'I Don't Think We Should Do That': Kennedy Snipes at Sotomayor for Internet ResearchThe U.S. Supreme Court may yet divide over a high-profile, First Amendment challenge to California’s law requiring certain disclosure notices by licensed and unlicensed crisis pregnancy centers. But as
the arguments in NIFLA v. Becerra on Tuesday showed, that is not the only issue that seems to divide them.
A snappish comment directed at
Justice Sonia Sotomayor by
Justice Anthony Kennedy revealed differences over when the justices may look outside the record of the case before them.
Here’s how it unfolded …
Justice Sotomayor was questioning
Michael Farris of Alliance Defending Freedom—the lawyer representing the challengers to the law—about his argument that unlicensed centers do not provide medical services. She said she had looked at how a few of those centers advertise themselves. One in particular, Sotomayor said, showed a woman in an apparent nurse’s uniform, standing in front of an ultrasound machine in an exam room. The website, she said, also says clients will be evaluated by nurses and they follow HIPAA regulations, “which, if they’re not a medical provider, they don’t have to follow HIPAA,” Sotomayor pointedly noted.
Sotomayor engaged Farris in a lengthy colloquy over whether women who go to those centers should be told that the centers are not licensed medical facilities despite the website pictures.
Justice Kennedy, leaning forward, cut off Sotomayor’s next question by saying: “Well, in this case I didn't go beyond the record to look on the internet because I don't think we should do that, but I do have a hypothetical.”
Later in the argument when
California deputy solicitor general Joshua Klein was defending the state law,
Justice Samuel Alito Jr. asked Klein if he “would dispute” statistics in an amicus brief by a party to a state court case that 98.5 percent of the centers covered were pro life centers.
Klein answered: “Your, honor, yes. And I understand we're speaking outside of the record here,” and he then answered Alito’s question about the statistics.
The in-the-record, outside-the-record differences among the justices have popped up in other arguments. On Feb. 20 in
City of Hays, Kansas v. Vogt,
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. became upset when, in response to a question from
Justice Stephen Breyer, Vogt’s lawyer,
Kelsi Corkran of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, was about to explain why a statement was not in the record.
➔ Roberts said: “That’s an important point, isn’t it? Well, before we start having an extended exchange about … something that’s not in the record, I — well, I guess I would just like to point out that it’s not in the record. There’s a reason we confine things to what’s in the record, including, ‘how do we know what this is if it’s not in the record?’”
Still angry, Roberts added: “As far as I’m concerned, coming in and saying I want to know about this thing that’s not in the record is no different from somebody else coming off the street and saying: ‘Hey, wait a minute, I know what happened in this case.’”
➤➤ Read More:
Key Justices Frown on California Abortion Speech Law
Comments
Post a Comment