Summary
First, it acted with startling speedāso quickly, in fact, that it published the order before Alito could finish writing his dissent; he was forced to note only that a āstatementā would āfollow.ā
Relatedly, awkward phrasing in courtās order may imply that Alitoāwho first received the plaintiffsā requestāfailed to refer it to the full court, as is custom, compelling the other justices to rip the case away from him.
Second, it is plain as day that the Supreme Court simply did not trust the Trump administrationās claims that it would not deport migrants over the weekend without due process.
Finally, and perhaps most obviously, itās critical that only Thomas and Alito noted their dissents. When the court takes emergency action, justices donāt have to note their votes, but they usually do; we can probably assume that this order was 7ā2. That would mean that Chief Justice John Robertsāalong Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrettājoined this rebuke to the Trump administration.
I get what youāre saying, but one of our foundational principles (at least until now) was that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. So this notion that āwe canāt know if a crime has been committed until a jury says soā isnāt a bug, itās a feature. Yes, it makes things complicated, but it is designed to minimize the chance that innocent people can be deprived of their liberties just because the government doesnāt like them.
Iād counter part of that is that US law is based on common law, which is defined by prior court cases not just law - vs civil law which is only based on law.
There are issues with both of course, but, its common law that requires lawyers and knowledge of every court case and knowing what a judge in the 1800s thought a word means to win or lose a case.
I think the common law system of justice is deeply flawed and leads to this legalese where everything is vague and malleable with no certainty