The Justices Are Getting Defensive [TEASER]

is the most significant misconception you think the American public holds about the court or its role in democracy?

Boy, that could be a long list.

Hey, everyone, this is Leon from Fiasco and Prologue Projects.

On this week's premium episode of 5-4, Peter talks to Slate's Mark Joseph Stern about an unusual run of speeches by Supreme Court justices.

Over the past month, Three conservative justices have spoken out out in defense of the court's legitimacy, arguing that the media exaggerates the extent of the court's partisanship and secrecy.

The justices did so while speaking in front of private audiences at a private religious university, or while being introduced to the audience by a Republican politician.

Afterwards, they refused to allow their remarks to be released to the public.

We got a hold of them anyway.

This is 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.

Welcome to 5-4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have left American law dilapidated and crumbling like America's highways.

I am Peter, and I am joined by Mark Joseph Stern, who covers courts and the law for Slate.

Mark, welcome to the show.

Hi, Peter.

My usual co-hosts, Michael and Rhiannon, are off on different jaunts around the nation.

Michael is moving across the country, which you can't blame him for.

Rhiannon is partying in Mexico City last I checked, which I can blame her for, and I do blame her for.

Are you sure they don't just hate me and wanted to avoid recording this episode with me?

No.

But these are my best guesses, Mark.

So, you know, it's a great time to have you on.

This podcast was launched on the premise that the Supreme Court is an ideological and political institution.

And since we launched it, a lot has happened to sort of reinforce our thesis.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and Amy Coney Barrett was ran through as her replacement right before an election.

In stark contrast to the Merrick Garland debacle from a few years ago, the court handed down some awful voting rights decisions, some awful First Amendment decisions, and most recently took the first step toward overturning Roe v.

Wade.

And as a result, a lot more people have started to see things our way, so to speak, and public approval of the court has plummeted.

And the justices seem to have noticed.

Specifically, Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, and Sam Alito gave speeches to different audiences, throw in a promotional book tour speech by Stephen Breyer, and nearly half the court spoke out about the perception that the court is a partisan body in the month of September.

In a move that is definitely normal and not super defensive.

It was a little surreal to watch these unfold one after the next as, you know, a usually quiet institution was suddenly engaged in a coordinated media blitz of sorts.

The simplest and most obvious inference you can make from all this is that they are concerned.

They see public opinion shifting against them and they want to play a little active defense.

The open question though and the one we want to at least attempt to answer is whether this is a signal that they are going to be susceptible to public pressure or whether they are not flinching, but rather just preemptively managing the inevitable public outrage to to come.

So Mark and I combed through all of these speeches looking for clues and also just sort of preparing ourselves to make fun of their dumbasses for all the stupid shit they said.

Nice.

So Mark, I'm going to give you first honors here and you can talk about the Clarence Thomas speech.

Okay.

This, I think, is in some ways the mildest of the speeches that was delivered because a large chunk of it was devoted to the kind of pablum that we're used to hearing from the justices at public events that seems almost designed not to make news, right?

So he was speaking at Notre Dame, as they all apparently prefer to do these days, and gave an address that was largely about his upbringing, about, you know, being a poor black child in the South, about his path to the law and his work on the Supreme Court.

And it wasn't really until later in the speech and during the QA segment that he got a little bit spicy and off the cuff.

And he said a couple of things of note that did end up making waves.

He criticized the Supreme Court.

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