John Roberts (Justice)

Today a unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that police may not search the contents of an arrested individual's cell phone without first obtaining a warrant. While all three broadcast networks reported on the Riley v. California decision in their June 25 evening newscasts, only CBS's Janet Crawford directly referred to the "Obama administration"…

Matea Gold and Robert Barnes utterly failed this morning as ostensibly objective journalists. In their front-page stories covering yesterday's Supreme Court ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC, the Washington Post staffers front-loaded their stories with melodramatic political language suitable for a left-wing "campaign finance reform" group's press release rather than objective news copy. "An elite…

USA Today's Richard Wolf and Fredreka Schouten wasted no time this morning distorting the Supreme Court's April 2 ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC, which essentially holds that a provision of federal law setting an aggregate limit on an individual's campaign contributions violates the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech. Wolf and Schouten, however, practically endorsed the lament of…

In what may be a new low for MSNBC.com, writer Adam Serwer today all but compared Chief Justice John Roberts to his most infamous predecessor, Chief Justice Roger Taney, the author of the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision. "Shameful link in Voting Rights Act decision," blared the teaser headline in the lightbox at msnbc.com. "Legal scholars argue the decision striking down part of the Voting…

"It’s been discovered that secret hidden camera video was taken during oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court," NewsBusted's Jodi Miller noted in the latest edition of the original NewsBusters comedy short. "[I]f you watch the video closely, you can see Chief Justice Roberts ignoring the Constitution on ObamaCare." Venezuela, Democrats, and the IRS among the other targets of the March 4…

It's a midterm election year and MSNBC needs to do its best to whip up fear and loathing in the Democratic base, preferably with some racial angle involved. What better convenient villain than Chief Justice John Roberts and the conservative wing of the Supreme Court. Enter Zachary Roth's February 14 msnbc.com article, "Voter ID cases could let John Roberts destroy Voting Rights Act," which…

On Thursday's All In show on MSNBC, host Chris Hayes charged that Senator David Vitter has found "another way to screw poor people" as he complained that the Louisiana Republican has proposed a photo ID requirement for food stamp recipients. Hayes brought up Vitter briefly after fretting that new voting rights legislation would not address voter ID requirements and would not ensare as many…

Pro-life sidewalk counseling outside of abortion clinics is "bullying" and should not not accorded First Amendment's "free speech" guarantees agreed the panelists on Thursday's edition of Now with Alex Wagner. The panel in question was addressing the Supreme Court's decision to hear oral arguments in McCullen v. Coakley, a case which challenges a Massachusetts law which bars anyone but…

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear arguments on a campaign-finance case that will "test the justices' willingness to buck public opinion," Wall Street Journal Supreme Court correspondent Jess Bravin noted in his page A4 article about the open of the high court's October 2013 term. Bravin devoted the first several paragraphs of his October 7 story, "Campaign Giving Tops High Court's Docket,"…

Writing for the liberal Atlantic magazine today, CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen jumped off the proverbial deep end by comparing today's Supreme Court ruling invalidating section 4 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 to two infamous Supreme Court decisions from the 19th century. "[T]he Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County is one of the worst in the history of the institution. As a…

If the Supreme Court strikes down section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, it would be a "one of the most jaw-dropping acts of, you know, judicial activism activism that we've seen in probably a generation," MSNBC's Chris Hayes insisted on the March 1 edition of Now with Alex Wagner. That line of argument is certainly debatable, but Hayes decided to go way off the deep end by then saying that the…

In her latest nytimes.com column, posted Wednesday night, "The Mystery of John Roberts," Linda Greenhouse, former Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, retraced previous conservatives losses at the Supreme Court from the pre-Internet days of the early '90s and the relatively muted response of conservative activists. That set the stage for Greenhouse to criticize the "torrent of right…

I have a headache. I imagine you do too, if you have been trying to interpret the legalese employed by those legal sages who have pronounced on Thursday's Supreme Court decision on Obamacare. I would rather read the lyrics of a thousand rap composers than the anfractuous language of one legal sage. Thanks, however, to Professor E. Donald Elliott of the Yale Law School, I had a translator at…