NEITHER THE lEFT NOR THE rIGHT IS READY FOR THE JACKSON/GORSUCH/ROBERTS/KAVANAUGH/KAGAN AXIS:

The day's second case, Bittner v. United States, also offers an interesting array of Justices. The case concerns the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and its implementing regulations that require U.S. persons with certain financial interests in foreign accounts to file an annual report known as an "FBAR"--the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts. The statute imposes a maximum $10,000 penalty for non-willful violations of the law. The government argued that penalties for such violations apply to each account not accurately or timely reported (Bittner had five such accounts), while Bittner argued that the BSA authorizes a $10,000 maximum penalty per report, not per account. Justice Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court in favor of Bittner's interpretation of the law, i.e., that non-willful violations are to be penalized on a per-report basis. However, he was joined only by four other Justices, the Chief Justice and Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, and the putatively liberal Justice Jackson, who even joined Justice Gorsuch in a separate opinion expatiating on the background of the statute and case law history. In the opposite corner of the ring, we find a group of dissenters led by Justice Barrett, who was joined by Justices Thomas, Sotomayor, and Kagan, who argued for the per-account penalty theory. 

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