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The Supreme Court, long known for its tradition of confidential negotiations between justices about the outcome of its cases and reputation of staying above the daily political fray, has suffered another leak related to an important case.
An in-depth report from CNN, based on information from unnamed sources with knowledge of the high court’s internal dynamics, describes how a rotating coalition of justices first approved a controversial decision on an in-progress case about Idaho’s near-total abortion ban, then nearly changed course entirely.
It’s the latest piece of internal information to make it out of the Washington court after the high-profile 2022 leak of the court’s draft ruling in the case where it would eventually overturn the constitutional right to an abortion, a seminal scandal in the court’s history.
The Independent has contacted the Supreme Court for comment.
The first major decision in the Idaho case, Moyle v United States, came in January when the Supreme Court decided to allow the state to enforce its near-total abortion ban.
That ban contains an exception to prevent the death of the pregnant person, despite an ongoing challenge from the Biden administration playing out in federal appeals court, which argued federal emergency room protections should preempt the state ban in certain emergency situations.
At the time, the court merely described its conclusion on the matter, but the CNN report reveals the justices voted 6 - 3 to approve this course of action, splitting on predictable lines between the six Republican-appointed justices and the three from liberal administrations.
By April, however, when oral arguments were held at the Supreme Court in the case, the majority seemed to have evaporated, according to the court, as Justices Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Barrett reportedly considered ending the case without a resolution and deeming it “improvidently granted.”
That reportedly left the court with three different camps and no clear path to a decision: the three liberals on one side, the three ambivalent conservatives on the other, and Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch part of the third camp, who sided with Idaho.
The alleged three-way split granted the liberals on the court a rare bit of leverage, and the final decision appeared to represent that compromise, preserving Idaho’s overall abortion policy, while carving out a minor exception.
In a June ruling, which saw the three liberals siding with Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Barrett, the court decided to reinstate a lower-court ruling that ensured hospitals in Idaho provide abortions in emergency medical situations but declined to issue a firm decision in the dispute.
The CNN report is the latest sign of trouble at the normally leak-proof court.
In addition to the Roe decision going public ahead of time, the court has also been under heavy scrutiny for the lavish gifts some of its justices have received from political donors and activists over the years, prompting the court to adopt a formal code of conduct at the end of last year.
Joe Biden has called for sweeping overhauls to the nation’s top appellate court, including terms limits instead of its current lifetime appointments, a binding ethics code, and no immunity before the court for former presidents for crimes committed in office.
