Legal analysts mock 'thin-skinned' conservative justice

If the final week of the U.S. Supreme Court proved anything, it's just how thin-skinned one conservative justice is.

That's according to legal analyst Dina Sayegh Doll and podcast host Michael Popok, who spoke on the "Legal AF" podcast network's "Unprecedented" segment about the last week of cases coming from the Supreme Court.

There was what the experts call a "remarkable breach of Supreme Court decorum" this week between Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Sonia Sotomayor as the two read decisions from the bench.

Justice Sotomayor wrote "a powerful dissent," which was joined by Justices Katanji Brown Jackson and Elana Kagan and she planned to read it. Popok doesn't think she told Alito she intended to read it, but one analyst thinks she flagged that she would read her dissent, though Alito may not have known what was in it.

"Alito was done reading his summary of his decision," said Popok. "And next up was Sotomayor and she read big portions of her descent and really, I mean, accused the court of being heartless, comparing it to that famous ship that was turned away by numerous countries ... filled with Jews that were trying to avoid being killed in the Holocaust. [The ship] got returned to Eastern Europe and many of them died in the Holocaust."

With dramatic emphasis, Popok clutched imaginary pearls around his neck, "Alito got all, according to court observers who were in the room because we don't have the audio, 'Well! If I had known that she was going to read so much of her dissent, I would have added more.'"

"It's just like a total d—— bag. There's no other way," he said as Doll chimed in to agree.

"One-hundred percent," she said.

"You won! You won. You took away human dignity and now you're going after Sotomayorbecause she's chastising you," Popok added of Alito. "You're so thin-skinned."

The Supreme Court later issued a statement saying it was a "misunderstanding."

Popok laughed, saying he thinks they're trying to "cover up" because "they've got an institutional crisis on their hands."

Doll related it to those Americans who may not be sitting on the highest bench in the land, asking, "I mean, how many people out there have a coworker like Alito? Okay, let's just put that out there, right? Who just thinks that they're not good enough, like that somehow they can just gaslight them or minimize them."

She said that she assumed it was an indication that Allito would announce his retirement over the summer, "because I think he sees himself as this necessary person probably to combat Sotomayor right now. I mean — it just — the ego in him!"

NPR accidentally made a report public that Alito was retiring, but retracted it after less than an hour.

Doll thinks that Alito believes "this is his moment" and that he's "waited years to be able to get enough other justices to basically dismantle all of our rights. But I don't think he's — based on how he interacted, he seems to me somebody who is so ego-driven that he couldn't have her, like you said, who already lost have a moment to say her dissent. Somebody like that thinks that they need to be in charge, that nobody else can carry the mantle."

Both think that Alito and far-right conservative Clarence Thomas are leaving because they all witnessed what happened with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the flip that the court took because she didn't step out while there was a Democratic president. Doll doesn't think it'll happen this summer, however, because "they're having way too good of a time taking away our rights."

Alito, Doll continued, also likely thinks that "he's there to help put Sotomayor in her place. Roberts will not do it, right? Which is probably true. Roberts probably would not have talked down to Sotomayor in that way. He's very polite in the way he takes away our rights."