The Supreme Court has had an interesting couple of days. First, there was a report that they were all going to take a jaunt down the avenue to Camp Runamuck for a cozy dinner with the president*, which seemed more than passing odd. (The dinner has since been postponed, probably either because so many people thought it was weird, or because Justices Kagan and Sotomayor needed more notice in order to hire competent food-tasters.) Then, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Obsolescence) gave Justice Anthony Kennedy a discreet shove out the door. From The Hill:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said this week that another opening could come as soon as this summer, and there have been rumors that Justice Anthony Kennedy, often a swing vote on the court, could retire soon. Kennedy, 80, was nominated to the court by President Reagan.

Meanwhile, on Monday, the Nine Wise Souls, now skating at full-strength, made a couple of calls that gave us a bit more insight into which way the new majority is headed. The first was in refusing to review a case from Texas in which a suspect stopped for a DUI walked away from the police officer who'd stopped him, only to get shot in the back. In doing so, the Court bought wholesale Reflexive Cop Alibi No. 14. From Reuters:

Thompson testified he feared for his life when he saw Salazar-Limon reach toward his waistband, believing the suspect was going to pull out a weapon from under his untucked shirt, and fired a single shot, hitting the suspect in the right lower back. Salazar-Limon sued Thompson and the city of Houston seeking damages for excessive use of force in violation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment. He is now a paraplegic and uses a wheelchair.

Ms. Justice Sotomayor, writing in dissent, finds this explanation insufficient.

Given that this case turns in large part on what Salazar-Limon did just before he was shot, it should be obvious that the parties' competing accounts of the event preclude the entry of summary judgment for [Officer] Thompson. Thompson attested in a deposition that he fired his gun only after he saw Salazar-Limon turn and "ma[k]e [a] motion towards his waistband area." Salazar-Limon, by contrast, attested that Thompson fired either "immediately" or "seconds" after telling Salazar-Limon to stop—and in any case before Salazar-Limon turned toward him. These accounts flatly contradict each other. On the one, Salazar-Limon provoked the use of force by turning and raising his hands toward his waistband. On the other, Thompson shot without being provoked. It is not for a judge to resolve these "differing versions of the truth" on summary judgment, that question is for a jury to decide at trial.

(Madame Justice Sotomayor also tossed a little shade in a footnote, writing, that, "Some commentators have observed the increasing frequency of incidents in which unarmed men allegedly reach for empty waistbands when facing armed officers." Curious, that.)

In doing so, she called attention to the fact that this entire government, including the Court, has now pivoted toward a reflexive defense of police shootings.

We have not hesitated to summarily reverse courts for wrongly denying officers the protection of qualified immunity in cases involving the use of force…But we rarely intervene where courts wrongly afford officers the benefit of qualified immunity in these same cases.

Elsewhere on the docket, the Court declined to hear an appeal from the ACLU aimed at the release of the full Senate report into CIA torture in the years after 9/11. It also continues to amaze me that the entire report hasn't leaked by now. Being delicate snowflakes all, we may never be ready to know what was done in our names.

Who knows? Maybe those guys we tortured went for their waistbands all at once.

Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io