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[Paullee]

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Judge Posner Blasts Justice Roberts' 'Stupid' Opinions

By Andrew Strickler
Law360, New York (December 1, 2016, 4:42 PM EST) -- The ever-outspoken Judge Richard A. Posner of the Seventh Circuit has again laid into the U.S. Supreme Court, calling it a “mediocre institution” and labeling Chief Justice John Roberts a “terrible” court manager.

In a symposium video published Monday that included a wide-ranging discussion about high court decisions on gun rights, campaign finance and other issues, Judge Posner ridiculed various rulings and how justices "babble incessantly” during oral arguments.

The appellate judge took particular aim at Justice Roberts’ “stupid” opinions, such as a dissent citing the romantic practices of the people of ancient Carthage and the Aztecs, in the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges gay marriage case.

“He says a lot of things that are completely phony,” Judge Posner said in another exchange about Judge Roberts’ opinion in McCullen v. Coakley, in which the high court struck down a “buffer zone” for abortion clinic protesters.

The remarks had been recorded in May at a First Amendment “salon” event organized by legal scholar and author Ronald Collins.

The video conference, taped at Judge Posner’s own University of Chicago Law School, was video-linked to attendees in the D.C. and New York offices of media boutique Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz LLP. The video was posted Monday on YouTube.



Responding to questions from Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone, Judge Posner repeated some of his previous criticisms of the high court, including in a July article in which he said the court was “at a nadir.”

At the salon event, Judge Posner also had short words for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whom Judge Posner accused of including “historical rubbish” in the 2008 Second Amendment decision in District of Columbia v. Heller.

Referring to the First Amendment debate over flag-burning — Justice Scalia publicly voiced support for restrictive laws but was in the majority in a 1989 decision invalidating state bans — Judge Posner also called Judge Scalia “very silly.”

“[H]e styled himself an originalist, he pretended that he was interpreting the Constitution, the Bill of Rights ... but there is no reason to think that 18th-century people would have thought burning the flag was a form of free speech,” Judge Posner said.

Many of the symposium comments mirrored Judge Posner’s previous sharp-tongued criticisms of the high court.

In an article in Slate earlier this year, the prolific U.S. Court of Appeals judge had also said the high court was at “a nadir” and dissed the posthumous accolades for Judge Scalia as “absurd.”

It was unclear who posted the May video to YouTube. Two previous salon events, from March and September, had been posted on the same YouTube page within several days of their recording.

Messages left for Judge Posner and Collins were not returned Thursday.

--Additional reporting by Melissa Maleske. Editing by Edrienne Su.