# Could 5 Supreme Court justices act with legal impunity? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 6, 2013, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-5-supreme-court-justices-act-with-legal-impunity/670515 "2013-10-06T17:36:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-5-supreme-court-justices-act-with-legal-impunity/670515/101 "2013-10-09T15:06:55Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > So suppose after watching Elysium (warning spoiler), SCOTUS rules that under the 14th Amendment all people in the world are American citizens or that the 4th Amendment doesn’t apply if your annual income is less than $500,000 per year or that Congressional district lines must be drawn by train lorikeets. What would happen? If the Supreme Court went too far, the rest of the country would find an arguably legal way to get around the decision, for example impeachment; court-packing; or jurisdiction-stripping. If the Supreme Court held that such measures were unlawful, it would be ignored. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-5-supreme-court-justices-act-with-legal-impunity/670515/102 "2013-10-09T16:28:00Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > These questions really aren’t that interesting. Their decisions would be ignored and they’d be removed from power. Then why wasn’t that done after any of the cases I mentioned or any number of unpopular and arguably “wrong” decisions? Where is the line where you start impeaching justices? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-5-supreme-court-justices-act-with-legal-impunity/670515/103 "2013-10-09T17:03:19Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Then why wasn’t that done after any of the cases I mentioned or any number of unpopular and arguably “wrong” decisions? Where is the line where you start impeaching justices? None of those cases were as objectionable or even in the same realm as the stuff we’re talking about in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-5-supreme-court-justices-act-with-legal-impunity/670515/104 "2013-10-09T18:58:32Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > None of those cases were as objectionable or even in the same realm as the stuff we’re talking about in this thread. I know which is why my question is at what point do the rulings or even a ruling of SCOTUS run so antithetical to our view of the Constitution that they need to be replaced. You seem to imply that a ruling that a republican form of government means a state needs a sloth as governor would be beyond that line but what about when SCOTUS ruled that trial by jury only applies if imprisonment may be 6 months or more so if your possible max sentence is 5 months 29 days you are SOL (and FYI, I knew someone who was taken to court on contempt of a [fraudulent] court order and with 3 days per violation that person filed 59 charges of contempt for this reason). So how do you decide that the Slaughter House Cases and Kelo are on one side of the line and Governor Three-Toed is on the other? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-5-supreme-court-justices-act-with-legal-impunity/670515/105 "2013-10-09T20:14:35Z")
In practice, a government branch overreaches itself gradually and slowly, instead of in one gigantic leap of arrogance. This allows the other two branches to combine to push back against the power-grab, and thus things remain generally stable. For instance, Congress often toys with the idea of writing laws which include clauses that exclude the laws from judicial review. The SC might try to strike down such a law on the basis of that clause. To the rest of us, this is small potatoes. We wouldn’t go and arrest the SC or disband the Congress, whichever way it fell out. It would be a (relatively) minor re-alignment of the power between the branches. It would allow We The People plenty of time to alter the makeup of Congress if we thought it was a bad idea. This kind of gradualism is one of our many protections against tyranny. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-5-supreme-court-justices-act-with-legal-impunity/670515.md?page=5)