Page:Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org SCOTUS slip opinion.pdf/30

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Cite as: 590 U. S. ____ (2020)

9

Thomas, J., dissenting

The majority resists this conclusion, suggesting that without access to the annotations, readers of Georgia law will be unable to fully understand the true meaning of Georgia’s statutory provisions, such as provisions that have been undermined or nullified by court decisions. Ante, at 17. That is simply incorrect. As the majority tacitly concedes, a person seeking information about changes in Georgia statutory law can find that information by consulting the original source for the change in the law’s status—the court decisions themselves. See ante, at 17. The inability to access the OCGA merely deprives a researcher of one specific tool, not to the underlying factual or legal information summarized in that tool. See also post, at 4 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).^[1]

C

The text of the Copyright Act supports my reading of the

↑ The majority contends that, rather than seeking to understand the origins of our precedents, we should simply accept the text of the opinions that the Justices “voted on and committed to writing.” Ante, at 16–17, n. 4. But that begs the question: What does the text of the relevant opinions tell us? The answer is not much. It is precisely this lack of explication that makes it necessary to explore the “judicial consensus” and public policy referred to in Banks v. Manchester, 128 U. S. 244, 253 (1888). Instead, the majority attempts to dissect the language of our prior opinions in the same way it would interpret a statute, an approach we have repeatedly cautioned against. See St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U. S. 502, 515 (1993); Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 341 (1979). The proper approach is to “read general language in judicial opinions … as referring in context to circumstances similar to the circumstances then before the Court and not referring to quite different circumstances that the Court was not then considering.” Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U. S. 419, 424 (2004); see also Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 399 (1821) (Marshall, C. J., for the Court) (“[G]eneral expressions, in every opinion, are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go beyond the case, they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit when the very point is presented for decision”).

[1] The majority contends that, rather than seeking to understand the origins of our precedents, we should simply accept the text of the opinions that the Justices “voted on and committed to writing.” Ante, at 16–17, n. 4. But that begs the question: What does the text of the relevant opinions tell us? The answer is not much. It is precisely this lack of explication that makes it necessary to explore the “judicial consensus” and public policy referred to in Banks v. Manchester, 128 U. S. 244, 253 (1888). Instead, the majority attempts to dissect the language of our prior opinions in the same way it would interpret a statute, an approach we have repeatedly cautioned against. See St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U. S. 502, 515 (1993); Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 341 (1979). The proper approach is to “read general language in judicial opinions … as referring in context to circumstances similar to the circumstances then before the Court and not referring to quite different circumstances that the Court was not then considering.” Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U. S. 419, 424 (2004); see also Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 399 (1821) (Marshall, C. J., for the Court) (“[G]eneral expressions, in every opinion, are to be taken in connection with the case in which those expressions are used. If they go beyond the case, they may be respected, but ought not to control the judgment in a subsequent suit when the very point is presented for decision”).

[1]