The Supreme Court's shadow docket is increasingly chaotic, featuring consequential rulings with insufficient explanation. Lower courts are instructed to prioritize these emergency decisions over established legal precedents, creating confusion. A district court judge previously faced this dilemma, choosing to uphold established precedent regarding the firing of FTC commissioners. Recent rulings indicate that the Supreme Court may be undermining independent agencies without formally overturning prior decisions, further complicating judges' ability to navigate the law. A new ruling criticized lower courts for adhering to precedent rather than interpreting shadow docket orders.
The Supreme Court's shadow docket has become a lawless mess. The justices are issuing extremely consequential rulings with either no explanation at all, or with barely a paragraph of reasoning.
Now the Court has made this chaos worse by essentially telling lower courts to treat these half-baked emergency rulings as more important than actual binding precedent.
If you're a district court judge, what do you do? Follow the actual binding precedent, or guess at what the Supreme Court's vibes-based constitutional law might mean?
Yesterday's ruling in a separate case makes this impossible situation even worse. The Supreme Court issued another barely-explained shadow docket ruling that essentially scolds lower courts for following actual precedent.
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