[tomder55]

I can't figure Chief Justice John Roberts out . Every time I want to stick pins in an effigy of him he authors a decision that secures his place in the originalist limited government camp.

Today he authored what may be his masterpiece. People like me who have contended that the 4th branch ;the bureaucracy has way too much unconstitutional power have longed for the courts to restrain the other unelected branch .

Today Roberts did so.

22-859 SEC v. Jarkesy (06/27/2024) (supremecourt.gov)

Chief Justice John Roberts, who penned the majority opinion, wrote that the SEC’s reliance on in-house courts and judges violates the Constitution’s guarantee of a jury trial when the agency is seeking civil penalties for fraud. The court did not take up other issues raised in the case about whether Congress erred in allowing the SEC to choose where to bring cases and if the agency’s in-house judges are too insulated from removal.

“A defendant facing a fraud suit has the right to be tried by a jury of his peers before a neutral adjudicator,” Roberts wrote.

Supreme Court knocks down Wall Street regulator’s in-house courts - POLITICO

SAY IT AGAIN !!

A defendant facing a fraud suit has the right to be tried by a jury of his peers before a neutral adjudicator.

That should be so fundamentally self evident . But in truth the opposite was true. The administrative state could make the rules and enforce the rules at will.

Justice Sotomayor writing in dissent said that the court upended a history of precedence supporting the administrative state's power to be both legislative and judiciary . If precedence is unconstitutional it should be reversed no matter how many years it has been in effect.

Yes many agencies will now have to rely on the tried and true method of having cases decided by a jury instead of an administrative judge working on behalf of the agency making the charges.

This is an important step in the return to a constitutional government .