Professor Steven Mazie remarks on the beginning of the Barrett era:
Though her name appears nowhere in the 33 pages of opinions issued on Thanksgiving eve, Amy Coney Barrett looms large in her first consequential vote as a Supreme Court justice. Barrett played the decisive role in the court’s decision Wednesday to grant requests from Catholics and Orthodox Jews in New York City to block church and synagogue attendance limits in covid-19 hot spots.
During the pandemic’s first wave in the spring, the Supreme Court voted twice not to interfere when states such as California and Nevada restricted indoor gatherings, including church services. Those votes were 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining his four liberal colleagues.
But with the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September — and Barrett’s ascension to the bench — the tide has turned. Roberts is now unable to stop a majority from overruling local officials as they try to combat the coronavirus’s spread. Limiting attendance to 10 or 25 worshipers in the most dangerous zones, the majority said in its unsigned opinion, is “far more severe than has been shown to be required to prevent the spread of the virus at the applicants’ services.” [WaPo]
Which leaves me hoping some institute of higher learning is going to sign on to the task of evaluating the cost, in human lives and suffering, of this decision. Not only directly, but in secondary and tertiary infections.
I hope they’re small or non-existent.
But if the hospitals begin overflowing with infections traceable to unrestrained religious services, then more deaths unrelated to Covid-19 can then be also blamed on this decision.
And if this is properly publicized, can the survivors sue the religious institutions in question?
And can the conservative justices bearing the blame be expected to retire in shame?
