Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-303_6khn.pdf
Page Number: 31

8 

UNITED STATES v. VAELLO MADERO 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

This workaround, too, has proven as ineffectual as it is
inappropriate.    Perhaps  this  Court  can  continue  to  drain 
the Insular Cases of some of their poison by declaring pro-
vision  after  provision  of  the  Constitution  “fundamental” 
and  thus  operative  in  “unincorporated”  Territories.  But 
even one hundred years on, that pitiable job remains unfin-
ished.  Still today under this Court’s cases we are asked to 
believe  that  the  right  to  a  trial  by  jury  remains  insuffi-
ciently “fundamental” to apply to some 3 million U. S. citi-
zens  in  “unincorporated”  Puerto  Rico.  At  the  same  time, 
the full panoply of constitutional rights apparently applies
on the Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited patch of land in the
Pacific  Ocean,  because  it  represents  our  Nation’s  only  re-
maining “incorporated” Territory.3  It is an implausible and
embarrassing state of affairs.

The case before us only defers a long overdue reckoning. 
Rather  than  ask  the  Court  to  overrule  the  Insular  Cases, 
both sides in this litigation work from the shared premise
that the equal protection guarantee under which Mr. Vaello 
Madero brings his claim is a “fundamental” feature of the 
Constitution and thus applies in “unincorporated” Territo-
ries like Puerto Rico.  See Tr. of Oral Arg. 10–11; Brief for 

—————— 

3 The atoll lies approximately 1,000 miles from Hawaii.  Palmyra Atoll, 
Dept.  of  Interior,  Office  of  Insular  Affairs  (last  visited  Apr.  19,  2022), 
https://www.doi.gov/oia/islands/palmyraatoll  (Palmyra  Atoll  DOI  Over-
view).  When Congress supposedly “incorporated” Hawaii as a Territory, 
it  included  Palmyra,  then  a  Hawaiian  possession.    See  Act  of  Apr.  30, 
1900, ch. 339, §§ 2–5, 31 Stat. 141–142; Hawaii v. Mankichi, 190 U. S. 
197,  211  (1903)  (Congress  “formally  incorporated”  Hawaii  in  1900); 
United States v. Fullard-Leo, 331 U. S. 256, 259 (1947).  Ultimately, how-
ever, the atoll was not folded into Hawaii on statehood, and it remained 
under  federal  control.    See  Act  of  Mar.  18,  1959,  Pub.  L.  86–3,  § 2,  73
Stat. 4; Act of July 12, 1960, § 48, 74 Stat. 424.  So today our bureaucra-
cies endow that Territory alone a capital “T” in their official lists while 
the others, Puerto Rico included, earn only a lowercase “t.”  See Palmyra 
Atoll DOI Overview.