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Holy shit. How is this not highly illegal? That's like if Congress started changing laws without telling anyone... And you can't really sue the guys...

konklone 12y ago
This is the NYT article that drew a lot of attention to the practice: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/us/final-word-on-us-law-isnt-supreme-court-keeps-editing.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/us/final-word-on-us-law-is...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Holy shit. How is this not highly illegal? Because Congress has never passed a law preventing it? > That's like if Congress started changing laws without telling anyone... Except they do tell people. Quietly, and inconsistently, but they do tell them.
- AaronFriel 12y ago
  I would be floored, completely bewildered, and stupefied beyond belief if any Congress other than the 113th thought they had the ability to legislate what the Supreme Court can write in its decisions. Having said that, I expect such stupidity to be debated in committee by the end of next week.
  - sp332 12y ago
    rdrdss23 asked "How is this not highly illegal?" and the simple answer dragonwriter gave is: because there's no law against it.
  - protomyth 12y ago
    "any Congress other than the 113th" You might want to read up on past Congresses since the 113th is actually pretty tame compared to quite a few of the others. Speaker O'Neil could get quite vicious and he wasn't even the most powerful Speaker.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > I would be floored, completely bewildered, and stupefied beyond belief if any Congress other than the 113th thought they had the ability to legislate what the Supreme Court can write in its decisions. There's a difference between legislating what the Supreme Court can write in their decisions and legislating the manner in which the Supreme Court must publicize its decisions and changes to them. And the issue, to be clear, here is the latter, not the former.
    - mikecb 12y ago
      Your argument might be stronger if it suggested a source of authority for Congress to pass such a law.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        > Your argument might be stronger if it suggested a source of authority for Congress to pass such a law. The most obvious The elastic clause of Article I, Section 8 (insofar as las specifying the manner of publication of Supreme Court decisions are "necessary and proper" for carrying into execution the judicial power specified in Art. III), and, additionally (for most decisions) the appellate jurisdiction clause of Article III, Section 2 (which limits the court in such cases to operate "under such regulations as Congress shall make".) Anyway, I never argued Congress could make such a law anyway, I argued that they hadn't (thus the current behavior wasn't illegal), and that there was a substantial difference between regulating what the Court can write in a decision (substance) -- which someone suggested would be ridiculous -- and regulating how the Court must publicize decisions (process). I didn't say that either restriction would necessary be within the power of Congress, just that they were substantially different things. For the reasons cited earlier in this post, I suspect that the kind of regulations that would be relevant to this discussion on process would be within Congress power, but that's somewhat beside the point. I mean, if Congress can't make a law regulating the process, that would be an even stronger form of the "Congress hasn't made a law" reason for it not being illegal.
        mikecb 12y ago
- walshemj 12y ago
  Just like the plans in the hitch hikers guide. " ...You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anyone or anything.' But the plans were on display...' o n display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.' `That's the display department.' `With a torch.' `Ah, well the lights had probably gone.' `So had the stairs.' `But look you found the notice didn't you?' `Yes,' said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard".'
vilhelm_s 12y ago
The opinions published immediately after the announcement of a decision are marked as draft and subject to change. They then undergo editing, until the official final version gets published in the U.S. Reports. (The NYT article describes this).
rayiner 12y ago
It's because the slip opinion (the one posted on the court's website) is not canonical. The canonical version is what's published in the U.S. Reports. The Supreme Court has a whole protocol for this: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinions.aspx http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinions.aspx ("Caution: These electronic opinions may contain computer-generated errors or other deviations from the official printed slip opinion pamphlets. Moreover, a slip opinion is replaced within a few months by a paginated version of the case in the preliminary print, and--one year after the issuance of that print--by the final version of the case in a U. S. Reports bound volume. In case of discrepancies between the print and electronic versions of a slip opinion, the print version controls. In case of discrepancies between the slip opinion and any later official version of the opinion, the later version controls.") The GigaOm article is garbage: "Supreme Court opinions are the law of the land, and so it’s a problem when the Justices change the words of the decisions without telling anyone." They're trying to generate page-views by making it sound like the Justices are going back and changing the official record, and are being thwarted by a coder who swoops in to save the day. In reality, what you have is a tool to see what changes between the "release candidate" and the "Gold Master." Still interesting, even without the manufactured drama.
- konklone 12y ago
  It's much more important than that. Yes, the protocol says it's only for errors/deviations. In practice, the changes can be more substantial. The vast amount of legal, scholarly and media attention to an opinion happens on release day. When words change after release day, the public deserves to be immediately clued in to that -- even if many/most of them end up being typographical.
  - walshemj 12y ago
    Quite its "the words on the paper" I once spent an hour discussing with colleagues on a business committee (plus getting expert opinions from two officials) as to the exact meaning of "the" in a motion - to rule a motion in or out. If the supreme court need to make changes it should be shown as a omnibus document with the changes indicated and I trust the justices will look at the revised motions and vote on all! the amended judgements. If they don't they should be impeached for malfeasance in public office and replaced.
Zelphyr 12y ago
Yet more proof that our laws are increasingly becoming meaningless. The people at the top don't care about them but they expect us to. But, by all means, vote for a D or an R this November because, yeah; they'll change things.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
saraid216 12y ago
> And you can't really sue the guys... You actually can. Well, you can't "sue" them, but you can impeach and remove them. It's simply never actually happened before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Chase#Impeachment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Chase#Impeachment

konklone 12y ago

This is the NYT article that drew a lot of attention to the practice: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/us/final-word-on-us-law-isnt-supreme-court-keeps-editing.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/us/final-word-on-us-law-is...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Holy shit. How is this not highly illegal? Because Congress has never passed a law preventing it? > That's like if Congress started changing laws without telling anyone... Except they do tell people. Quietly, and inconsistently, but they do tell them.

AaronFriel 12y ago
I would be floored, completely bewildered, and stupefied beyond belief if any Congress other than the 113th thought they had the ability to legislate what the Supreme Court can write in its decisions. Having said that, I expect such stupidity to be debated in committee by the end of next week.
- sp332 12y ago
  rdrdss23 asked "How is this not highly illegal?" and the simple answer dragonwriter gave is: because there's no law against it.
- protomyth 12y ago
  "any Congress other than the 113th" You might want to read up on past Congresses since the 113th is actually pretty tame compared to quite a few of the others. Speaker O'Neil could get quite vicious and he wasn't even the most powerful Speaker.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > I would be floored, completely bewildered, and stupefied beyond belief if any Congress other than the 113th thought they had the ability to legislate what the Supreme Court can write in its decisions. There's a difference between legislating what the Supreme Court can write in their decisions and legislating the manner in which the Supreme Court must publicize its decisions and changes to them. And the issue, to be clear, here is the latter, not the former.
  - mikecb 12y ago
    Your argument might be stronger if it suggested a source of authority for Congress to pass such a law.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > Your argument might be stronger if it suggested a source of authority for Congress to pass such a law. The most obvious The elastic clause of Article I, Section 8 (insofar as las specifying the manner of publication of Supreme Court decisions are "necessary and proper" for carrying into execution the judicial power specified in Art. III), and, additionally (for most decisions) the appellate jurisdiction clause of Article III, Section 2 (which limits the court in such cases to operate "under such regulations as Congress shall make".) Anyway, I never argued Congress could make such a law anyway, I argued that they hadn't (thus the current behavior wasn't illegal), and that there was a substantial difference between regulating what the Court can write in a decision (substance) -- which someone suggested would be ridiculous -- and regulating how the Court must publicize decisions (process). I didn't say that either restriction would necessary be within the power of Congress, just that they were substantially different things. For the reasons cited earlier in this post, I suspect that the kind of regulations that would be relevant to this discussion on process would be within Congress power, but that's somewhat beside the point. I mean, if Congress can't make a law regulating the process, that would be an even stronger form of the "Congress hasn't made a law" reason for it not being illegal.
      - mikecb 12y ago
walshemj 12y ago
Just like the plans in the hitch hikers guide. " ...You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anyone or anything.' But the plans were on display...' o n display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.' `That's the display department.' `With a torch.' `Ah, well the lights had probably gone.' `So had the stairs.' `But look you found the notice didn't you?' `Yes,' said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard".'

vilhelm_s 12y ago

The opinions published immediately after the announcement of a decision are marked as draft and subject to change. They then undergo editing, until the official final version gets published in the U.S. Reports. (The NYT article describes this).

rayiner 12y ago

It's because the slip opinion (the one posted on the court's website) is not canonical. The canonical version is what's published in the U.S. Reports. The Supreme Court has a whole protocol for this: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinions.aspx http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinions.aspx ("Caution: These electronic opinions may contain computer-generated errors or other deviations from the official printed slip opinion pamphlets. Moreover, a slip opinion is replaced within a few months by a paginated version of the case in the preliminary print, and--one year after the issuance of that print--by the final version of the case in a U. S. Reports bound volume. In case of discrepancies between the print and electronic versions of a slip opinion, the print version controls. In case of discrepancies between the slip opinion and any later official version of the opinion, the later version controls.") The GigaOm article is garbage: "Supreme Court opinions are the law of the land, and so it’s a problem when the Justices change the words of the decisions without telling anyone." They're trying to generate page-views by making it sound like the Justices are going back and changing the official record, and are being thwarted by a coder who swoops in to save the day. In reality, what you have is a tool to see what changes between the "release candidate" and the "Gold Master." Still interesting, even without the manufactured drama.

konklone 12y ago
It's much more important than that. Yes, the protocol says it's only for errors/deviations. In practice, the changes can be more substantial. The vast amount of legal, scholarly and media attention to an opinion happens on release day. When words change after release day, the public deserves to be immediately clued in to that -- even if many/most of them end up being typographical.
- walshemj 12y ago
  Quite its "the words on the paper" I once spent an hour discussing with colleagues on a business committee (plus getting expert opinions from two officials) as to the exact meaning of "the" in a motion - to rule a motion in or out. If the supreme court need to make changes it should be shown as a omnibus document with the changes indicated and I trust the justices will look at the revised motions and vote on all! the amended judgements. If they don't they should be impeached for malfeasance in public office and replaced.

Zelphyr 12y ago

Yet more proof that our laws are increasingly becoming meaningless. The people at the top don't care about them but they expect us to. But, by all means, vote for a D or an R this November because, yeah; they'll change things.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

saraid216 12y ago

> And you can't really sue the guys... You actually can. Well, you can't "sue" them, but you can impeach and remove them. It's simply never actually happened before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Chase#Impeachment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Chase#Impeachment