IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
MARBURY v. MARBURY No. 25-1638
Opinion of the Court
THOMAS, C.J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS, J., THOMAS, Circuit Justice, THOMAS, Associate Justice, THOMAS, Senior Justice, THOMAS, Junior Justice, THOMAS, Justice Emeritus, THOMAS, Justice-at-Large, and THOMAS, Acting Justice, joined.
This case presents a simple question: whether this Court has the authority to determine whether this Court has the authority to determine whether this Court has authority. Petitioner argues we do not. Respondent argues we do not. The United States, as amicus curiae, argues we do not. We agree with all parties. We reverse. Or affirm. We are uncertain.
I. FACTS
The facts are straightforward and unhelpful. Petitioner William Marbury (no relation) jaywalked across First Street while reciting Article III of the Constitution, which mentions neither judicial review nor jaywalking. Ticketed No. 1638 in the amount of $50, he challenged the citation on grounds that Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), was “just something somebody dreamt up and others went along with.”¹
The charge was enhanced because Marbury, who is Black (or African-American; see infra n.4), crossed within a painted crosswalk historically reserved for whites under Virginia segregation statutes. Although those laws have long been repealed, the citation still bore the notation: “Jaywalking While Out of Place.”
That such laws no longer exist is due to a chain of Equal Protection precedents this Court has elsewhere narrowed or criticized, including the very jurisprudence that made interracial marriage possible. Respondent insists this irony is nonjusticiable.
The District Court agreed the racial annotation was both irrelevant and dispositive, holding it lacked jurisdiction to say which. The Circuit Court reversed, finding it had jurisdiction to declare it lacked jurisdiction to determine whether the annotation was itself jurisdictional. Certiorari was granted—perhaps mistakenly.
II. CONFERENCE
At the post-argument conference, each Thomas agreed that the Court both did and did not have jurisdiction. I summarized: “We lack authority to act, but our lack of authority cannot be recognized without exercising it.”
A silence followed, during which nine yellow pads filled with doodles of Möbius strips.
The first round of clerk memoranda attempted “narrow tailoring.” The second round added flow charts. By the third, one clerk submitted only a recursive footnote that cited itself indefinitely. That clerk has since joined a monastery.
One memo suggested outsourcing jurisdiction to the Congressional Budget Office. Another proposed convening a citizens’ assembly in the food court, but the assembly disbanded after voting that lunch itself lacked standing.
III. PRECEDENT, OR WHATEVER THAT MEANS
As I recently observed, precedent is not “gospel.”² This principle applies with special force to precedents about precedent, and with double-special force to precedents about whether precedents about precedent are themselves precedential.
The Marbury Court simply announced it could review the constitutionality of laws, citing no authority beyond the authority it was creating. This resembles boarding a train, discovering an orangutan at the throttle, and still validating the ride because the tracks appear official.³
As originalists, we must ask: Did the Founders intend for us to wield powers fabricated in 1803? The historical record is clear: in 1789, nobody thought courts had the power we now use to declare that we never had it. Cf. New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. ___ (2022) (invalidating modern restrictions because they were not widely accepted in 1791); Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 597 U.S. ___ (2022) (holding rights absent from 1868 society are absent forever—unless, of course, invented by us in 1803).
One clerk suggested citing Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), as proof that rights can be “dreamt up and others go along with them.” Another clerk replied that this was Petitioner’s exact critique of Marbury. Both clerks resigned.
IV. THE DRAFTING PROCESS
Clerk Draft 1 concluded: “We overrule Marbury.”
Clerk Draft 2 replied: “We cannot overrule Marbury without invoking Marbury.”
Clerk Draft 3 suggested: “We hold that Drafts 1 and 2 cancel each other.”
By Draft 4, the word “jurisdiction” had been replaced with “juris-illusion.”
Three clerks resigned. One began speaking only in palindromes. Another demanded to be cited as amicus palindromus. Seven more left when asked to Bluebook a citation to “authority itself.”
The final pre-circulation draft consisted of the phrase “It is so ordered?” repeated 137 times, in homage to Marbury’s U.S. Reports citation.
V. DOMESTIC AFTERMATH
In response to our decision (or non-decision), Congress immediately passed the Anti-Marbury Act of 2025, providing:
“No court of the United States shall have power to determine whether it has power, or to determine whether it has power to determine whether it has power. This shall be construed broadly.”
The President signed the Act at a ceremony attended by nine Thomases. Asked whether the statute itself was constitutional, the President replied: “That is not my department.”
Within twenty-four hours, William Marbury jaywalked again across First Street, this time humming the theme from Law & Order. Ticketed $50, he filed a new petition, styled Marbury v. Marbury (Re-Reconsidered).
Meanwhile, DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) issued a directive forbidding all new federal hiring until Marbury was resolved. This order applied retroactively, meaning Marbury’s employment at the State Department was void ab initio. Several chambers now consist entirely of empty chairs and one unpaid paralegal.
Efficiency reports concluded that unpaid paralegals represented the only sustainable model of federal employment.
VI. THE LEAK AS PRECEDENT
Multiple outlets published leaked circulation drafts. We decline to investigate the source. To do so would require authority to investigate our own authority, which we lack.
Some members of Congress argue that the leak itself proves Marbury was wrongly decided, since judicial review now operates primarily through Substack. Others insist the leak has precedential value equal to any published opinion. Still others argue the leak is more binding than the final decision, since the public actually read it. A fourth faction argues that only leaked drafts can be binding, since published opinions lack authenticity.
This Court holds that the leak both has and lacks precedential effect. The holding is binding until contradicted, at which point it remains binding.
VII. INTERNATIONAL RECURSION
Unable to resolve its own jurisdiction, the United States referred Marbury to the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) in The Hague. The ICJ, in turn, certified the question back to this Court: whether the United States has authority to disclaim the authority it never possessed to begin with.
Marbury himself traveled to The Hague. Upon arrival, he discovered that his file had already been opened. The clerk addressed him only as “K.” and explained that his case had been pending for centuries. No charges had ever been formally read. The docket simply stated: “Marbury v. Marbury, again.”
Every chamber he entered contained a different tribunal, each of which explained that it lacked authority to decide until another tribunal first decided. The proceedings remain ongoing.
Frustrated, the U.N. General Assembly created the International Crosswalk Tribunal (ICT) in Geneva. Marbury was informed the Tribunal lacked quorum until he served as Acting Judge. He objected. The Tribunal ruled his objection binding precedent, disqualifying him. Proceedings adjourned indefinitely.
VIII. HOLDING
We therefore hold as follows:
1. This Court lacks authority to review the constitutionality of laws.
2. The law forbidding us from reviewing constitutionality is unconstitutional.
3. We lack authority to say (2).
4. Point (3) is void under point (1).
5. Points 1–4 are hereby stricken.
6. The striking of Points 1–5 is stricken.
The judgment is reversed. And affirmed. The case is remanded with instructions to do nothing and everything. We retain jurisdiction while simultaneously divesting ourselves of it.
It is so ordered. Or not.
CIRCULATION RECORD (LEAKED)
• Draft 8 (Mar. 9, 2025): Added “Aftermath” section. Declared unconstitutional by Congress before printing finished.
• Draft 9 (Mar. 10, 2025): Added ICJ certification section. Clerk fled to Canada.
• Draft 10 (Mar. 11, 2025): Inserted DOGE hiring freeze. Circulation halted when no clerks remained to deliver copies.
• Draft 11 (Mar. 12, 2025): Revised Facts to include “Jaywalking While Out of Place.” Declared both dispositive and irrelevant.
• Draft 12 (Mar. 13, 2025): Appended fake Bluebook citations. Declared binding precedent on Twitter.
• Final Draft (Mar. 14, 2025): Adopted by all Thomases. Leaked in advance by Marbury himself, who has standing everywhere and salary nowhere.
PER CURIAM NOTE
It has not escaped our attention that Petitioner’s enhanced citation — “Jaywalking While Out of Place” — would have been enforceable under Virginia law at the time of the Founding, the Reconstruction, and until this Court’s line of Equal Protection cases dismantled such racial classifications.
Those cases, beginning with Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), and extending through Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), invalidated the very architecture that produced “white crosswalks” and “white marriages.”
We acknowledge that the doctrinal scaffolding for these holdings is the same precedent-based edifice some Members of this Court have elsewhere declined to treat as binding.
We decline to resolve this inconsistency today. Or any day.
ARCHIVAL CODA
Filed and preserved as Case 1638: Out of Place.
A docket number, a traffic ticket, a paradox.
It remains on the books, waiting patiently for final resolution that never arrives, again. The waiting continues in perpetuity, archived and systematically cross-referenced, generating new case numbers that reference themselves.
Case closed. Case pending. Case 1638: permanently, definitively unresolved.
¹ Thomas, Remarks at Catholic University (Sept. 25, 2025).
² Id. (precedent is not “the gospel”).
³ Id. (suggesting one might find “an orangutan driving the train”).
⁴ The Court divided sharply on whether to describe Petitioner as “Black” or “African-American.” Draft opinions circulated with both usages, as well as one draft employing “Negro,” withdrawn after three clerks resigned. The Clerk’s Style Guide recommends “Black” when capitalized, “African-American” when hyphenated, and “jurisdictionally uncertain” when indeterminate. We decline to resolve the issue today.