Bart O’Kavanaugh’s magic expanding precedents

Today the Court ruled 6-3 — with a “sorry we had to eat the oysters” concurrence by Gorsuch and Thomas — that Alabama could seize and retain cars owned by two women who did not actually commit and crimes without a preliminary hearing. Justice Sotomayor’s dissent argued that he lower courts should have been given more flexibility to deal with a very serious problem:

The majority’s opinion held that adequate due process to redress these systematic abuses was clearly foreclosed by prior holdings. As his his longtime habit, Kavanuagh lied:

Informed by the dissent that this random and obscure precedent "has little to say" about this case, Kavanaugh fires back with … a question that Sandra Day O'Connor asked during oral arguments. Checkmate! https://t.co/Fbto1zr6Ub pic.twitter.com/PDXyP5BH22— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) May 9, 2024

Here is Justice Barrett complaining when Kavanaugh pulled a similar trick last term https://t.co/vh8seLfRTp pic.twitter.com/OOnLFAlzNl— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) May 9, 2024

[Guy who cast swing vote to overrule a 50-year-old precedent with sky-high reliance interests the Court had already explicitly re-affirmed multiple times] “The questions Sandra Day O’Connor asked at oral argument are a sacred bond to which the strongest version of stare decisis must always apply.” Keep on rockin’ in the free world.