It's totally because the judgement on the case was very technical. The case wasn't decided on the merits of the arguments. It was thrown out because the defendants didn't have standing to defend the law. That's more of an institutional judgement rather than a constitutional one.
Sotomayor probably joined the dissent because she believed the court had reasonable ground to stand on, though it'a good bet she would've wanted to then kill it dead outright. Scalia and Roberts went with the majority because it would be precedent setting to allow someone who had no legal standing in a case to try to act as defense (keeping in mind that the normal defenders of the law should've been the state of CA & Kamala Harris, who opted not to defend the law). It's also far easier to kick out a case on a technicality than it is to make a broad sweeping ruling.
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Date: 2013-06-26 09:57 pm (UTC)Sotomayor probably joined the dissent because she believed the court had reasonable ground to stand on, though it'a good bet she would've wanted to then kill it dead outright. Scalia and Roberts went with the majority because it would be precedent setting to allow someone who had no legal standing in a case to try to act as defense (keeping in mind that the normal defenders of the law should've been the state of CA & Kamala Harris, who opted not to defend the law). It's also far easier to kick out a case on a technicality than it is to make a broad sweeping ruling.