Justice Antonin Scalia declined to discuss whether Chief Justice John Roberts changed his mind while writing the majority opinion for the health care case this spring, saying he “never ever” discusses ‘internal court proceedings’ in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” Scalia then added a word of admonition about believing what is leaked from the court. “You shouldn’t believe what you read about it — about internal court proceedings,” Scalia said. He argued that when the press writes a story about the inner-workings of the court, both the reporter and the source are unreliable.
Because the reporter who reports that is either a) lying, which can be done with impunity because as you know we don’t respond — it’s the tradition of common law judges to lay back and take it, you don’t respond in the press, or b) that reporter had the information from someone who was breaking the oath of confidentiality, which means that’s an unreliable person. So either way, you should not put any stock in reports about what was going on in the secrecy of the court.
Shortly after the health care case came down at the end of June, CBS’s Jan Crawford reported that the chief justice has changed his mind while writing the majority opinion, ultimately siding with the liberal justices and upholding ‘Obamacare.’
