In a recent development, it appears that the United States Supreme Court accidentally overlooked the clearance of basic metadata in its ballot ruling regarding former President Donald Trump. The metadata in question reveals a potential disagreement within the Court that may have been deliberately softened in the final version of the ruling. This paints an insightful picture of how certain terming choices might impact our understanding of the Supreme Court’s deliberations.
The unanimous court decision, which can be reviewed here, held that only Congress — not individual states — can enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, essentially keeping a presidential candidate off a ballot. Despite the unanimous verdict, not all justices concurred with the majority opinion. Intriguingly, it appears that the term “dissenting” was omitted from the formal opinion of Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, supposedly to soothe the majority’s sentiments.
This revelation came to public attention via a tweet from Mark Joseph Stern, who noted that when the “JJ.” at the top of the ruling document was double clicked and copied, it read: “SOTOMAYOR, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part”. The full details of this intriguing revelation can be viewed here.
This fallout is a stark reminder of the intrinsic challenges in terms of transparency that come with legal translations. It also brings into question whether any trade-off was made to soften the language used in the opinion, a query that has yet to be addressed. It appears that this incident, while seemingly minor, has pertinent implications. It draws attention to how the intricacies of language could potentially transform our perception of these judicial processes and thus warrants careful thought from legal professionals.