Roberts is his own man. He will make the right decision.
“OR ELSE” is the silent part.
Sounds like RATS are getting nervous.
Does not take much at all to steer Roberts. “We have pictures.” are the magic three words.
Three justices, including Colorado s chief justice, dissented. The SCOTUS should use Justice Samor decision to counter the majority.
Presidential immunity is a good idea for all democracies. No one should be jailing former presidents.
What you could see is a decision which focuses on the lack of jurisdiction by the Colorado court system to adjudicate matters of federal law, without getting into the specifics of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. There is a federal insurrection statute, 18 USC 2383, and the trial court in Colorado had no jurisdiction to make a determination as to whether PDJT violated it, and the Colorado Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to throw PDJT off the ballot, regardless of the state election code in Colorado. Colorado is certainly not the forum for such matters, as none of the events which arguably triggered Section 3 of the 14th Amendment occurred in Colorado, no plaintiffs with Article III judicial standing reside there, and Trump does not reside there.
The doctrine of judicial restraint calls upon a court to decide matters on the narrowest possible grounds. That means that if a court can resolve a case on jurisdictional matters without getting into substantive statutory or constitutional issues, that is how the case is decided.
Therefore, it is quite possible that Roberts can get his 9-0 decision by limiting the majority opinion to jurisdictional matters (state courts are barred from making determinations as to the federal insurrection statute and the 14th Amendment, which are the province of the federal courts). Thomas, Alito and/or Gorsuch can write separately on their views on the 14th Amendment, but without 5 votes they would not become precedent.