The Supreme Court's increasing use of the so-called "shadow docket" to issue quickie rulings mostly in Donald Trump's favor was on the receiving end of a smack-down on MSNBC on Sunday morning.
With legal expert Melissa Murray explaining the maneuver is normally something that is used for case management, Slate legal analyst Dahlia Lithwick noted that the spare rulings, shorn of detailed legal explanations and citations, is currently giving Trump free rein to do as he pleases -- without justification or reasoning..
"Maybe a good way to think about it is through the lens of this legitimacy question, this court's legitimacy question that we've been talking about for years now, and the sort of plummeting public trust in the court," she began. "Well, what is the single most essential thing that a judicial body can do to instill in the public the sense that this is a lawyerly, sober fact-backed business."
EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade
"The opinion is the single most important thing, because that stands, right, as precedent going forward. Not just for credibility for the public, it's guidance for courts in similar cases. 'Oh right, this looks like that, we'll do that thing," she continued. "As Melissa just said, as you just said, that's gone on the shadow docket. There's no argument, there's very spartan briefing, the court below has been leapfrogged so that we don't have a developed record and then you get this kind of back-of-the-envelope reasoning from the justices two, three sentences."
"Sometimes you don't even know how they voted!' she exclaimed. "And for a court that's really grappling with keeping a hold on the public respect and regard to do this kind of sort of slot machine justice on the fly is the worst possible way to say we're a serious entity."
You can watch below or at the link.