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[–] cdglow ago 

According to the article, the dead judge wrote the decision this vote is based on. So while this is very bad, this specific case should be rejudged, and some kind of law should exist to prevent dead peoples' opinions from counting, at least it doesn't look like the outcome in this specific case changed.

It's not a good precedent though and opens up the door for radical abuse. Imagine if a judge was 60% leaning towards siding with one side half-way through a trial and indicated as such. At what point could executing a judge to lock their opinion in place be an actually used strategy? This should be fucking terrifying for judges.

The same system used for jurors who die or fall ill during a trial (alternate jurors who are forced to show up and follow along) might be impractical for the highest courts, so they should fall back to what happens if the alternates aren't available either: declare a mistrial and try again.

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[–] 1HepCat 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

Yeah it's not super clear from the article but it seems like the following?:

1) The judge ruled and authored a document/'opinion' to explain the decision

2) The judge died

3) Some court clerk or something filed the opinion, thus making it official

4) The losing party appealed the ruling based on the judge's death prior to the filing.

5) SCOTUS (who has their own dead/dying justice) declared the filing invalid and ordered a retrial with a complete panel of living judges.

Seems like SCOTUS made the right call. I'm surprised this is the first time something like this has come up. I think the main concern is that the dead judge is no longer around to authenticate his ruling. E.g., in case the clerk altered the document (or fabricated the whole thing) before filing it.

Apart from that, the judge had ostensibly locked his ruling in. Apparently, none of his nine colleagues, including those who'd dissented, found the filed document suspicious enough to raise their own stink over it either. If I'm understanding the scenario correctly assassinations would only be effective if you could subsequently convince the public, etc. that the judge was both ready to rule and had indeed already rendered an unfiled verdict. Still not a great loop hole to leave lying around, though.