Sounds like a strange Trio. But there’s a reason for that, as you shall soon see.
What is the fate of Miranda Rights and Public Defenders with the new make up of the United States Supreme Court? They were both after all outgrowths of the (so-called) activist Warren court, weren’t they? (Miranda rights being your right to be warned of your rights, to remain silent, for one thing. And public defenders being court-appointed and public paid defense attorneys. The US Constitution does guarantee that you have access to an attorney. But having the state pay for it, that is a more recent development, some may be surprised to learn.)
Will the new SCOTUS uphold these fundamental rights? I think some argue some rights like Marbury v. Madison and Brown v. The Board of Education are what they call ‘super-precedents’. Now Roe v. Wade is obviously not generally put in this category. Are these two?
And finally someone had to ask this. So I guess it’ll be me. What is the fate of pornography now in this country, with the new SCOTUS? It has been apparently unaffected by several Supreme Courts. What about this one? (I just have to add that Wikipedia’s article on Clarence Thomas, among other places I’m sure, says he is very pro-porn. You can fill in your own jokes there. But by my math, he and Roberts [who believes in precedent, apparently] makes a 5-4 majority on this.)
First you would need a case to reach the Court to rule on any of these three things and none of them is under serious discussion anywhere to be challenged.
For example, public defenders. You would need a state to pass a law saying no more public defenders and force an indigent person to represent themselves at trial. You would need a judge to ignore precedent and go along with it. Then the appeals would have to keep going up, with the state losing each round, and SCOTUS wanting to hear that case to reverse the right to appointed counsel. I don’t see that happening. Pornography hasn’t really been an issue since the 1970s, and the rise of the internet and changing values make that argument almost like a Free Silver or Fifty-four Forty or Fight argument.
If by some miracle the Court wanted to hear these things, you probably get Thomas and maybe an Alito or Gorsuch somewhere. Nowhere near five votes for any of these things.
Even if these three areas were wrongly decided as an original matter, they have created a settled, administrable body of law that the country has relied upon and there is very little pushback from anyone. They are excellent candidates for stare decisis and I would seriously doubt that anyone would want to invest in attempting to overrule them. For much the same reason, Obergefell is safe, even though if it was a new case, it would likely be 6-3 against. This idea that the Court is packed with conservative hacks is simply not true.
I don’t know about pornography, but I suspect that in many ways, the legal profession as a whole, and the justice system in general probably welcome Miranda rights and public defenders, as both are far more likely to simplify/streamline the process versus not having Miranda rights and public defenders.
The saying I’ve heard from lawyers about pro-se litigants is that “the man who represents himself has a fool for a client”. Now imagine this multiplied by the huge number of moronic criminals and dumb-shits who get pulled into court for minor criminal offenses. The amount of procedural errors, hand-holding, and general gumming up of the works would be immense if people were ALL on the hook to provide their own legal representation or do it themselves. And that’s ignoring the obvious differential of expertise and power when the State has professional legal representation, and often poor, and uneducated citizens are trying to represent themselves.
Now Miranda rights are part and parcel of that second point above; a lawyer is going to know that they don’t have to say anything, and that they have a right to an attorney, and that if they can’t afford one, they’ll have one appointed for them. But the general public may not know that (although after 50 years of cop shows, Lord knows how), so it’s important that those be clearly communicated for every suspect upon being taken into custody.
I’m not sure what the goal of getting rid of public defenders and Miranda rights would be; it doesn’t make the court system any easier, and merely would allow for more police and judicial abuses.
Miranda is ‘new’ only in the US, and in the specific, ritualized words that are used. But I remember Sherlock Holmes exposing the criminal, and then Inspector Lestrade giving their British rights as he arrested them. And that was set shortly after our Civil War. It’s not new. And not likely to be changed, as explained above.
On pornography, it seems that this is an obsolete idea – technology has moved the world beyond it. Anybody with access to even an old computer, or any smartphone can get a massive amount of porn, of every possible type. Often from other countries, outside the borders & laws of your local country*. So even this Supreme Court isn’t going to get itself into the fruitless task of trying to regulate it.
*The exception is Muslim Countries and authoritarian dictatorships, like China, with technological walls restricting the internet. But talking about human rights in those countries is irrelevant.
