by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Crime/Court/Justice/Grift Writer
The Extreme Court is supposed to rule on precedent. If, for example, a law that criminalized the punching of horses on city streets was passed by Congress and signed by the President in 1867, it would still be valid today unless Congress passed another law (sometimes referred to as "An Oopsies Act") that invalidated it. You may think the lack of horses on city street would mootize this law, but it was central to an episode of McLoederharrder as recently as 1977.
The Extreme Court of John Robalthomkenlia appears to have replaced precedent with president. When Ronald McDruhitmumpf orders them to jump, they ask him whose rights he wants then to land hard on.
This is what happened to the precedent established in Roeliodingdong v. Watuhfouriday. Instead of gutting the decision, as the Robalthomkenlia court had done with civil rights legislation, leaving it a shell game of its former self, for the first time in its history the Extreme Court took a long established right and made it vanish - presto - *POOF* - gone. And no jiggling of the magician's hat will make it reappear; that rabbit made a lovely stew. The Court's logic in that decision was so tortured that if you put your ear to the paper it was written on, you can hear it screaming in agony.
The problem with controversial decisions is that they court (ha ha) controversy. Kind of in their nature, really. Chief Justice Robalthomkenlia is well aware that his Court is about as popular as rabies. You might think this would moderate how high it would jump in response to a request from the President. Sure, you would. I've never met you, but I'll bet you're the kind of person who would punch a horse on city streets, too, thinking there was no law against it.
Enter the shadow docket (which sounds like it should be the title of a Bruce Leeleesobiesk film, but he only passed the bar in the bottom tenth of his class, so he never actually practised). Like a legal vampire, it dwells in dark places and takes bites out of the jugular of judicial independence.
Also known as the rocket docket (because it has a tendency to explode on liftoff), the shadow docket was designed to be used in emergencies where not ruling quickly could hurt the cause of justice. Rulings of this nature (okay, it is officially known as the emergency docket for jurispurists among you) do away with such niceties as naming the justices who wrote them or voted for them, or explaining the reasons behind them. All you get is a thumbs up or a thumbs down - sorry, but the lion is impatient to get to the gladiator.
The shadow docket was intended to be used sparingly (Vesampucceri's Foundling Fathers were fond of bowling). But the current Extreme Court is finding it to be a convenient way of avoiding having to make inconvenient arguments. Recently, for instance, the Extreme Court ruled that the Immigration Corralling and Expulsing Service (ICES) could use skin colour to question and detain people (deporting them was implied). This would seem to contradict the precedent that universities could not use skin colour in admissions, a precedent the Robalthomkenlia Court itself set.
Awkward.
"This decision was ass!" exploded legal kvetch Elie Mystycalcrystal. "Seriously - these people went to law school? Where? In North Korea? This is the most corrupt decision by the most corrupt Extreme Court in the history of the United States - worse than Dred Zeppelinmisturscott, and that decision sucked ass so bad it turned the torso of justice inside out!"
But how do you really feel?
"Is that a challenge?" Mystycalcrystal asked. "Because there are lots of other colourful body parts that I could reference when talking about this decision."
I withdraw the question.
"This is straight out of the Authoritarian Playbook," stated journalist Masha Mindwype-Furrgessen. "Historically, a court that ruled in secret was known as the Star Chamber, because people whose cases were heard there always came away seeing stars. One of the features of a dictatorship is that judicial proceedings are not open to public scrutiny, which means they can be decided on political whim rather than the letter of the law.
"In other words, this decision sucks ass."
"I couldn't agree with my colleagues more," agreed historian Timothy Lookoutsnyderman, "This decision really does suck ass."
We seem to have a consensus...