Something interesting happened over the weekend. Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the 9 Supreme Court Justices was found dead in a ranch in Texas. Within hours, while the authorities were still trying to find a priest to administer his last rites, the Republican leaders and the Presidential contenders said in unison that they will not allow President Obama to nominate a replacement and it will be the new US President that will nominate Scalia’s successor. In other words, since the Republicans control the Senate and a nominee needs their approval, we will not have the 9th Supreme Court Justice until the spring of 2017.

So what happens when the Court is evenly divided among 4 liberal and 4 conservative judges? You get a 4-4 tie, in which case the decision of the lower court stands. One of the 13 cases that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear by June of this year is the case of Bank Markazi v. Peterson. This is a lawsuit by 1,300 American victims of Islamic Republic of Iran’s terrorism which they won and were awarded $1.75 billion in damages. Bank Markazi’s assets in Citibank were ordered frozen by Obama Administration in 2012 so that the payout can be made.

The IR Regime appealed the case to the 2nd District Court in NY and made the key argument that the US Congress overstepped its authorities by passing laws that facilitated this payout, in spite of legal precedence. The 2nd District Court rejected their argument. Bank Markazi appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The Court asked Obama Administration for their view. The Administration asked the Court not to review the ruling and let it stand. The Court did not agree. What this means was that a 5-4 conservative majority agreed with Bank Markazi on the narrow legal issue of Separation of Powers and wanted to overturn the lower court’s decision. The Court will be hearing the arguments soon and a decision will be forthcoming by June

Now with Justice Scalia gone and no replacement in the near future, the Court is looking at a 4-4 vote which means the decision of the lower court will be final and the 1,300 victims of the Regime’s terrorism will get their hands on the $1.75 billion award.

One of the people who will get justice is Steve Kerr, the coach of the NBA Golden State Warriors basketball team whose father Malcolm was shot and killed in Beirut in 1984 by the Islamic Jihad. He was the President of the American University of Beirut.

Go Warriors!