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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
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Appeals aren’t an infinite thing. Each appeal goes to a higher court, and eventually will reach the SCOTUS. And at any point, the respective appellate court can refuse to accept the appeal, essentially saying that they agree with the lower court’s ruling and leaving it in effect.
Each step of the appeals process basically asks if the lower court applied the corresponding laws correctly. And if they did, the appellate court looks at whether or not that law is constitutional. If both are true, (the law is constitutional and was applied correctly) then the appeal fails. Appeals are actually fairly hard to win, especially for laws that have lots of precedent. If a law already has lots of precedent and the lower court was simply applying the law the same way that other cases did, the appeal will almost certainly be shot down.
That’s why lots of the big landmark “court strikes down law as unconstitutional” cases are from laws that were recently passed. There is no long-standing precedent for the recently passed law, so the lower courts have to set the precedent, and the appeal is actually what is deciding whether or not the law is constitutional.
You are describing the courts like how they are supposed to work, not how they work. They are biased in favor of the powerful. Whether the law was applied correctly doesn't matter so much as who is the company appealing, and perhaps what consideration they can provide under the table.
It's a lot more corrupt than you would lead us to believe here, courts by and large think the republic is already dead in all but name, the higher up the chain you go the more that's true.