ALITO STILL TRAPPED IN MORAL MAZE
October 26, 2022 -Durt Fibo

Yesterday, US Supreme Court ayatollah Sam Alito spoke at Washington’s Heritage Foundation and hearkened back to the leak of his Dobbs v. Jackson opinion that a month later became the final ruling overturning the precedent of Roe v. Wade, calling the mishap “a grave betrayal of trust by somebody,” (Some think it was done to force wavering Justices from backing out) and added that “The leak also made those of us who were thought to be in the majority in support of overruling Roe and Casey targets for assassination because it gave people a rational reason to think they could prevent that from happening by killing one of us.”

Several examples of Alito’s moral and professional incompetence were contained in that gripe. Firstly, Alito, is a member of the Federalist Society –the ideological twin to his host– as well as fellow ayatollahs Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, the latter 3 having been selected by a Heritage Foundation-vetted list practically shoved down Donald Trump’s open mouth. So he was making his assertions to what is basically the Court’s right-wing incubator, or alma mater, thus essentially his statement was non fact-based, but sentiment coating a ‘mission accomplished’ salute to the organization which directed him to conceptualize what became the Dobbs ruling.

Secondly, while seeming to object to the notion of unwanted death, Alito, along with the same right-wing majority noted above, voted just this past May to allow executions of people who had access to exculpatory evidence which their defense attorneys hadn’t introduced in their state trials.

Although the Ninth Circuit court had ruled otherwise, the state that wanted to kill men (Arizona, in Shinn v. Martinez) appealed up to the Supreme Court, which ruled –with the same majority as in the preceding two paragraphs– in favor of the state, This May decision therefore prohibited the consideration of any evidence (new, overlooked, not presented due to incompetence or corruption of the defense attorney, etc.) beyond what was already in the state court record of a given case.

In legalese: In Shinn v. Martinez, No 20-1009 (May 23, 2022) a divided Supreme Court held, under §2254(e)(2), that a federal habeas court may not conduct an evidentiary hearing or otherwise consider evidence beyond the state-court record based on the ineffective assistance of state postconviction counsel. He-Hulk Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanagh, and Barrett concurred.

In her written dissent, Sonia Sotomayor (joined by Breyer and Kagan) clearly laid out that this was granting a blanket license for legalized lynching, which itself eliminates Alito’s qualifier about “because it gave people a rational reason” in his Heritage complaint. Sotomayer had written: “Martinez and Trevino afford habeas petitioners like Jones and Ramirez the opportunity to bring certain trial in effectiveness claims for the first time in federal court. The question before the Court is whether Jones and Ramirez can make good on that opportunity by developing evidence in support of these claims, or whether AEDPA nevertheless requires them to rely on the state-court records, constructed by ineffective trial and postconviction counsel, because they “failed to develop the factual basis of [the ineffective assistance] claim[s] in State court proceedings.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(e)(2). Under this Court’s precedents, the answer is clear. Martinez and Trevino establish that petitioners are not at fault for any failure to raise their claims in state court in these circumstances. Other precedents hold that AEDPA’s §2254(e)(2)’s “failed to develop” language, too, incorporates a threshold requirement that the petitioner be at fault for not developing evidence. A petitioner cannot logically be faultless for not bringing a claim because of postconviction counsel’s ineffectiveness, yet at fault for not developing its evidentiary basis for exactly the same reason.”

Sotomayor’ dissent, quite naturally, exposed the fracturing of logic that has become the basis for impeachment grounds for people like Thomas and Alito, based on mental incompetence. From there, it follows that moral incapacity would fit into such charges. Finally, the incoherence that is the aquifer of Alito’s latest spurt I could most clearly exhibit by asking in answer to his yesterday’s statement: What happened to the investigation Roberts ordered in May into who leaked the Dobbs draft opinion, and why, after having examined phones, and interrogating all Supreme Court staff and clerks, but NONE of the Justices (or their families), has the urgent investigation disappeared?