Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1271_3f14.pdf
Page Number: 39

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

1 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

_________________ 

No. 21–1271 
_________________ 

TIMOTHY K. MOORE, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS 
SPEAKER OF THE NORTH CAROLINA HOUSE 
OF REPRESENTATIVES, ET AL., PETITIONERS 
v. REBECCA HARPER, ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF 
NORTH CAROLINA 

[June 27, 2023] 

JUSTICE  THOMAS,  with  whom  JUSTICE  GORSUCH  joins,
and with whom JUSTICE ALITO joins as to Part I, dissenting. 
This Court sits “to resolve not questions and issues but
‘Cases’ or ‘Controversies.’ ”  Arizona Christian School Tui-
tion  Organization  v.  Winn,  563  U. S.  125,  132  (2011);  see 
U. S. Const., Art. III, §1.  As a corollary of that basic consti-
tutional  principle,  the  Court  “is  without  power  to  decide 
moot  questions  or  to  give  advisory  opinions  which  cannot 
affect the rights of the litigants in the case before it.”  St. 
Pierre v. United States, 319 U. S. 41, 42 (1943) (per curiam).
To do so would be to violate “the oldest and most consistent 
thread in the federal law of justiciability.”  Flast v. Cohen, 
392 U. S. 83, 96 (1968) (internal quotation marks omitted). 
The  opinion  that  the  Court  releases  today  breaks  that
thread.  It “affirms” an interlocutory state-court judgment
that  has  since  been  overruled  and  supplanted  by  a  final 
judgment resolving all claims in petitioners’ favor.  The is-
sue on which it opines—a federal defense to claims already 
dismissed on other grounds—can no longer affect the judg-
ment in this litigation in any way.  As such, the question is 
indisputably moot, and today’s majority opinion is plainly 
advisory.  Because  the  writ  of  certiorari  should  be  dis-
missed, I respectfully dissent.