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 Tuition Organization v. Winn, 563 U. S. 125, 132 (2011); see U. S. Const., Art. III, §1. As a corollary of that basic constitutional 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 issue on which it opines—a federal defense to claims already dismissed on other grounds—can no longer affect the judgment 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 dismissed, I respectfully dissent.
