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 I’m old enough to remember when CJ Roberts published “State of the Judiciary” reports expressing concern for the integrity and public perception of the judiciary:

Ten of the 12 judges who spoke to NBC News said the Supreme Court should better explain those rulings, noting that the terse decisions leave lower court judges with little guidance for how to proceed. But they also have a new and concerning effect, the judges said, validating the Trump administration’s criticisms. A short rebuttal from the Supreme Court, they argue, makes it seem like they did shoddy work and are biased against Trump.

What brings this on? Well, to cut to the numbers:

The growing reliance on the shadow docket has drawn criticism from legal experts about the lack of time and process the Supreme Court spends on what can be incredibly consequential decisions.

Since Trump took office again in January, his administration has asked the Supreme Court 23 times to block lower court rules on an emergency basis.

The court has granted the government’s emergency requests in 17. It rejected the government in two cases, while three other cases were resolved without decisions, and one request is pending.

The Supreme Court has granted Trump administration requests to block lower court rulings in more than 70% of cases brought by the administration that were decided via the shadow docket.

Which is pretty much ruling by: “We’re the Supreme Court, bitches!”

An NBC News review of the Trump decisions showed that five of the 17 cases overturning lower court rulings included no substantive reasoning at all. Seven of the others included less than three pages of explanation. That critique extends back to the Biden administration, when the court failed to explain its decisions in eight out of the 10 wins for the government.

“Judges in the trenches need, and deserve, well-reasoned, bright-line guidance,” a judge said. “Too often today, sweeping rulings arrive with breathtaking speed but minimal explanation, stripped of the rigor that full briefing and argument provide.”

The lower courts deserve an explanation, and the general public deserves one, even if the latter don’t read the opinions or understand the reasoning. The legitimacy of the courts is literally in their transparency, and that transparency, even if the language is opaque to the laity, is found in court opinions. Even badly written opinions provide an explanation for the conclusion, and any explanation is better than “Because I said so!” Which is pretty much the explanation offered most recently by Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. Putting it in writing is at least better than hiding mum behind institutional authority. Even non-lawyers can see that this is just bullshit:

That was the situation in which Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Maddox found himself this year after Trump fired three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Like certain other federal agencies, it was set up by Congress to be insulated from political pressures. While the president could nominate members to fixed terms, he could not fire them except for “neglect of duty or malfeasance.”

On paper, Maddox’s job was an easy one: As a district court judge, he has to follow the Supreme Court’s previous rulings. In 1935, in a case called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the Supreme Court upheld a law preventing the president from firing members of the Federal Trade Commission — a setup similar to the CPSC’s — without cause.

The Supreme Court’s current conservative majority has undermined that precedent in recent years, but, crucially, it has not overturned it.

But before Maddox issued his decision, the Supreme Court on May 22 allowed Trump to fire members of two other independent agencies with similar restrictions, the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The Supreme Court’s two-page order was paltry, sending mixed messages by allowing the firings while expressly saying the court would wait to decide whether to overturn Humphrey’s Executor.

Maddox was left to grapple with how that decision applied to his case. He ultimately rejected the Trump administration’s arguments in two separate rulings in June, concluding that he was bound by the 1935 precedent.

“Humphrey’s Executor remains good law,” he wrote.

But Maddox did not have the final word. The Trump administration once again quickly turned to the Supreme Court, which granted its emergency request to allow the firings a month later.

The case was “squarely controlled” by its May decision, the conservative majority said in a one-page decision overturning Maddox.

The Supreme Court rulings, IOW, are as clear as mud. The Sinister Six clearly want to overturn Humphrey’s Executor sotto voce. Explanations are so tedious, after all. But that’s not the way this works. That’s not the way any of this works

Even the Justices are noticing:

She referred to a different case in which Massachusetts-based Judge Myong Joun issued a ruling that blocked Trump administration plans to downsize the Education Department. The administration quickly appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the government.

Kagan noted that the case raised several legal issues, including what authority Joun had to step in, but the Supreme Court’s terse order did not explain on what grounds it was blocking his decision. The only writing was from liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who penned an 18-page dissent.

“What’s that court supposed to think?” Kagan asked, referring to Joun. “It’s just impossible to know, and that puts the [lower] court in a very difficult situation.”

But the Chief Justice can’t be bothered to say a word. As Professor Vladeck says, this is a five-alarm fire. This is the constitutional crisis your mother warned you about.