Week In a Nutshell, 12/3/21

December 3, 2021 | Updated Feb 22 2023

Week In a Nutshell, 12/3/21

Activists Hold Light Brigade Urging 'Abortion Is Essential' at the Supreme Court. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for UltraViolet)

By Jake Kaplan

Here are some of the legal news stories making headlines this week:

Reproductive rights issues are once again before the Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in a high-profile abortion case in which Mississippi is asking the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Mississippi law at issue in the case bans most abortions after 15 weeks of gestation. In a recent brief, Mississippi argued that “Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong. The conclusion that abortion is a constitutional right has no basis in text, structure, history, or tradition.”
The Court’s conservative bloc appears willing to, at a minimum, limit Roe’s reach by eliminating the viability benchmark—around 24 weeks of gestation—before which states may not impose abortion restrictions. Chief Justice Roberts questioned, “If you think that the issue is one of choice…viability, it seems to me, doesn’t have anything to do with choice. If it really is an issue about choice, why is 15 weeks not enough time?” Other conservative justices showed willingness to overturn Roe. Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that Roe does not account for the interests of both pregnant people and fetuses. “You can’t accommodate both interests. You have to pick. That’s the fundamental problem. And one interest has to prevail over the other at any given point in time. And that’s why this is so challenging,” he said during oral argument.
The Court’s liberal justices objected to Mississippi’s law and emphasized the importance of preserving precedent. Justice Sonia Sotomayor also pointed out the increasing politicization of the Court. “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception — that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts? I don’t see how it is possible,” she said.
Meanwhile, Texans are eagerly awaiting decisions from the Court in a pair of challenges to SB8, the Texas law that bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected at around six weeks of gestation. The Court heard oral arguments in the cases last month but has yet to issue a ruling. At the time, Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett seemed poised to join the Court’s liberal justices to temporarily freeze enforcement of the law.

In other news, disgraced comedian Bill Cosby is facing a new legal challenge.

In 2018, a Pennsylvania jury convicted Cosby on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for sexually assaulting a woman in 2004. Cosby served three years of his prison sentence, which could have lasted as long as ten years, until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction in June 2021. The court reasoned that Cosby was denied a fair trial because a former prosecutor’s alleged 2005 promise to not charge Cosby should have precluded the eventual charges against him. Therefore, Cosby was released.
Now, prosecutors are asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Pennsylvania ruling and to send Cosby back to jail. The prosecutors argue that the Pennsylvania ruling sets a dangerously broad precedent in granting immunity to potential defendants if a prosecutor publicly states that there is not sufficient evidence to charge the person at the time. The petition states, “This Court…should be the one to decide whether Cosby’s…dramatic shift in law about prosecutorial statements should continue through our court systems.”
A spokesperson for Cosby called the appeal “a pathetic last-ditch effort.” “The Montgomery County D.A. asks the United States Supreme Court to throw the Constitution out the window…to satisfy the #metoo mob,” the spokesperson continued.
It remains to be seen whether the Court will weigh in on the case. Four justices must agree to hear the case for it to proceed.