Obvious HP although it's true that he does occasionally make some interesting decisions (although not always good.) The best I can say for him is that he's sometimes pretty good on free speech and the First Amendment, moreso when his buddy Scalia was around because Scalia was actually pretty strong on that in general, which elevates him a bit over Alito, by far the worst Justice.
Was Scalia the one who wrote that he desperately wished bans on flag desecration were constitutional, but it just wasn't so?
Scalia was far better on free speech than Thomas. Scalia's majority opinion in Brown v. EMA is an enjoyable read and absolutely correct. Thomas does not believe that the First Amendment applies to minors, although I fail to see how that was relevant to that case. If there's one place where Thomas ranks well, I think it's when it comes to indecent speech. He's already stated before that he wants to revisit and overturn FCC v. Pacifica Foundation.
If the current Court weren't so lopsided, I would've like to have seen a new obscenity case reach the Court. I'm very pessimistic when it comes to Barrett. I think the Court needs to reexamine what it deems to be obscene speech and include more under the protections of the First Amendment.
Well, Gorsuch has matched or exceeded Scalia in his commitment to free expression. The problem is he is kind of stranded now because Barrett and especially Kavanaugh are much more deferential to the government than RBG and Kennedy were.
Gorsuch is definitely one of the more interesting Justices on the Court right now, but I agree with you that his idiosyncratic influence has been dealt a serious blow with Barrett now replacing RBG. I think he would've joined the majority in both Texas v. Johnson and Brown v. EMA.
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