Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who has diabetes and is at a higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19, has been participating in Supreme Court oral arguments remotely from her private chambers after Justice Neil Gorsuch refused to wear a mask, NPR’s Nina Totenberg reported on Tuesday.
Sotomayor hasn’t taken the bench this year amid the nationwide surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant. The remaining justices have appeared in the courtroom for arguments, with each of them wearing masks except for Gorsuch.
The nine justices returned to in-person arguments last fall for the first time since the onset of the pandemic. At the time, none of the justices wore masks during oral arguments besides Sotomayor, NPR reported. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says either type of diabetes could make a person more susceptible to severe illness from COVID-19.
As infections began to spike recently, Chief Justice John Roberts “in some form” asked the entire court to wear masks on Sotomayor’s behalf, NPR reported. All of them did, with the exception of Gorsuch.
Based on the court’s tradition, Sotomayor, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, sits on the bench next to Gorsuch, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017.
Sotomayor doesn’t feel safe around unmasked people and has been participating remotely, NPR reported. All nine justices are fully vaccinated and have received booster shots against COVID-19.
Gorsuch’s “continued refusal since then has also meant that Sotomayor has not attended the justices’ weekly conference in person, joining instead by telephone,” NPR reported.
A Supreme Court spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Gorsuch’s behalf.
Totenberg, a longtime Supreme Court reporter, also described an institution that’s overflowing with animosity.
The court’s three liberals, including Sotomayor, are increasingly upset with their conservative colleagues, especially over the possibility that Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, could soon be overturned.
The justices recently split along ideological lines in a 6-3 decision that blocked the Biden administration’s mandate that would have required private companies with over 100 employees to get their workers vaccinated against COVID-19 or tested weekly. The court’s conservative majority expressed skepticism of the Biden administration’s power to impose a sweeping mandate on workplaces without direct authorization from Congress.
The three liberals disagreed, writing in a dissenting opinion: “When we are wise, we know enough to defer on matters like this one. When we are wise, we know not to displace the judgments of experts, acting within the sphere Congress marked out and under Presidential control, to deal with emergency conditions. Today, we are not wise.”
In a separate 5-4 ruling, the court allowed a Biden-administration mandate that required COVID-19 vaccinations for healthcare workers at federally funded facilities to take effect. Two of the court’s conservatives, Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined the liberals in the majority.
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Original Article: Neil Gorsuch Defies Chief Justice John Roberts’ Mask Request: Report (businessinsider.com)
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When any judge in any court, lets their opinion based on no facts in evidence and against the top health care persons it does seem it is not a court based on fact but person beliefs, which is in no way what any court system was ever set up to do, exactly why justice is suppose to be blind and rule only on the facts in evidence and the best legal arguments in evidence.
Why even have arguments in any court if the courts decision is going to based on personal opinions of the court.
The three Dem justices are saying to listen to “experts”! Who are they talking about – fakey Fauci, CDC, WHO who have flip-flopped every other week, who’re changing science to go along with their agenda, who’re not following science??? These “experts”! Just like the rest of their party, they’re so ignorant of actual, real facts about masks, COVID, the deadly side effects from the (fake) vaccines that are happening everywhere and much too often. They’re ignorant of real facts of actual number of cases, deaths. Sotomeyer herself spewed lies about the number of cases of the children. They are like their Democrat supporters who no nothing of the real truth about this virus, or they’re lying just like their Democrat politician cohorts in order to push their false narrative. How about all of the Democrat politicians who’ve shut down their states but they themselves are caught partying without masks and no social distancing! They know there’s no real risk with this virus. Do these also have mass formation psychosis? I applaud and support Justice Gorsuch for his taking a stand against this gross power-play against freedom! As far as masks go, there again, they are unaware of the fact that there hasn’t been one authentic study that supports wearing masks as an effective preventitive measure against disease. Pushing this false narrative is more fear mongering!
The SOCIALISTIC,COMMUNISTIC, LIBTURD, DEMONRAT PARTY MEMBERS are trying to make the Country to be afraid of each other. They are saying if we don’t keep following their TWISTED LOGIC that we are against the Country getting out of what they have put us into.
If you want to understand brainwashing talk with a liberal democrat.
I recently had covid, got it from my fully vaccinated daughter who came to visit. Odd thing is she was sicker than I was. I don’t know why people call this a vaccination it’s not, should just be called the shot like the flu shot. It doesn’t help you and I am thankful I never got it. Wearing masks doesn’t work either people are always touching them and then they touch everything else it’s disgusting. Half of the people have their nose hanging out but I guess it doesn’t matter they don’t work anyway. Democrats just want to control people and have them live in fear.
I don’t think much of this article. Gorsuch can use his rights as a normal human being not to wear a mask, but then refuses to allow people to choose to wear a mask on airplanes, and refuses to hear election fraud cases and the rights of parents concerning their school kids. But what can we expect from these double-standard socialist RINO’s. All 3 justices, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Kavanaugh have ruled multiple times, in lock-step, with the democrat agenda-ridden justices instead of the constitution. There is no mask law, just a mandate that wasn’t even voted on by congress, but is being upheld by these ignorant justices.
So if I read this story correctly …is Sotomayer saying that if ONLY Gorsuch would wear a mask she would gladly come back daily to sit with the rest of the justices daily?
Or is this some NPR hit piece trying to expose Gorsuch as a man without feelings…. saying he doesn’t care about his fellow judge?
I find it hard to believe Gorsuch said to Sotomayer that he refuses to wear a mask to accommodate her….cmon
I do believe he doesn’t wear a mask and I do believe she doesn’t come to work for fear of getting sick..
ARTICLE says EVERYONE IS VAXED AND BOOSTERED so what is she waiting for? don’t vax’s and booster’s work?
What am i missing?
The vast majority of BOOSTER recipients contracted the omicron which should lead one to believe the saline solution injections they call VACCINES don’t work along with the masks (kleenex)
Maybe Justice Sodomy SHOULD get Covid.