Jodi Kantor

They're deliberative.

What does the shadow do?

But I want to give you what is probably the most important part.

They write opinions, and here's why opinions are important.

If we're talking about our elected officials, they're accountable to us through elections, right?

If we don't like what they're doing, they're removed.

These justices are appointed for life.

There are no traditional forms of accountability save impeachment.

The act of writing an opinion is the act of accountability.

It's a judge or a justice saying, listen, you may disagree with my opinion.

My opinion may put your brother in jail or it may cause your business to close.

But I want to show you that I've been fair and I've been diligent.

and I'm just applying the law.

So that is a judge or justice's explanation to the public that over time has earned the courts trust.

In a lot of shadow docket decisions, there's almost no opinion.

It's like a paragraph.

Like on this 2016 case.

It is pretty much a judicial post-it.

And it has instructions that are kind of legal boilerplate, but it has no reasoning.

And reasoning is the essence of the law.