During a Federalist Society speech last night, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito called attention to the legal issues raised by the sweeping social and economic restrictions that all but a few states imposed this year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty,” Alito noted in his remarks, which he delivered via Zoom. “We have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive, and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020.”

One of the issues raised by those restrictions is the extent of executive authority in dealing with emergencies. The COVID-19 lockdown imposed by Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, for example, was based on a statute that gave him the authority, in the event of “a natural, technological or man-made emergency or disaster of major proportions,” to “perform and exercise such…functions, powers and duties as are necessary to promote and secure the safety and protection of the civilian population.” As Alito noted, “to say that this provision confers broad discretion would be an understatement.”

While “I’m not disputing that broad wording may be appropriate in statutes designed to address a wide range of emergencies,” Alito said, “laws giving an official so much discretion can, of course, be abused. And whatever one may think about the COVID restrictions, we surely don’t want them to become a recurring feature after the pandemic has passed. All sorts of things can be called an emergency or disaster of major proportions. Simply slapping on that label cannot provide the ground for abrogating our most fundamental rights. And whenever fundamental rights are restricted, the Supreme Court and other courts cannot close their eyes.” ….

While “I am not diminishing the severity of the virus’s threat to public health,” Alito said, it’s clear that “the COVID crisis has highlighted constitutional fault lines.” He warned that “there is only so much that the judiciary can do to preserve our Constitution and the liberty it was adopted to protect.” He closed by paraphrasing Judge Learned Hand: “Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can do much to help it.”

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