CBS News
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch highlights stories of how “law has really exploded” in new book
Washington — Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch in “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law” throws the book at the law, telling the story of what he sees as a nation at risk from an explosion of new laws.
Gorsuch, who was nominated for the high court by former President Donald Trump and took the bench in 2017, wrote in his new book that law in America has swallowed up ordinary people, though he said it’s done so “with the best of intentions.”
“I’ve been a judge now for about 18 years,” Gorsuch said in an interview at the Supreme Court. “And I just saw so many cases where ordinary Americans — decent, hard working Americans — were just trying to make their way in life. They weren’t trying to hurt anybody, and yet they were caught up in the legal system in ways they couldn’t hardly affect.”
Gorsuch said his is a “book of stories” about the cases he and others have seen — from fishermen in Florida, to monks in Louisiana and a magician in Missouri.
“Their experiences in a world where law has really exploded — just in our lifetimes,” Gorsuch said.
The stories are “emblematic of a world in which we just have so much law,” Gorsuch said. He noted that federal crimes have nearly doubled in his lifetime, saying “nobody knows how many federal crimes there are because it would take years just to read them.”
“We have more people serving life sentences today than we had serving any sentence in 1970 or thereabouts,” he added. “So that’s the world we live in.”
The justice posited that a lack of trust in a polarized political environment where some view the other party as “evil” has made Americans “unable to speak to one another and listen to one another.”
But in a recent AP-NORC poll, 70% of Americans suggest the Supreme Court itself contributes to that problem — deciding cases on ideology, rather than being fair and impartial. On that sentiment, Gorsuch disagrees, citing the frequency with which he sides with the liberal justices in cases, rather than the conservative majority.
“That’s the court I know,” he said.
Critics of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority have been especially vocal since the justices rolled back a constitutional right to abortion in a 2022 decision that returned much of the fight over abortion rights to the individual states. Those same critics also point to a decision that ended affirmative action in college admissions.
Gorsuch said those issues represent “deeply complex legal questions” on which people can — and do — disagree. On abortion and affirmative action, Gorsuch believes the court put the issues back in the people’s hands.
“In a democracy, you’re in the driver’s seat, you’re the sovereign,” he added. “Do you really want me deciding everything for you?”
Adding to the scrutiny of the Supreme Court, President Biden last month unveiled a trio of proposals to reform the high court, calling on Congress to pass legislation setting 18-year term limits for justices and establish binding, enforceable ethics rules for the justices.
Gorsuch noted that the justices adopted an ethics code this term, calling it a “significant step” and “remarkable that we were able to agree unanimously.”
On the question of whether the court must care about public perception, Gorsuch pondered the place for unelected judges in a democracy.
“An independent judiciary — our founders fought a revolution for it, because they knew what it was like to have a judiciary that was responsive to the crown, to a whimsical king, and they didn’t want that for this country,” he said. “And the truth is, when you’re the man in the dock, you don’t want it either.”
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The U.S. Justice Department is demanding records related to the July shooting death of Sonya Massey — an Illinois woman who was killed in her home by a sheriff’s deputy — as it investigates how local authorities treat Black residents and people with behavioral disabilities.
The government made a list of demands in dozens of categories in a letter to the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, dated Thursday.
“The Sheriff’s Office, along with involved county agencies, has engaged in discussions and pledged full cooperation with the Department of Justice in its review,” Sangamon County Sheriff Paula Crouch said Friday.
Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, was killed July 6 when deputies responded to a call about a possible prowler at her home in Springfield, Illinois. She was shot three times during a confrontation with an officer.
The alleged shooter, Sean Grayson, who is White, was fired. He is charged with murder and other crimes and has pleaded not guilty.
“The Justice Department, among other requests, wants to know if the sheriff’s office has strategies for responding to people in “behavioral health crises,” the government’s letter read. “…The incident raises serious concerns about…interactions with Black people and people with behavioral health disabilities.”
Andy Van Meter, chairman of the Sangamon County Board, said the Justice Department’s review is an important step in strengthening the public’s trust in the sheriff’s office.
At the time of the fatal shooting, the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office was led by then-Sheriff Jack Campbell, who retired in August and was replaced by Crouch.
Deputy Sean Grayson’s history of misconduct
Grayson has worked for six different law enforcement agencies in Illinois since 2020, CBS News learned. He was also discharged from the Army in February 2016 after serving for about 19 months. He was hired by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office in May 2023.
In an interview with CBS News in early August, Campbell said that Grayson “had all the training he needed. He just didn’t use it.”
In a recording released by the Logan County Sheriff’s Office, where Grayson worked from May 2022 to April 2023, a supervising officer is heard warning Grayson for what the senior officer said was his lack of integrity, for lying in his reports, and for what he called “official misconduct.”
Girard Police Chief Wayman Meredith recalled an alleged incident in 2023 when he said an enraged Grayson was pressuring him to call child protective services on a woman outside of Grayson’s mother’s home. He said Grayson was “acting like a bully.”
The recording and Meredith’s description of Grayson’s conduct showed how he quickly became angry and, according to documents, willing to abuse his power as an officer.
Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office history of accusations
According to a review of court records in 2007, Massey’s killing was the only criminal case in recent history against a Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office deputy for actions on duty. Local officials characterized her shooting as an aberration.
However, CBS News obtained thousands of pages of law enforcement files, medical and court records, as well as photo and video evidence that indicated the office had a history of misconduct allegations and accountability failures before Grayson. The records challenged the claim that Massey’s death was, as said by the then-sheriff, an isolated incident by one “rogue individual.”
Local families were confident that Massey’s death was the latest in a pattern of brazen abuse that has gone unchecked for years.
Attorneys for Massey’s family recommended an updated SAFE-T Act that would expand an existing database used to track officer misconduct to include infractions like DUIs and speeding during police chases.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.