Asked for reasons. It just seems to me that a lot of the time, we non-lawyers are reduced to “well, I disagree with the results” when it comes to decisions like this, and I can’t help but think that can’t be all there is to it. How does the average person hope to make an informed opinion?
What’s the best way for a layman to tell when a judicial decision is political and results oriented?
One sign that it’s not political is if it’s unanimous (meaning all conservative and liberal justices could agree on it and it wasn’t split along bias lines.)
Another clue is if it leads to a socially unpopular result. For instance, you could see headlines like “Supreme Court ruling lets rapist get off scot-free,” which would lead to outcry, but upon closer examination, the rapist’s constitutional rights actually had in fact been violated. That’s a sign the Supreme Court isn’t pandering to politics but is in fact calling balls and strikes.