Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito participates in taking a new family photo with his fellow justices at the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made remarks in a recent interview that exposed a "really disturbing mindset," one former prosecutor told MS NOW, and also exposed the "ivory tower" he lives in, as opposed to reality.
On Monday, MS NOW's Alicia Menendez hosted a panel discussion about the latest developments surrounding the Supreme Court as its new term begins. This included Joyce Vance, the attorney and legal analyst who previously served as a U.S. Attorney in Alabama under former President Barack Obama, whom she pressed for a reaction to comments Alito made during a recent Fox News interview, decrying what he called a "concerted effort to intimidate the court."
"There has been a concerted effort to intimidate the court and justices on the court to try to influence us, to decide cases differently from the way in which we have been deciding them," Alito said. "And I am concerned about the future of the court. I think it's an important institution. It has not always done the right thing, but I think on the whole it has been fundamental in protecting our constitutional structure and the rights that all Americans enjoy."
Menendez asked Vance for her take on Alito's meaning, suggesting that "there are lots of ways to interpret that... whether that concerted effort is coming from the president of the United States or vigilantes who send pizza boxes to people's homes." Vance, for her part, said that it was clear Alito certainly was not referring to criticism from President Donald Trump.
"I think we all know how Justice Alito interprets those comments, and he's certainly not talking about the president of the United States," Vance said. "He's long had the view that the court, in many ways, is under siege. And I think that speaks more to the ivory tower that he lives in than the reality of American citizens who are deeply concerned with both the court's decisions and with its procedure. And so they are speaking up, exercising their First Amendment rights to talk about the court. I think it's really disturbing that a justice perceives that as being threatening."
She continued: "But, you know, to the point of the conversation that you were just having about Supreme Court reform, increasingly the issue is less one of whether there should be reform and more a discussion about what that reform is going to look like, and it will be essential that it be accomplished in a way that's not perceived as political, because Sam Alito and I agree on one thing, and that's the importance of the court as one of the central institutions in american democracy. And if we cannot find a way to come together as Americans and restore our confidence in the court, then we really are in a dangerous place, because we submit our most difficult disputes to the court, issues that we simply cannot resolve short of action by the nine, or however many justices we end up with, resolving those issues for us. And so this issue of court reform, yes, it's a political one, but it's more fundamentally an American one."
