Massachusetts judge apologizes to conservative justices on Supreme Court
Massachusetts judge apologizes to conservative justices on Supreme Court The display of contrition came after Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh issued a stern warning directing judges to heed their orders in August. By Zach Montague, New York Times Service
September 2, 2025 4 minutes to read Share ... WASHINGTON — Nearly two weeks after two Supreme Court justices delivered a stinging rebuke warning lower-court judges not to “defy” their rulings, the judge at whom the directive was aimed issued an apology from the bench, pledging to adjust to meet the highest court’s demands.
The acknowledgment Tuesday by Judge William G. Young in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts highlighted the precarious position that lower courts have landed in this year as they struggle to make sense of a growing number of unsigned orders the Supreme Court has produced through the court’s emergency docket.
Young’s apology came at a hearing Tuesday to discuss how to move forward after the Supreme Court in August overruled his decision to block the Trump administration from slashing hundreds of millions of dollars in grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health. Writing as part of that emergency order, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh had suggested that Young subverted the court’s will by failing to apply an earlier emergency order focused on canceled Education Department grants to his NIH case.
Young said Tuesday that he had not realized he was expected to rely on a slim three-page order issued with minimal legal reasoning in April to his case dealing with a different agency.
“Before we do anything, I really feel it’s incumbent upon me to — on the record here — to apologize to Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh if they think that anything this court has done has been done in defiance of a precedential action of the Supreme Court of the United States,” said Young, who was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1985.
"It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government." Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018
September 03, 2025, 12:16 PM
6guns
I guess that's sort of an apology.
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September 03, 2025, 02:08 PM
JohnO
He was a Reagan appointee ...
At 84 Bill Young is just a loopy old codger. Time to hang it up Bill.
September 03, 2025, 02:16 PM
RogueJSK
quote:
Originally posted by JohnO: At 84 Bill Young is just a loopy old codger. Time to hang it up Bill.
Technically, he already did... He went on "senior status" in July 2021. That's the term for retirement for a federal judge. However, since they're appointed for life, they can continue to pick and choose to hear and decide specific cases, even while retired.
September 03, 2025, 07:15 PM
Rey HRH
quote:
Young said Tuesday that he had not realized he was expected to rely on a slim three-page order issued with minimal legal reasoning in April to his case dealing with a different agency.
WTF?
That almost sounds like a Seinfeld episode.
"You mean I was supposed to follow that 3 page order? Because if I had only known, wel...."
"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946.
September 03, 2025, 07:36 PM
chellim1
quote:
Young said Tuesday that he had not realized he was expected to rely on a slim three-page order issued with minimal legal reasoning in April to his case dealing with a different agency.
Nor did I realize that Federal judge in Massachusetts was subject to the musings and rulings of the Supreme Court...
"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown
"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor
September 04, 2025, 09:07 AM
architect
quote:
Originally posted by Rey HRH:
quote:
Young said Tuesday that he had not realized he was expected to rely on a slim three-page order issued with minimal legal reasoning in April to his case dealing with a different agency.
WTF?
That almost sounds like a Seinfeld episode.
"You mean I was supposed to follow that 3 page order? Because if I had only known, wel...."
"You were serious about that?"
September 04, 2025, 09:55 AM
chellim1
quote:
"You were serious about that?"
"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown
"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor
