Where this was said
A Historic Bench Confrontation: Sotomayor Dissents Aloud, Alito Responds
At 19:43 · chapter starts 18:20
After the asylum ruling was announced, Justice Sotomayor invoked one of the Court's rarest traditions: she read portions of her dissent aloud from the bench. This act, reserved for the most profound objections, signals a justice's belief that the majority has done something genuinely grievous. What happened next was almost without precedent — Justice Alito responded from the bench, suggesting he could have rebutted her arguments more thoroughly had he known she'd read more of her dissent. Dan and Leah connect this to Alito's 2010 State of the Union outburst, when he visibly reacted to Obama's criticism of Citizens United. The pattern, they argue, is an impulse control problem — particularly visible when he is criticized by people of color.
Justice Sotomayor read portions of her asylum dissent from the bench — an extraordinarily rare act reserved for the strongest objections — and Alito then responded, which is almost unprecedented.
Justice Sotomayor read her dissent aloud from the bench — a deeply rare act of protest — and then Alito did something almost unprecedented: he responded. Leah Litman says Alito's behavior was 'petulant and unbefitting a justice.'
