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Justices Wrestled With Court’s Power in Landmark Abortion Case, Papers Show

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Justices Wrestled With Court’s Power in Landmark Abortion Case, Papers Show

WASHINGTON — In June 1992, lower than two weeks earlier than the Supreme Court docket reaffirmed the constitutional proper to abortion established in Roe v. Wade, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy despatched a colleague some “late-night musings.”

“Roe was, at least, a really shut case,” Justice Kennedy wrote within the three-page memorandum, which included reflections on the facility of precedent, the court docket’s legitimacy and the easiest way to deal with a reducing dissent.

The doc is a part of an infinite trove of the personal papers of Justice John Paul Stevens launched on Tuesday by the Library of Congress. They supply a panoramic inside take a look at the justices at work on hundreds of instances, together with Bush v. Gore and the 1992 abortion case, Deliberate Parenthood v. Casey.

The papers are studded with candid and sometimes caustic remarks, typically echoing present considerations in regards to the court docket’s energy and authority.

Within the Casey resolution, Justice Kennedy joined a controlling opinion with Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and David H. Souter that saved the core of the constitutional proper to abortion established in Roe in 1973.

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In June, the present Supreme Court docket overturned Roe and Casey after contemplating questions on precedent and the court docket’s legitimacy, coming to the other conclusion from Justice Kennedy.

There are different echoes of latest occasions within the papers of Justice Stevens, who served on the court docket for 35 years, retired in 2010 and died in 2019, at 99.

There was, as an illustration, an obvious leak, one which prompted Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to jot down a stern word to all the regulation clerks on June 10, 1992. The present problem of Newsweek, the chief justice wrote, “accommodates a purported account of what’s taking place contained in the court docket within the case of Deliberate Parenthood v. Casey.”

The article, attributing its info to “sources” and “clerks,” mentioned that “no less than three of the 9 justices are planning to draft opinions in Casey” and predicted, appropriately, that the choice could be launched on June 29.

Chief Justice Rehnquist admonished the clerks to observe a rule within the court docket’s code of conduct, which mentioned, “There needs to be as little communication as attainable between the clerk and representatives of the press.” He added, underlining the final three phrases: “Within the case of any matter pending earlier than the court docket, the least attainable communication is none in any respect.”

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Researchers can be finding out the Stevens papers for many years, and solely small glimpses had been attainable in a day’s scrutiny of a collection of them. However these glimpses made clear that the present turmoil on the court docket has historic analogues.

In 2000, as an illustration, when the court docket handed the presidency to George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore by a 5-to-4 vote, members of the bulk wrote scathing personal memos protesting what they known as unduly harsh language within the dissents.

Justice Stevens’s dissent ended this fashion: “Though we might by no means know with full certainty the id of the winner of this 12 months’s presidential election, the id of the loser is completely clear. It’s the nation’s confidence within the decide as an neutral guardian of the rule of regulation.”

In a memo to his colleagues on Dec. 12, 2000, the day the choice was issued, Justice Kennedy, who had voted with the bulk, appeared wounded.

“The tone of the dissents is disturbing each on an institutional and private degree,” he wrote. “I’ve agonized over this and made my finest judgment.”

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He added, “The dissents, allow me to say, in impact attempt to coerce the bulk by trashing the court docket themselves, thereby making their dire, and I feel unjustified, predictions a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Justice Antonin Scalia, who had additionally voted with the bulk, mentioned he was “the final particular person to complain that dissents shouldn’t be thorough and onerous hitting.”

However he mentioned he couldn’t “assist however observe that these of my colleagues who had been protesting so vigorously that the court docket’s judgment as we speak will do irreparable hurt have spared no pains — in a veritable blizzard of separate dissents — to help that consequence.”

At an earlier stage of the case, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who dissented in Bush v. Gore, urged his colleagues to keep away from the dispute, recalling the position that Supreme Court docket justices had performed on a fee created to resolve the contested presidential election of 1876.

“Relatively than the court docket lending the method legitimacy, the method broken the legitimacy of the court docket,” Justice Breyer wrote. “I doubt very a lot that our intervention would guarantee anybody that the method had labored extra pretty. Relatively, I worry that historical past may repeat itself, had been we to intervene now.”

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In statements after the Supreme Court docket’s latest abortion resolution, Dobbs v. Jackson Girls’s Well being Group, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has mentioned that assaults on the court docket’s legitimacy, versus its reasoning, needs to be out of bounds.

Within the 1992 memo containing his “late-night musings,” which was addressed to Justice Souter and copied to Justices O’Connor and Stevens, Justice Kennedy additionally mirrored on the court docket’s legitimacy within the context of abortion.

He appeared troubled by facets of Chief Justice Rehnquist’s dissent, which mentioned public opinion shouldn’t have an effect on the court docket’s work.

“You may fend off the chief,” Justice Kennedy instructed Justice Souter, “by stating that we’re not involved with preserving our legitimacy for our personal sake however for the sake of the Structure. Thus, after we communicate of the principled character of our choices, we imply that they’re knowledgeable by precedent, logic and the traditions of our individuals, all as regards to our constitutional heritage.”

“We have to be clear,” he went on, “that we’re not guided by expediency, up to date attitudes or our personal morality.”

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The newly launched recordsdata cowl the years as much as 2005, when Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the Supreme Court docket. They’re stuffed with notes in Justice Stevens’s not all the time legible scrawl, marked-up briefs, draft opinions, vote tallies, memos among the many justices, suggestions from clerks and all method of different paperwork.

Earlier than the brand new launch, the newest set of Supreme Court docket papers was from the recordsdata of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who served by 1994 and died in 1999.

The one present member of the court docket featured within the new recordsdata is Justice Clarence Thomas. The remaining elements of Justice Stevens’s papers are scheduled to be launched in 2030.

Kitty Bennett contributed analysis.

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Trump predicts 'jacked up' Biden at upcoming debates, blasts Bidenomics in battleground speech

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Trump predicts 'jacked up' Biden at upcoming debates, blasts Bidenomics in battleground speech

It’s been more than 50 years since a Republican won Minnesota in a presidential election, but former President Trump says he’s got “a really good shot” of breaking the losing streak this November in his 2024 rematch with President Biden.

The former president is in the historically reliable blue state Friday evening to headline the Minnesota GOP’s annual Lincoln Reagan fundraising dinner. He began his speech with the usual jabs at Biden’s cognitive ability, but also referenced the recently agreed to debates between the two.

“He’s going to be so jacked up for those, you watch,” Trump joked, later saying he was going to “demand a drug test” for Biden before the debate.

BIDEN CAMPAIGN HIGH ON DOJ’S MARIJUANA SHIFT, ‘SMOKES’ TRUMP FOR INACTION DURING HIS TERM

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump attends the annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner hosted by the Minnesota Republican party on May 17, 2024 in St. Paul, Minnesota.  (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

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He went on to promise a rollback of Biden’s environmental mandates relating to automakers, railed against the sour economic statistics under Biden, and vowed to fix the ongoing border crisis.

Trump also blasted Biden’s habit of repeating false stories concerning his life experiences. “He’s so full of s–t,” Trump said as the crowd laughed.

Trump lost Minnesota by just 1½ points in his 2016 presidential election victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Four years ago, he lost the state to President Biden by more than seven points in his unsuccessful re-election campaign.

Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump promised a victory in Minnesota, saying that if he lost, “I’m never coming back.”

FIRST ON FOX: TOP JEWISH GOP GROUP STEPS UP FUNDRAISING FOR TRUMP AMID ANTI-ISRAEL COLLEGE CAMPUS PROTESTS 

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Trump Minnesota

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at the annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner hosted by the Minnesota Republican party on May 17, 2024 in St. Paul, Minnesota.  (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Fast-forward four years and Trump is back and once again predicting a victory.

“We think we have a really good shot at Minnesota,” Trump emphasized in an interview Wednesday with KSTP, a local TV station in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. “We have great friendships up there.”

Trump added that he’s “worked hard on Minnesota” and that “Tom Emmer is very much involved,” pointing to the House majority whip.

Emmer, who is joining Trump at the state GOP gala, is chairing the Trump campaign in Minnesota even though the former president and his allies helped sink Emmer’s bid last autumn to become House speaker.

As the Trump and Biden campaigns prepare for battle in seven crucial swing states that decided the 2020 election (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which were narrowly won by Biden, and North Carolina, which Trump carried by a razor-thin margin) and will likely once again in the 2024 rematch, both campaigns see opportunities to expand the map.

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WARNING SIGNS FOR TRUMP, BIDEN, AS THEY CAREEN TOWARD DEBATES 

Two weekends ago at a closed-door Republican National Committee retreat for top-dollar donors  at a resort in Palm Beach, Florida, senior Trump campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita and veteran pollster Tony Fabrizio spotlighted internal surveys that suggested both “Minnesota and Virginia are clearly in play.”

“In both states, Trump finds himself in positions to flip key electoral votes in his favor,” the survey, which was shared with Fox News, emphasizes. 

Trump Minnesota

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump attends the annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner hosted by the Minnesota Republican party on May 17, 2024 in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

And both states have sizable populations of rural white voters without college degrees who disproportionately support the former president.

Biden’s campaign disagrees that either Minnesota or Virginia are up for grabs.

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While noting they are “not taking any state or any vote for granted,” Biden campaign battleground states director Dan Kanninen told reporters last week “we don’t see polls that are six or seven months out from a general election, head-to-head numbers certainly, as any more predictive than a weather report is six or seven months out.”

Kanninen highlighted that the campaign has teams on the ground in both states engaging voters.

“We feel strongly the Biden-Harris coalition in both Minnesota and Virginia, which has been strong in the midterms and off-year elections, will continue to be strong for us in the fall of 2024,” he added.

And Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt, pointing to the president’s current fundraising dominance and ground-game advantage in the key battlegrounds, argued “Trump’s team has so little campaign or infrastructure to speak of they’re resorting to leaking memos that say ‘the polls we paid for show us winning.’” 

But Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who launched a long-shot and unsuccessful primary challenge against the president, insists “Minnesota’s in play.”

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Phillips, in an interview this week on Fox News’ “Special Edition,” argued Minnesota’s “like a lot of states that I think a lot of my fellow Democrats don’t want to confess is the reality. … I’m telling my Democratic colleagues who are supporting President Biden, myself included, that there’s a lot of work to do.”

While Trump’s campaign looks for opportunities to expand the map in Minnesota and Virginia, Biden’s campaign appears to be eyeing swing state North Carolina and Florida. 

Trump carried the Sunshine State by less than four points in 2020, but two years ago, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and GOP Sen. Marco Rubio each won re-election by nearly 20 points.

LaCivita argued the Biden campaign was playing “a faux game” in both states but insisted Trump has a “real opportunity in expanding the map in Virginia and Minnesota.”

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Trump’s stop in Minnesota comes a week after he held a large rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, a red bastion in an overwhelming blue state where no Republican has carried the state in a presidential election in over three decades. Trump lost the state to Biden by 16 points four years ago.

“We’re going to win New Jersey,” Trump vowed at the rally.

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

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Federal judge orders ICE to end 'knock and talk' arrests of immigrants in Southern California

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Federal judge orders ICE to end 'knock and talk' arrests of immigrants in Southern California

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that a tactic used by federal immigration agents in Southern California to arrest people in their homes without a judicial warrant is unconstitutional and must end.

The judgment — issued Wednesday against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency — involves so-called knock and talk practices.

ICE didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Advocates argued that the immigration agency rarely obtains judicial warrants and instead counts on immigrants answering their doors voluntarily. Advocates alleged agents routinely misrepresent themselves as police to gain entry so they can carry out an arrest.

Immigrant advocacy groups praised the ruling.

“It is a basic human right for immigrants to feel safe in their own homes and live without fear,” Lizbeth Abeln, interim director at the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, wrote in a news release Thursday. “This won’t undo the years of harm done by ICE, but it is a good first step towards justice.”

The order applies only to ICE’s Los Angeles field office, which includes the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. An expert witness said that available data showed ICE’s knock and talk methods accounted for at least 8% of arrests in 2022.

Four examples listed in the order — occurring between 2017 and 2020 — illustrate instances in which immigration agents entered constitutionally protected areas around a person’s home, such as their porch, patio or backyard, to make contact for an arrest.

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Advocates said the practice has continued since then in Los Angeles and across the country.

U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II rejected ICE’s argument that its agents could enter the private areas surrounding a home to knock on the door because mail carriers and delivery people routinely do so.

Immigration agents walk up to a resident’s home without consent and, when the person opens the door, the agents “generally state that they are ‘conducting an investigation,’” according to the order. ICE policies and training encourage agents to use knock and talks, calling the practice one of the four primary methods of apprehension.

“Despite often stating a different purpose for their visit, the true ‘intent’ and ‘actual purpose’ behind a ‘knock and talk’ is to make an immigration arrest,” the judge wrote.

The agents would be permitted to enter those areas if their goal was merely to ask questions, Wright wrote. But he said the Constitution prohibits them from doing so “without a judicial warrant with the intent to arrest the occupant.”

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“The more accurate title,” Wright wrote, “would be ‘knock and arrests.’”

The ruling stems from a 2020 class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of two local advocacy organizations, the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, as well as one individual, Osny Sorto-Vasquez Kidd.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the UC Irvine School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, and the law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson represented the plaintiffs.

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Video: Insults Disrupt House Oversight Committee Session

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Video: Insults Disrupt House Oversight Committee Session

“Do you know what we’re here for? You know we’re here about AG.” “I don’t think you know what you’re here for.” “Well, you’re the one talking about —” “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up —” “Ain’t nothing —” “Hold on, hold on.” [gavel pounding] “Order.” “Mr. Chairman.” “That’s beneath even you —” “Order, order. Regain order of your committee.” “I would like to move to take down Ms. Greene’s words. That is absolutely unacceptable. How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person.” “Are your feelings hurt?” “Move her words, down.” “Aww.” “Oh, oh girl, baby girl.” “Oh, really?” “Don’t even play.” “Baby girl. I don’t think —” “We are going to move and we’re going to take your words down.” “I second that motion.” “You agree to strike your words?” “Yeah.” “O.K. — Ms. Greene agrees to strike her words.” “I believe she should apologize. No, no, no.” “Hold on. Then, after Mr. Perry’s going to be recognized, then —” “I’m not apologizing.” “Well, then you’re not striking your words.” “You reserve the right to object.” “I am not apologizing.” “Just to better understand your ruling: If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleached blonde, bad-built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?” “A what now?” “Chariman, I make, I make a motion to strike those words.” “I don’t think that’s —” “I’m trying to find clarification on what —” “Chairman, motion to strike those words.” We’re not, we’re not going to do this. Look, you guys earlier, literally just —” “You just voted to do this.” “Y’all did it first.” “You just voted to do it.” “Order, order.” “I’m trying to get clarification.” “Look — calm down. Calm down.” “No, no, no, no because this is what you all do. So I’m trying to get —” “Ms. Crockett, you’re not recognized.”

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