Sonia Sotomayor & Neil Gorsuch issued a strange joint-denial on the mask story

On Tuesday, NPR had an interesting exclusive which turned into a much-discussed story. The NPR piece was broadly about the Supreme Court in disarray, and how even though Chief Justice John Roberts prizes good working relationships between the justices, there are many indications that there’s a lot of in-fighting and bickering. The part which got the most play was about how Sonia Sotomayor has diabetes and she asked Chief Justice Roberts to enforce a mask mandate during oral arguments, when all of the justices are in the same room together in somewhat close quarters. All of the justices agreed… except for Neil Gorsuch, who is assigned to sit next to Sotomayor. As such, Sotomayor is just teleworking now – she sits in her office and conferences in for oral arguments. Well, a funny thing happened after the story went viral: SCOTUS PR began to freak out.

Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor issued an unusual statement Wednesday asserting there is no tension on the high court around masking and stressing that Sotomayor did not ask Gorsuch to wear a mask while on the bench.

In the rare statement, the justices said that “reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false. While we may sometimes disagree about the law, we are warm colleagues and friends.”

The statement came just after the first set of oral arguments Wednesday. Gorsuch appeared, again, without a mask and Sotomayor participated remotely from her chambers, as she has done this month amid a surge in the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

Chief Justice John Roberts also issued a statement through the court’s press office, saying: “I did not request Justice Gorsuch or any other Justice to wear a mask on the bench.”

Roberts will have no additional comment, the court said.

Sotomayor has been participating in oral arguments remotely from her chambers because she doesn’t feel comfortable sitting on the bench near colleagues who are not masked, including Gorsuch, according to a source familiar with the situation. In addition, Sotomayor has been participating in the justices-only conference sessions remotely, a court spokeswoman confirmed. Those sessions — where only the nine are allowed, no staff or hangers-on — is where the justices debate and essentially determine the legal direction of the country.

Since January, amid the surge of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, all of the justices have entered the chamber wearing masks, except for Gorsuch. In the ornate courtroom, he sits to Sotomayor’s left.

[From CNN]

Sidenote: I kind of wonder if Neil Gorsuch or one of his interns reads Celebitchy, because a commenter was in yesterday’s post, freaking out about how the NPR story was false and smugly yelling about this denial. As for the “denial” – it’s curiously worded, huh? “The reporting that Justice Sotomayor asked Justice Gorsuch to wear a mask surprised us. It is false…” That wasn’t the reporting. NPR’s sources didn’t say Sotomayor asked Gorsuch to wear a mask. Sources said Sotomayor asked John Roberts to ask every justice to wear a mask, and only Gorsuch refused. And now Roberts is basically saying it’s out of his hands. Again, SCOTUS in disarray. I genuinely hope Joe Biden finds some way to pack the f–king courts.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.