Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 39.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

7 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

colonial juries “ ‘were not to be trusted.’ ”  D. Lovejoy, Rights
Imply Equality:  The Case Against Admiralty Jurisdiction 
in America, 1764–1776, 16 Wm. & Mary Q. 459, 468 (1959).
Even  violations  that  did  not  implicate  the  jury  right  nor-
mally would have been heard in England “before a court in
[one’s] own neighborhood or county where [one] could count 
on traditional common-law procedure.”  Id., at 471.  But by
expanding  the  reach  of  vice-admiralty  jurisdiction  in  the
Colonies, Parliament denied similar protections to Ameri-
cans.  See  Erlinger  v.  United  States,  602  U. S.  ___,  ___ 
(2024) (slip op., at 5). 

Vice-admiralty  court  judges  also  lacked  independence.
While judges in England since the end of the seventeenth 
century  generally  enjoyed  the  protection  of  tenure  during 
good behavior, colonial judges usually served at the pleas-
ure of the royal administration.  See United States v. Will, 
449 U. S. 200, 218–219 (1980).  And, doing away with the
pretense  of  impartiality  entirely,  some  vice-admiralty
judges held dual appointments—for instance, as colonial at-
torneys general and vice-admiralty judges.  Ubbelohde 162– 
163. 

Like the modern SEC, British colonial officials were not 
required to bring many of their cases before the vice-admi-
ralty courts.  Often, Parliament gave those officials the op-
tion to proceed in either the ordinary common-law courts or
the  vice-admiralty  courts.    Unsurprisingly,  though,  they
sought to file where they were most likely to win.  And “[i]n
this contest, the vice-admiralty courts were usually the vic-
tors.”  Id., at 21. 

B 
The  abuses  of  these  courts  featured  prominently  in  the
calls for revolution.  In the First Continental Congress, the 
assembled  delegates  condemned  how  Parliament  “ex-
tend[ed]  the  jurisdiction  of  Courts  of  Admiralty,”  com-
plained  how  colonial  judges  were  “dependent  on  the