It's not surprising if you understand the purpose of the Supreme Court in the US. The SC exists to decide areas of law that are ambiguous or poorly tested. As a result, the only cases that make it to the SC are ones where there isn't a clear decision to be made, because if it were more clear-cut, the decision would have already been made in a lower court.

This is the system working as intended.

Exactly, there's almost 100% selection bias in the cases heard by the Court. By definition, the case has already been interpreted differently by different lower courts OR there's a matter of some urgency on the national stage (election challenges being a recent example) OR something else of extreme interest.

The Court is asked to review somewhere around 7000 cases every year. Of those, they hear maybe 150.

Think of the Supreme Court as an error handling routine. Sometimes the program wasn't written for the type of input it is now getting. Sometimes the code has a mistake in it. Sometimes the rules weren't defined specifically enough. Sometimes there are pieces of code that interfere with another piece of code. etc.

We don't put error-handlers in our code because we intended to write bad code. We do it because humans make mistakes and it is helpful to have a way to resolve them. Anyone who says their code doesn't need error-handling because they write perfect code is likely overconfident in their ability.

No descent on rulings within Venezuela's Supreme Tribunal of Justice, so I guess that must be a model of jurisprudence /s

I'm assuming you don't know much about the mechanics of common law. But these cases are not mathematical problems, they involve different theories of legal interpretation, which stray into the philosophical and political sphere of reasoning.

You used both a "False Analogy" in the comparison to Venezuela supreme court, and also a "Courtier's reply" in the second part of your comment. I see no arguments that address my points.

I got downvoted to oblivion, but looked at both your reply, and the previous ones all. All I see is a failure to argue my underlying point.

So I will try again...

That laws and legal scenarios can be ambiguous, contradictory, and imperfect it is only normal. These are written by humans. But in that case, it should be to the Supreme Court to clarify the ambiguity, contradiction and imperfection of the law itself in a consistent way.

Otherwise its more of a Political Council than a Supreme Court using the word Court to shield political bias under the disguise of interpretation of the Law.

It looks like instead, some of the dissenting opinions are used to push biased agendas. These after all, we should not forget, politically appointed judges, ( you know ...like in Venezuela... )

Most the arguments in this thread talked about different analysis, and you mention different philosophical and political views without, it seems, realizing that is after all, at the core of my concerns. The last thing we want to see in a court is judges expanding on their philosophical and political views. Most commentators in this thread seem to indulge the court on taking those liberties under the excuse their are doing "error handling" or interpreting differently the law. They should not be interpreting differently the law, they should be clarifying the ambiguities, identifying the contradictions and referring them back to the legislative branches that can correct them. That is my core point.

It seem to have been missed by many of the commentators here that in many legal jurisdictions dissenting opinions do not exist or are frowned upon. This has NOTHING to do with lack of legal argumentation or discussion within the courts.

Just to give another example from a different legal perspective: =========================================================

"Susan Kiefel, Chief Justice of Australia, has expressed concern at the frequency of judicial dissents and the attention given to them by law students and legal commentators. She believes that they should be reserved for only the most important cases, and has described judges who frequently dissent as "somewhat self-indulgent". She further observed that "humorous dissent may provide the author with fleeting popularity, but it may harm the image the public has of the court and its judges".

==========================================================

I also find interesting some of the comments ( I presume from legal scholars ) in this thread, praising the smartness and clairvoyance of the court. Them seem to forget that historically the court:

1) Defined the tomato should be classified as a vegetable not as a fruit. ( Its a fruit by the way...) Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893)

2) BOWERS v. HARDWICK(1986) No. 85-140 Upheld a discriminatory Georgia sodomy statute that criminalized sexually active gay and lesbian relationships.

3) Did Bush vs Gore in a completely partisan split 531 U. S. ____ (2000) 1(2000)

4) Opened the gates to all SuperPacs.... CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION(2010) No. 08-205

Thanks for expanding and clarifying your comments. I too find much of the U.S. court system troubling; more to the point, the common law itself. The standard catch-phrase in the United States (about government in general and the judiciary in part) is "checks and balances", but those checks and balances often seem quite primitive (most having been designed 100+ years prior to mathematical formalism / rigor). We need checks and balances to be sure, but we also need homeostasis and self-repair; we need a rigorous system of axioms upon which to base logical reasoning; we need a solid philosophical grounding. The very fact that a legal rift exists between so-called Originalism and so-called Living Constitution theory tells me the entire system lacks a formal (rigorous) basis.

Given that the American judiciary grew out of the English colonial judiciary, which in practice looked more towards the whims and largesses of the aristocracy than any principled grounding in (legal, philosophical, or mathematical) form and structure, it does not wholly surprise me.

We do better now than the English colonial judges did, but we can do better still.

It's unfortunate you got downvoted. It's a legit question.

I guess there is a (unrealistic) expectation from "lay" people that the law is clear and easy to decide. That's a lie. The fact is, human society is extremely complicated, and laws are an attempt to codify the various (often conflicting) rules and customs in society. Some lawyers/judges/academics like to pretend that the law is objective and not subject to political/economic reality, and that's kind of an ideal to strive for for the legal profession, but in reality this can't be avoided.

In addition, courts of this level are usually asked to decide the most contentious issues (due to survivor bias - if the outcome is clear, the party expecting to lose most likely won't bother to appeal).

> But the whole concept of dissent at this level, makes for less respect for the law.

Sometimes the majority is wrong. Two important examples are Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), in which the court held that black Americans could not be U.S. citizens, and Plessey v. Fergusson (1896), which held that laws requiring segregation of white and non-white races were constitutional. Both of those decisions are now considered wrongly-decided at the time. Justice Taney, who wrote the opinion in Dred Scott, will go down in history as a villain. Justice Harlan, who wrote the dissent in Plessy is a hero.

Justice Harlan, dissenting in Plessy:

“There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. But, by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union, who are entitled, by law, to participate in the political control of the state and nation, who are not excluded, by law or by reason of their race, from public stations of any kind, and who have all the legal rights that belong to white citizens, are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race.”

This is the portion of his dissent that usually gets cut out when people quote Plessy. Hardly the civil rights hero you allude to.