-appointed trio was seemingly written from another planet. He complained that “for months, high-ranking Government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech. Because the Court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent.” Wednesday’s ruling continues one theme of this term in the high court needing to check the rogue circuit, which sometimes goes too far, even for this court. Still, the three-justice dissent shows that, with additional Republican appointees, the Supreme Court could become more like the 5th Circuit. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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