So now the Court is united!

Yesterday, it was divided, you may recall (see post below). But after some stories went to press, the Court churned out a handful of decisions and…well…now, they’re being judged differently.

What a remarkable situation is emerging on the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court issued five decisions yesterday, on topics including overtime pay for home-health aides, anti-tobacco litigation, the death penalty, employee pension plans, and the federal obligation to pay for the cleanup of toxic waste. And the remarkable thing is that, while there were some concurring opinions and quibbles over footnotes, all five cases were unanimously decided.

Hmm, the Roberts court is NOT a divided court after all….?!

So what to make of the fact that, in the environmental case the court decided yesterday, Justices Alito and Roberts joined in an opinion for the entire court, written by Justice Thomas, siding against the Bush administration in ruling that the federal Superfund is obligated to pay for even a voluntary toxic cleanup? Or that Justices Alito and Roberts joined the unanimous opinion written by Justice Breyer, siding against Philip Morris’s effort to get an anti-tobacco lawsuit moved from an Arkansas state court to a federal court?

Could it be that the Bush-nominated justices, and even Justice Thomas, aren’t just pawns of the Bush administration or of corporate America but independent legal minds who are making a good-faith effort to apply the law to the issues before them?

YES!

It’s about time we see a Court that decides cases based on the strength and purity of arguments brought before it, and how it applies to the rule of law.

And it’s about time we assume people are operating in good faith, until proven otherwise.