Justice Sonia Sotomayor (Photo by ERIN SCHAFF/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
There is going to be a lot of disappointment in the law, a huge amount…. As you study cases and look at outcomes you disagree with, it can get frustrating. Look at me, look at my dissents.
You know, I can’t change Texas’s law, but you can and everyone else who may or may not like it can go out there and be lobbying forces in changing laws that you don’t like.
I am pointing out to that [case] when I shouldn’t because they tell me I shouldn’t. But my point is that there are going to be a lot of things you don’t like [that the public can change].
— Justice Sonia Sotomayor, offering commentary about one of the more controversial cases currently before the Supreme Court, during the American Bar Association’s inaugural Equity Summit. The justices of the high court were sharply divided in their shadow docket order on SB8, a new Texas law that bars most abortions after six weeks. In Sotomayor’s dissent, she referred to the order as “stunning,” finishing off her conclusion by noting that “[t]he Court should not be so content to ignore its constitutional obligations to protect not only the rights of women, but also the sanctity of its precedents and of the rule of law.”
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.