Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20a87_4g15.pdf
Page Number: 21.0

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ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN v. CUOMO 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

Nken v. Holder, 556 U. S. 418, 428 (2009) (internal quota-
tion marks omitted).  An order telling the Governor not to
do what he’s not doing fails to meet that stringent standard.
As  noted,  the  challenged  restrictions  raise  serious  con-
cerns  under  the  Constitution,  and  I  agree  with  JUSTICE 
KAVANAUGH  that  they  are  distinguishable  from  those  we 
considered in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. New-
som, 590 U. S. ___ (2020), and Calvary Chapel Dayton Val-
ley v. Sisolak, 591 U. S. ___ (2020).  See ante, at 1, 3–4 (con-
curring opinion).  I take a different approach than the other 
dissenting Justices in this respect. 

To be clear, I do not regard my dissenting colleagues as 
“cutting the Constitution loose during a pandemic,” yielding
to  “a  particular  judicial  impulse  to  stay  out  of  the  way  in
times of crisis,” or “shelter[ing] in place when the Constitu-
tion is under attack.”  Ante, at 3, 5–6 (opinion of GORSUCH, 
J.).  They simply view the matter differently after careful 
study and analysis reflecting their best efforts to fulfill their 
responsibility under the Constitution. 

One solo concurrence today takes aim at my concurring
opinion  in  South  Bay.  See  ante,  at  3–6  (opinion  of 
GORSUCH, J.).  Today’s concurrence views that opinion with
disfavor because “[t]o justify its result, [it] reached back 100
years  in  the  U. S.  Reports  to  grab  hold  of  our  decision  in 
Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11 (1905).”  Ante, at 3. 
Today’s concurrence notes that Jacobson “was the first case 
South Bay cited on the substantive legal question before the
Court,”  and  “it  was  the  only  case  cited  involving  a  pan-
demic.”  Ante,  at  5.    And  it  suggests  that,  in  the  wake  of 
South Bay, some have “mistaken this Court’s modest deci-
sion in Jacobson for a towering authority that overshadows 
the Constitution during a pandemic.”  Ibid.  But while Ja-
cobson occupies three pages of today’s concurrence, it war-
ranted exactly one sentence in South Bay.  What did that 
one sentence say?  Only that “[o]ur Constitution principally
entrusts  ‘[t]he  safety  and  the  health  of  the  people’  to  the