SCOTUS

  • The Supreme Court has rejected without comment the ACLU's challenge to the Bush administration's domestic spying program. From the AP:
    The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit, saying the plaintiffs could not prove their communications had been monitored.

    The government has refused to turn over information about the closely guarded program that could reveal who has been under surveillance.

    ACLU legal director Steven R. Shapiro has said his group is in a "Catch-22" because the government says the identities of people whose communications have been intercepted is secret. But only people who know they have been wiretapped can sue over the program, Shapiro has said.
    So deliciously Orwellian. (22) #
    2/19/2008
  • Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is teaming up with legal writing expert Bryan Garner to write a book on "the art of persuading judges." I own the excellent Garner's Modern American Usage (based on David Foster Wallace's rave review), and have admired the prose (but usually not the arguments) of Scalia's decisions -- so although I have no professional need for this book, I still think it will be an interesting read. (5) #
    11/27/2007
  • Following up a post from two weeks ago from the Democratic side, here's a speculative shortlist of who would might be nominated next for the Supreme Court if a Republican candidate wins the presidency in 2008. (1) #
    7/23/2007
  • Edward Lazarus on the possible effects of the 2008 election on the Supreme Court. If a Republican wins the 2008 election, the Supreme Court will likely shift greatly to the right; if a Democrat wins, expect the status quo for at least another ten years (barring any surprise deaths).
    Conservative voters who are tempted to vote for a moderate Democrat, yet fear that the Supreme Court will veer left as a result, have no reason to worry. Conversely, liberal voters who are tempted to vote for a moderate Republican should know that if such a candidate wins, the Supreme Court may well veer sharply rightward.
    (0) #
    7/20/2007
  • An interesting speculative shortlist of who would might be nominated next for the Supreme Court if a Democratic candidate wins the presidency in 2008. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan, and even Barack Obama makes the list. (6) #
    7/12/2007
  • An interesting brief essay on how the general composition of the Supreme Court has changed over the past 100 years. The experiences and backgrounds of past judges were more varied and more likely to have legislative experience.
    There undoubtedly are many reasons for this phenomenon – a post-Bork confirmation process that favors nominees with no “paper trail”; interest groups in both parties that demand nominees likely to be “dependable” votes in certain kinds of cases; and the widespread impression – fostered by the ascendant legal ideology – that judging is a technical exercise, for which the essential credential is expertise in the legal academy, as a judge, or the equivalent.
    (0) #
    6/29/2007
  • Nothing scares me more than Supreme Court Justice Scalia using the example of 24's Jack Bauer to support his positions:
    The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. "Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. ... He saved hundreds of thousands of lives," Judge Scalia said. "Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?" Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges.
    Isn't the presidential pardon a sufficient escape hatch for these one in a billion ticking time bomb hypotheticals? (6) #
    6/19/2007
  • Regardless of your position on abortion, it seems like yesterday's Supreme Court decision to allow Congress to ban the intact dilation and extraction procedure came about solely because Alito has replaced O'Connor, rather than any new legal distinction. Kennedy, however, tried his damn best to make one in the majority opinion -- but Slate's Dahlia Lithwick thinks his argument is both personal and paternalistic. (9) #
    4/19/2007
  • With this being the last week of the current Supreme Court session, the final big decisions are starting to roll out. Slate has a clear and informative discussion going on about this crucial moment in the judicial world. E.g., today the court decided 5-4 that during death penalty sentencing, when factors favoring life and favoring death are exactly equal, the state can force the jury to choose death. (I.e., the "tie goes to Death" law of Kansas is constitutional.) And at 6-3 they ruled that Vermont's limitations on campaign expenditures is uncostitutionial. By next Monday at the latest, expect a huge decision on the use of military trials for "war on terror" cases. This is important shit -- do you think the results are just? (3) #
    6/26/2006

Alito Sworn In

Samuel Alito has been sworn in as the 110th Supreme Court Justice.

Some statistics:

13% -- Percentage of American population that is Roman Catholic and male. [source]

56% -- Percentage of Supreme Court that is Roman Catholic and male. [Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, Kennedy]

67%78% -- Percentage of Supreme Court nominated by a Republican president. [Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, Kennedy, Souter, Stevens]

100% -- Percentage of the Catholic males on the Court nominated by a Republican president.

Tue, 01/31/2006 - 11:28am

So I guess that answers the question

Miers's abortion survey

The above image is from a survey Harriet Miers filled out when running for Dallas city council. The survey was given by Texans United for Life, a pro-life organization. The rest of the questionnairre has other clear indicators that Miers was very much pro-life in 1989, even to the point of wishing for a Human Life Amendment in the constitution to proscribe abortion. Anyone who thinks that it's still up in the air whether or not Miers would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade is kidding themselves. And from the right's point of view, that seems to be her one qualification. (via the gleaner)

Tue, 10/18/2005 - 2:34pm
  • Edward Lazarus chimes in on the Miers nomination in this excellent, excellent article on FindLaw. "If nothing else, the conservative infighting over Miers has revealed that the most conservatives do not believe their own hokum about judicial neutrality, any more than liberals do. In truth, they think that personal values are crucially important to judging, and that liberal and conservative judges alike inject these values into their decision-making." I think this is a must-read -- he really nails the essence of the controversy and dispels several myths most people have about the Supreme Court. Lazarus was a clerk for Justice Blackmun (who penned the Roe v. Wade decision) and wrote Closed Chambers, an enthralling behind-the-scenes look at the US Supreme Court. (1) #
    10/13/2005

Sexism and Miers

Harriet Miers Dear Bush: "You are the best governor ever..." Best, Harriet Miers. That's a real quote -- click the link to see more cloying quotes from the New York Times.

OK, so she's not exactly qualified for the Supreme Court, and the nomination does smack of cronyism, but I'm beginning to think that some of the criticism is encroaching upon sexism. Take the apocryphal Harriet Miers blog, which portrays her as a bubbly idiot lacking self-esteem and obsessed with fame. My guess is that if a male with her qualifications was nominated, we wouldn't see anything like this blog linked to from major blogs and news sources (even if as a joke). There's something about her being underqualified and being a woman that leads to this sort of ditzy humor.

Laura Bush has also suggested that sexism might be in play here, but I think she's responding to all claims of Mier's lack of qualifications. I won't go that far -- I do think she's underqualified, and I see no problem with the media hammering that point -- but by simultaneously mocking her girlish language, even if the intentions are benign, the accusation of sexism begins to accrue merit. This would be harmless if the jokes were confined to late-night television and flippant blogs, but problems arise when the mainstream media jumps on the bandwagon. If Miers's confirmation does get defeated, it will be interesting to see how historians explain the causes ten years from now.

One last thing: I myself am torn on whether or not I want Miers to be confirmed. On the one hand -- consider it my idealist hand -- I want her to be defeated because her presence on the court will likely aggravate the bitter divide that already haunts the court, and because she'll likely vote for the Bush agenda without pause. On the other hand -- my practical hand -- her getting confirmed is the least bad option, since she may prove to be an inneffective advocate in swaying the opinions of other justices, and a more qualified nominee, say an intellectual powerhorse such as Roberts, will vote similarly and be a better persuader.

Tue, 10/11/2005 - 12:04pm
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