最高法院表示，一名基督教平面艺术家可以拒绝为同性恋夫妇制作婚礼网站，她在诉讼中提到了一个名叫“斯图尔特”的男子及其未婚夫的请求。转折?斯图尔特说这从未发生过。
这一发现引发了人们的质疑，萝莉·佩斯特·史密斯的案件是如何被允许在如此明显的虚假陈述下一直进行到美国最高法院的，以及上周败诉的科罗拉多州是否有任何法律追索权。
在最高法院高度两极分化的任期结束时，这是另一个分散注意力的事情，最高法院的特点是道德问题和有争议的裁决，这些裁决沿着反对高等教育和总统平权行动的意识形态路线乔·拜登4000亿美元计划取消或减少联邦学生贷款债务。
以下是围绕神秘的潜在客户“斯图尔特”的法律问题
索赔在案件中起了什么作用?
保守的法律团体“捍卫自由联盟”(Alliance Defending Freedom)于2016年在科罗拉多州联邦法院提起诉讼约一个月后，该州的律师表示，该案应该被驳回，部分原因是史密斯没有受到该州反歧视法的伤害。该州称，史密斯——在她的案件得到解决之前，她不打算开始创建婚礼网站——首先必须得到一对同性恋夫妇的请求并拒绝，这可能会引发对她的投诉。
史密斯的律师坚持认为，在挑战法律之前，她不必因违反法律而受到惩罚。在2017年2月的一份文件中，他们透露，尽管她不需要申请来继续这个案子，但事实上，她收到了一份申请。该申请的附录包括斯图尔特在2016年9月21日提交的网站申请表，这是在提起诉讼后几天提交的。它还包括一份2017年2月1日史密斯的宣誓书，声明已经收到斯图尔特的请求。
史密斯提交给最高法院的两份文件简要提到，她至少收到了一份创建同性婚礼网站的请求，但没有详细说明。
该申请称，Stewart和他的未婚夫Mike正在为他们即将到来的婚礼寻找设计工作，如请柬和餐具卡片。“我们也可以延伸到一个网站，”表格上写道。
科罗拉多州的律师在8月份提交给最高法院的摘要中写道，这并不等于对网站的实际请求，该公司没有采取任何措施来验证“真正的潜在客户提交了表格”。目前还不清楚该州是否采取了任何措施来验证斯图尔特——其联系信息被列入法庭文件——是否是一个真正的潜在客户。
斯图尔特上周告诉美联社，他甚至不知道自己的名字在这个案件中被引用，直到《新共和》的一名记者联系他，该报首先报道了他的否认。由于害怕骚扰和威胁，斯图尔特拒绝透露他的姓氏，他说他非常惊讶，并补充说他已经和一个女人结婚15年了。
这一发现会对现在的案件产生影响吗?
可能性极小。这位潜在客户的要求并不是史密斯最初诉讼的基础，高等法院也没有将其作为做出有利于她的裁决的理由。法律地位，或提起诉讼的权利，通常要求提起诉讼的人证明他们受到了某种伤害。但是，在某些情况下，如果当事人能够证明除非他们遵守法律，否则他们将面临起诉或制裁的可信威胁，那么强制执行前的质疑——就像史密斯提出的质疑——是允许的。
美国第十巡回上诉法院在最高法院审查了该案件，发现史密斯有起诉权。上诉法院指出，科罗拉多州过去有“针对几乎相同的行为”的执法历史，并且该州拒绝承诺如果史密斯违反法律就不会起诉她。
洛约拉法学院教授杰西卡·莱文森说:“如果有其他地方可以让你站起来，那么从法律上来说，我不认为这真的有什么不同。”
然而，莱文森说，这可能会破坏史密斯法律团队的可信度，从而影响案件，可能会导致法官对他们提交的其他任何东西都持怀疑态度。莱文森说，如果事实证明史密斯的法律团队知道斯图尔特的请求是虚假的，这也可能导致对他们的潜在制裁。
尽管这一发现不能改变判决，“这是应该在诉讼中提出的，”伯克利法学院院长欧文·切梅林斯基(Erwin Chemerinsky)说，“因为法院应该做的是说我们对此有疑问，我们无法解决它，我们将它发回联邦地区法院。”
克里斯汀·瓦格纳——捍卫自由联盟的主席，在高等法院为该案件辩护——说她的客户没有办法对那些申请业务的人进行背景调查，这样做也不是她的责任。周一，瓦格纳抨击了她的客户提出要求的说法，并补充说，“更有可能的情况是”“‘斯图尔特’或另一名活动家事实上提交了请求。”
“说萝莉·佩斯特·史密斯或ADF编造了一个同性婚礼网站的请求是谎言，”她在一份电子邮件声明中说。"编造一个请求是没有意义的，因为法庭判决她的案子并不需要这个请求。"
以前发生过类似的事情吗?
法律专家说，像这样的错误——尤其是在最高法院层面——是极不寻常的。
“假设指控是正确的，这在事实上是不准确的...“我以前从未见过如此明目张胆的事情，”亚当·费尔德曼说，他是实证主义博客SCOTUS的创始人，一直关注法院。
然而，律师们不得不收回之前在法庭上的陈述。
在最高法院代表政府的副检察长在今年的一份法庭文件中道歉，称他在2017年专利案件的口头辩论中向法庭做出了“不准确的陈述”。副检察长伊丽莎白·普雷洛加写道，美国专利商标局给了律师错误的信息，并补充说:“我们对所给答案无意中造成的任何误解感到遗憾。”
法院也在自己的裁决中包含了错误。2017年，ProPublica发表了几十个案例的评论，其中他们发现了几个“虚假或完全没有证据支持的事实主张”。其中之一是谢尔比县诉霍尔德案中的一个错误，该案推翻了选举权法案的部分地区。该出版物报道说，首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨在对某些州的黑人和白人选民登记的比较中包含了不正确的数据。
Legitimacy of 'customer' in Supreme Court gay rights case raises ethical, legal flags
A Christian graphic artist who the Supreme Court said can refuse to make wedding websites for gay couples pointed during her lawsuit to a request from a man named “Stewart” and his husband-to-be. The twist? Stewart says it never happened.
The revelation has raised questions about how Lorie Smith's case was allowed to proceed all the way to the nation's highest court with such an apparent misrepresentation and whether the state of Colorado, which lost the case last week, has any legal recourse.
It has served as another distraction at the end of a highly polarizing term for a Supreme Court marked by ethical questions and contentious rulings along ideological lines that rejected affirmative action in higher education and PresidentJoe Biden’s $400 billion plan to cancel or reduce federal student loan debts.
Here's a look at the legal questions surrounding the mysterious would-be customer, “Stewart:"
WHAT ROLE DID THE CLAIM PLAY IN THE CASE?
About a month after the conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom filed the case in Colorado federal court in 2016, lawyers for the state said it should be dismissed partly because Smith hadn't been harmed by the state’s anti-discrimination law. Smith — who did not plan to start creating wedding websites until her case was resolved — would first have to get a request from a gay couple and refuse, triggering a possible complaint against her, the state argued.
Smith's lawyers maintained that she didn't have to be punished for violating the law before challenging it. In a February 2017 filing, they revealed that though she did not need a request to pursue the case, she had, in fact, received one. An appendix to the filing included a website request form submitted by Stewart on Sept. 21, 2016, a few days after the lawsuit was filed. It also included a Feb. 1, 2017, affidavit from Smith stating that Stewart’s request had been received.
Two documents Smith filed with the Supreme Court briefly mention that she had received at least one request to create a website celebrating a same-sex wedding but do not elaborate.
The request stated that Stewart and his fiancé Mike were looking for design work on things like invitations and place setting cards for their upcoming wedding. “We might also stretch to a website,” the form said.
Lawyers for Colorado wrote in their brief to the Supreme Court in August that it did not amount to an actual request for a website and the company did not take any steps to verify that a “genuine prospective customer submitted the form.” It's not clear whether the state took any steps to verify whether Stewart — whose contact information was included in court papers — was a real potential customer.
Stewart told The Associated Press last week that he didn't even know his name had been invoked in the case until he was contacted by a reporter for The New Republic, which first reported his denial. Stewart, who declined to give his last name for fear of harassment and threats, said he was incredibly surprised, adding he has been married to a woman for 15 years.
COULD THE REVELATION IMPACT THE CASE NOW?
It's highly unlikely. The would-be customer's request was not the basis for Smith's original lawsuit, nor was it cited by the high court as the reason for ruling in her favor. Legal standing, or the right to bring a lawsuit, generally requires the person bringing the case to show that they have suffered some sort of harm. But pre-enforcement challenges — like the one Smith brought — are allowed in certain cases if the person can show they face a credible threat of prosecution or sanctions unless they conform to the law.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reviewed the case before the Supreme Court, found that Smith had standing to sue. That appeals court noted that Colorado had a history of past enforcement “against nearly identical conduct” and that the state decline to promise that it wouldn't go after Smith if she violated the law.
“If there are other places where you can get standing, then legally speaking I don’t think it actually does make a difference,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School.
However, it could have affected the case by undermining the credibility of Smith's legal team, potentially causing the judge to look more skeptically at everything else they filed, Levinson said. It could also result in potential sanctions against Smith's legal team if it turns out they knew Stewart's request was false, Levinson said.
While the revelation cannot change the decision, “it’s something that should’ve come up in the litigation,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law, “because then what the court should have done is say we have doubts about this, we can’t resolve it, we send it back to the federal district court.”
Kristen Waggoner — the president of Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued the case before the high court— has said her client doesn’t have a way of doing background checks on those requesting business nor is it her responsibility to do so. On Monday, Waggoner slammed suggestions that her client made up the request, adding that “the more likely scenario” is that "‘Stewart’ or another activist did in fact submit the request.”
“To say that Lorie Smith or ADF fabricated a request for a same-sex wedding website is a lie," she said in an emailed statement. “It would make no sense to have fabricated a request because one wasn’t required for the court to decide her case.”
HAS ANYTHING LIKE THIS HAPPENED BEFORE?
An error like that — especially at the level of the Supreme Court — is highly unusual, legal experts say.
“Assuming the allegation is correct that this was something that was factually inaccurate ... I've never seen anything that blatant happen before," said Adam Feldman, who follows the court as the creator of the Empirical SCOTUS blog.
Lawyers have, however, had to walk back statements made to the court before.
The solicitor general, who represents the government before the Supreme Court, apologized in a court filing this year for an “inaccurate statement” made to the court during oral arguments over a 2017 patent case. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote that the lawyer was given wrong information by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, adding: “We regret any misimpression inadvertently created by the answer that was given.”
The court has also included errors in its own rulings. In 2017, ProPublica published a review of several dozen cases in which they found several “false or wholly unsupported factual claims." Among them was an error in Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down part of the Voting Rights Act. The publication reported that Chief Justice John Roberts included incorrect data in a comparison of voter registration among Black people and white people in certain states.
