I still think the most interesting thing about the nominations and confirmations in 2005 and early 2006 has been the fact that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor submitted her resignation effective only upon her successor's confirmation. But unless she resigns, there is no vacancy, so there could be no nominations. If I had been the President of the United States, I would have sent back a letter telling her to resign or don't, but not to try to have it both ways.
All the discussion about President Obama's nominees, Judge Sonia Sotomayor and Ms. Elena Kagan is located on another nearby page.
Outdated material about Samuel Alito and Harriet Miers has been moved to this page in order to save bandwidth and reduce clutter.
Look on this page for information about the Supreme Court's handling of the gun ban in the District of Columbia.
The recent case of Boumediene v. Bush is discussed here.
Supreme Court says no to debate over Elena Kagan health care role. The Supreme Court on Monday [1/23/2012] denied a request for debate over whether Justice Elena Kagan should recuse herself from the health care reform case due to be argued in March. Freedom Watch, a group led by Larry Klayman, asked the court for permission to file a brief on Kagan's participation in the case.
Supreme Court delivers a knockout punch to the White House? There was just one big problem standing in the way of the government's plan: the U.S. Constitution. For a long time American courts have recognized the existence of a "ministerial exemption" which keeps government's hands off the employment relationship between a religious institution and its ministers or clergy. Here, in this case, the Department of Justice had the nerve to not only challenge the exemption's application but also its very existence.
EPA reach too far? The Supreme Court on Monday [1/9/2012] heard arguments in a case that sounds small but could have huge implications for property owners, corporations and federal regulations. Some of the justices were clearly critical of the Environmental Protection Agency, calling its actions in the case heavy handed. The justices were considering whether to let an Idaho couple challenge an EPA order identifying their 0.63-acre lot as "protected wetlands."
Supreme Court case involving Idaho lake house ignites conservative cause against EPA. This month, the Supreme Court will review the Sacketts' four-year-long effort to build on land that the EPA says contains environmentally sensitive wetlands. A decision in the couple's favor could curtail the EPA's authority and mean a fundamental change in the way the agency enforces the Clean Water Act. Even before the court takes up the case, the couple have become a favored cause for developers, corporations, utilities, libertarians and conservative members of Congress, who condemn what one ally told the court is the EPA's "abominable bureaucratic abuse."
Supreme Court will hear Arizona immigration case: Kagan recuses herself. The Supreme Court announced Monday [12/12/2011] it will take the case of Arizona's tough immigration crackdown law, adding yet another contentious clash between the Obama administration and the states to its docket. The case, which has attracted national attention, pits Arizona against the Obama administration, which sued and won court orders blocking implementation of most of the law at both the district and appeals court levels.
Supreme Court will hear health care case this term. The Supreme Court said Monday [11/14/2011] it will hear arguments next March over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul — a case that could shake the political landscape as voters are deciding if Obama deserves another term.
Supreme Court will hear health care case. The Supreme Court on Monday said it will hear challenges to President Obama's signature health care law next spring, meaning it is likely to rule by June, right in the middle of the president's bid for re-election. The court has carved out more than five hours for oral argument at the end of March — far more than the usual one hour allotted to most cases, and evidence of the intense legal debate and high political stakes.
Undoing Obamacare. The Supreme Court's decision to take up the challenges to Obamacare is certainly good news for the law's opponents. At the very least, a decision next year would put Obamacare front and center in the heart of election season when the Democrats would like nothing better than to pretend that Obama's first two years did not exist. At most, it could also dramatically weaken and undercut the statute itself, helping to clear the way for its repeal.
Court announcement raises recusal questions for Kagan, Thomas. "Before the Supreme Court case is heard, we need to know if Justice Elena Kagan helped the Obama administration prepare its defense for Obamacare when she was solicitor general. The Justice Department must answer serious questions about whether Justice Kagan has an inherent conflict of interest, which would demand that she recuse herself from the Obamacare case," said Rep. John Fleming, Louisiana Republican.
Supreme Court justice: Warrantless GPS tracking 'sounds like 1984'. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in United States v. Jones, a case that will determine whether the government has the right to use GPS devices to track the locations of criminal suspects without a warrant. Several justices reportedly expressed concern over the government's argument, but Justice Stephen Breyer seemed particularly unnerved, bringing George Orwell into the legal debate.
Supreme Court Hears Whether GPS Counts as 'Big Brother'. Citizens traveling public highways should have no expectation of privacy just because police are tracking their movements through GPS rather than in person, the U.S. government argued Tuesday [11/8/2011] in a case before the Supreme Court that pits the interest of law enforcement against individual privacy rights. The dispute springs from a situation in which police affixed a GPS tracking device to a suspect's car without a proper warrant. It monitored the suspect's movements for several weeks, noting where his vehicle went and how long it stayed at each location.
Is the Supreme Court a Constitution-free zone? On January 11, 2008, police arrested 80 protesters at the Supreme Court. Why is the Supreme Court — of all places — off limits to protest? ... The Constitution protects the right to peaceful protests. The Supreme Court exists to protect the Constitution. Banning protests at the Supreme Court is at best a mixed signal; at worse, hypocrisy.
Activist judges at the highest level:
First Lady: Kagan, Sotomayor Will Protect Right to 'Love Whomever We Choose'. First Lady Michelle Obama told two audiences at Democratic fundraising events on Tuesday [10/25/2011] that the justices her husband appointed to the Supreme Court will protect the right to "love whomever we choose." She also said these justices would protect "privacy" — presumably a reference to the "right to privacy" the court invoked in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the United States.
Doubting Thomas. Liberals have disliked the idea of Clarence Thomas voting on the Supreme Court for 20 years now. The current drumbeat began in February when 73 House Democrats demanded the justice recuse himself from any case involving the health care law because of his wife's work as a lobbyist and conservative activist. The ringleader of this effort was that ethical giant, then Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY).
Twenty Years of Justice Thomas. This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of Clarence Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court. In his first two decades on the bench, Justice Thomas has established himself as the original Constitution's greatest defender against elite efforts at social engineering. His stances for limited government and individual freedom make him the left's lightning rod and the tea party's intellectual godfather. And he is only halfway through the 40 years he may sit on the high court.
Liberals are trying to discredit Justice Thomas with baseless attacks. Justice Clarence Thomas's critics are apparently unsatisfied by the invective and personal attacks that have been hurled at Thomas over the years. The seemingly unending stream of baseless attacks proves that they are engaged in a coordinated effort to impugn his credibility and devalue his vote in one of the most important Supreme Court cases of the 21st century. The most laughable of the attacks came last month, when 20 members of Congress called for Justice Thomas to be criminally investigated.
The Ugliness Started With Bork. On Oct. 23, 1987 — 24 years ago on Sunday — Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court was voted down by the Senate. All but two Democrats voted "nay." The rejection of a Supreme Court nominee is unusual but not unheard of (see Clement Haynsworth Jr.). But rarely has a failed nominee had the pedigree — and intellectual firepower — of Bork. He had been a law professor at Yale, the solicitor general of the United States and, at the time Ronald Reagan tapped him for the court, a federal appeals court judge. Moreover, Bork was a legal intellectual, a proponent of original intent and judicial restraint.
The legacy of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings. Even now, with the healing distance of two decades, the subject of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas retains its power to provoke and divide. It was 20 years ago this month that Hill's allegations of sexual harassment surfaced, threatening to derail Thomas's imminent confirmation to the Supreme Court. I spent the weekend-long marathon of hearings in the Senate Caucus Room, the majestic setting of soaring marble columns and gilded ceiling contrasting with the squalid details of Hill's allegations. It was both riveting and horrifying.
The Supreme Arbiter of Your Liberty. Now that the Department of Justice has petitioned the Supreme Court to review Florida v. HHS, the high-profile challenge to Obamacare whose plaintiffs include officials of 26 states, most experts believe the justices will take up the case this term and issue their decision next summer. This possibility has been greeted with no small amount of glee by the law's opponents. But we should be careful what we wish for. ... The deciding vote will probably be cast by a justice whose opinions have been all over the ideological map.
Top court won't review gun rights outside of home. The Supreme Court refused Monday [10/3/2011] to consider whether an individual's right to own guns includes carrying a firearm outside the home, staying out of one of the nation's most divisive social, political and legal issues.
26 states appeal health care law to Supreme Court. States and a business group opposed to President Barack Obama's health care overhaul asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday [9/28/2011] for a speedy ruling that puts an end to the law aimed at extending insurance coverage to more than 30 million people.
What Constitutionalism Means. The Supreme Court has amended the Constitution hundreds of times, in ways large and small, by reinterpreting its provisions, almost always to serve progressive ends. American constitutional law now includes restrictions on police procedure, regulations on permissible school-discipline policies, minute if unpredictable edicts about the proper placement of municipal displays involving religion, and rights to solicit and perform abortion at any stage of pregnancy. In each case, Americans had spent decades living under the relevant constitutional provisions without anyone's imagining that they commanded what the Court now says they command.
Arizona court OK's abortion restrictions. An Arizona appeals court ruled yesterday [8/11/2011] to allow key parts of a state law restricting abortions to take effect, including one that requires women to see a doctor in person the day before getting an abortion to hear about risks and alternatives.
The Threat Of Liberal Judicial Activism Reaches New Heights. On July 7, in a case largely ignored by the media, dissenting Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan carried judicial activism to new heights by advocating a stay of execution on the basis of an imaginary law. They thereby revealed themselves to be so desperate to save barbaric murderers that they unashamedly and brazenly sought to apply un-enacted legislation introduced on June 14 by one senator, Patrick Leahy, with not a single cosponsor and by no representative at all.
Supreme Court deals major blow to environmentalists. Environmental activists, supported by a cadre of impassioned academic lawyers, have been looking to the common law of nuisance as a way to appeal directly to the courts and circumvent the administrative and legislative processes of government. On June 20th, a unanimous United States Supreme Court dealt a blow to their theory. In American Electric Power v. Connecticut, the Court ruled that the Clean Air Act preempts a claim that carbon emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants constitute a nuisance under federal common law.
Proof that the Democrats know Obama will not be re-elected:
An inconvenient Justice. It is dawning on the Left that their messiah is turning into a Pied Piper, and some among them are scared that a conservative successor to President Obama would appoint too many Supreme Court justices. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 78 and a colon and pancreatic cancer survivor, and as such, is just beginning to see opinions starting to be published to the effect that she should leave the bench now, so as to allow President Obama and the Democrat-led Senate confirm a left wing justice to replace her.
Supreme skeptics. The justices of the United States Supreme Court this week became the world's most august global warming sceptics. Not by virtue of their legal reasoning — the global warming case they decided turned on a technical legal issue — but in their surprising commentary. Global warming is by no means a settled issue, they made clear, suggesting it would be foolhardy to assume it was.
Supremes retreat from climate panic. The Supreme Court dealt Al Gore, the Environmental Protection Agency and other believers in alarmist climate science a surprising and severe blow this week. In its June 20 decision on American Electric Power v. Connecticut et al., the court ruled that the mere existence of EPA regulatory authority over greenhouse-gas regulations pre-empted lawsuits against coal-burning utilities on the grounds that the emissions constitute a public nuisance.
Supreme Court Rejects Environmentalists' Suit Demanding Power Plant Emissions Cuts. In the most significant global warming case to reach its front doors, the Supreme Court on Monday [6/20/2011] blocked a major lawsuit brought by states and environmental groups against five large power companies they accused of creating a public nuisance because of carbon dioxide emissions.
And the Climate Tort Cashiered. The Court unanimously struck down one of the legal left's most destructive theories, and not a moment too soon. In American Electric Power v. Connecticut, eight states and various other environmental activists sued a group of utilities, claiming that their carbon emissions were a "nuisance" under federal common law and that therefore the courts should set U.S. global warming policy.
Nuts to Acorn. The case of Acorn v. U.S. ended with a whimper this week as the U.S. Supreme Court turned aside the advocacy group's attempt to revive its lawsuit claiming that Congress had acted unconstitutionally in denying it federal funds.
More about ACORN.
The supremes order up a crime wave. Justice Anthony Kennedy's order — joined, unsurprisingly, by his four liberal brethren — forces California to release 46,000 convicted criminals. It is, as dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia dubbed it, "the most radical injunction issued by a court in our Nation's history." Kennedy's dangerous decision is based on the claim that California provides inadequate medical care for its convicts — care so poor as to violate the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."
SCOTUS needs an ethical code. Supreme Court justices are the closest thing we have to absolute monarchs. They have immense power over our lives, are accountable to no one for their decisions and can stay in office for life. In return, they must not only act honestly and impartially but should avoid doing anything that even looks dubious. As the court often reminds us, the appearance of justice is as important as justice itself. Judging by recent actions, however, some current justices don't seem to buy that. Today, Supreme Court justices are subject to virtually no ethical standards — except those they impose on themselves. That is not good enough.
Supreme Court Allows Obamacare to Metastasize. The Supreme Court's decision to deny Virginia's request for expedited review of its Obamacare lawsuit was disappointing but not surprising. Even the Old Dominion's Attorney General, Kenneth Cuccinelli, has admitted all along that his chances of convincing the high court to grant his "petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment" were quite low. Nonetheless, the White House and its accomplices in the "news" media have greeted the decision with thinly disguised glee.
Supreme Court signals it will toss out global-warming lawsuit. Justices are skeptical about the lawsuit brought by six states, including California and New York, against coal-fired power plants in the South and Midwest. An Obama administration lawyer says it's a matter for the EPA to handle.
Supreme Court signals it will dismiss major climate-change case. The U.S. Supreme Court signaled Tuesday [4/19/2011] it will dismiss a major climate-change case, with justices indicating that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rather than the courts should address greenhouse-gas emissions from major power plants. "Congress set up the EPA to promulgate standards for emissions, and the relief you're seeking seems to me to set up a district judge, who does not have the resources, the expertise, as a kind of super EPA," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Tuesday [4/19/2011].
Supremes open to greenwashing. Global-warming alarmists have failed to make their case in the court of public opinion, so they're taking their propaganda to the Supreme Court instead. Like many ideological movements that lack political traction, the left is hoping that what politicians have disposed of the judiciary will impose.
Dem lawmaker says Supreme Court may nix individual mandate. On the one-year anniversary of the historic healthcare reform law, at least one Democratic congressman disagrees with his party's prevalent opinion and believes the U.S. Supreme Court may well strike down the law's individual mandate as unconstitutional.
Elena Kagan Needs to Recuse Herself from Health-Care Case, Says Author of Virginia Law. Virginia Del. Bob Marshall, the state legislator who sponsored the law that forbids any government from forcing individuals in Virginia to buy health insurance, says that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan should recuse herself from judging Virginia's suit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare because she was President Obama's solicitor general when the suit was filed and when the Obama administration first took steps to oppose it.
Is Rep. Weiner Aiding Efforts To Have Justice Thomas Disbarred? Megyn Kelly discussed reports that Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner is leading a charge to have Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas disbarred for perjury and investigated for allegations of bribery. Weiner has passionately argued before for Thomas to recuse himself for cases on healthcare reform because of an alleged bias, and now if these reports are true, Weiner is intensifying the fight.
Clarence Thomas Faces Disbarment Complaint in Missouri. The group Protect Our Elections is looking to get Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas disbarred in Missouri. He would still be on the court, but face a possible investigation by the justice department. POE attorney Kevin Zeese says Thomas committed multiple violations of the Missouri Rules of Professional Conduct. Zeese asks the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel to take immediate action against Thomas, including disbarment.
The liberal campaign against SCOTUS conservatives. Still reeling from a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that opened the door to an explosion of political ads from corporate interests, and fearful the court could overturn President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul, liberal groups have launched an aggressive — and at times personal — attack on the court's most conservative justices.
High court turns aside another lawsuit questioning Obama citizenship. The Supreme Court has again rejected an appeal from a "birther" proponent questioning the citizenship of President Barack Obama. The justices Monday [3/7/2011] turned aside without comment a request for a rehearing of various claims, after dismissing the original appeal in late January. The long-shot petition by Gregory Hollister had called on Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to withdraw from considering the constitutional claims, contending a conflict of interest by the president's two high court appointees.
The Death of Common Decency. The Supreme Court ruled that the Westboro Baptist Church's behavior in demonstrating at the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder was protected speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution. The Court of Public Opinion must hold the demonstrators to a different standard.
The Constitution and the Courts. Would you believe Obamacare was suddenly constitutional if the Supreme Court declined to overturn it? If the Court not only decided to overturn DOMA but issued a Roe v. Wade of gay marriage, would you believe the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution intended that result? Was the original Roe a correct reading of the Constitution? If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you'll see why arguing that only the Supreme Court can decide what is constitutional is counterproductive at best.
How Should We Interpret the Constitution? The Constitution is plainly written. It was intended to be easy to understand. The Constitution is also short. Why do we need a process for interpreting the Constitution? If we have such a process for divining the meaning of the Constitution, why should that process be secret deliberations of nine judges who are effectively unaccountable to the people? The issue, after ObamaCare, has become more than academic.
The Supreme Court Is Not Our Benevolent Dictator. The clear and inherent constraints of the Constitution would, if applied with intellectual honesty, put an end to the expansionist vision of the federal government that is essential to the Left's program of statism. The Left cannot abide applying the Constitution as it is written because this would upend its multipronged efforts to reshape American government and society at large. There is, for example, nothing in the Constitution allowing for a federal mandate that all adults purchase health insurance.
Broken-down-door policing. A police officer smells what he thinks is marijuana and knocks loudly on an apartment door, shouting "This is the police!" When he hears noises that may or may not be the destruction of evidence, he breaks down the door, finds drugs and arrests the occupant — all without a search warrant. That occurred in Kentucky in 2005, and last week the Supreme Court was asked to overturn a lower court and rule that it was constitutional. It should decline the invitation. The legal issue in the case is technical, but the implications for personal privacy are not small.
Will SCOTUS Finally Review the Obama Birth Mess? All of what the American people are looking for in this instance is a final judicial determination as to whether or not the current occupant of the Office of President of the United States is legally qualified to serve in that office pursuant to the terms of the United States Constitution. The only stress involved here is the feared backlash of political retribution. The people so appointed to high level positions should be above the trauma of facing criticism or scorn for making such a simple declaration. The facts for such a rendering are in themselves, quite simple.
Breyer Suggests Second Amendment Out of Date. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, speaking this past weekend on Fox News Sunday, declared that the Founding Fathers did not intend firearms to go unregulated. Breyer was one of four dissenting justices in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case, which overturned a firearms ban in the District of Columbia. The decision in Heller was significant for many reasons, primarily for holding that the Second Amendment was connected with not only the right of individuals to bear arms, but also the power of state governments to maintain militia capable of resisting an oppressive federal government.
Did Justice Breyer Invent History to Justify His Personal Agenda? An oft-quoted maxim attributed (dubiously) to Mark Twain instructs writers: "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Perhaps Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has been reading the recently published diaries of Twain and has been inspired to weave a little yarn of his own — a story strong on emotion but woefully light on facts.
Supreme Court Deals Blow to Massachusetts Inmates Seeking Right to Vote. Should felons have the right to vote? The U.S. Supreme Court today [10/18/2010] declined to take up this weighty topic, rejecting an appeal from Massachusetts inmates who seek the right to vote.
Impeaching Chief Justice Roberts for "Judicial Activism". The Huffington Post's Amanda Terkel reports that Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) is so upset about the Supreme Court's recent free speech ruling in Citizens United v. F.E.C. that he is "investigating" whether or not to impeach Chief Justice John Roberts.
Obama's False Alarm on Corporate Electioneering. At a campaign rally the other day, President Barack Obama decried those who say "you can't overcome the cynicism of politics; no, you can't overcome the special interests; no, you can't overcome the big money; no, you can't overcome the negative ads." The president emphatically disagrees. But here's the odd thing: The only people you hear taking that view are in the White House. It's been their lament since the Supreme Court ruled in January that corporations have a constitutional right to spend money communicating their views about candidates running for office.
The most conservative court? Hardly. What do you call a Supreme Court that within the last few terms has ruled that carbon dioxide can be regulated as "air pollution" by the Environmental Protection Agency?
Clarence Thomas, Gun Control and the Case for Black Self-Defense. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas doesn't say much from the bench, rarely asking a question or revealing what he's thinking. But every so often he gives us a glimpse of what is underneath that taciturn exterior. And in his concurring opinion for last week's 5-4 court ruling in McDonald v. Chicago, which affirmed an individual's right to bear arms, Thomas bares his soul in words that reflect the weight of history he feels as a black man who came of age in white America.
Judges Find Dignity in Profanity. On July 12, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City warmly offered the TV networks exactly what they wanted: the shredding of the FCC's lamely enforced rules against broadcast indecency. As of now, the network stars can swear at will in front of impressionable children. These judges did not rule narrowly on the focus of the case — "fleeting expletives" that networks aired unintentionally. They ruled broadly in favor of all expletives. There's no other way to say this. The ruling is idiocy.
Obama and Supreme Court may be on collision course. [Scroll down] The president and congressional Democrats have embarked on an ambitious drive to regulate corporations, banks, health insurers and the energy industry. But the high court, with Roberts increasingly in control, will have the final word on those regulatory laws. Many legal experts foresee a clash between Obama's progressive agenda and the conservative court.
An Unfamiliar Court. Can you name one member of the U.S. Supreme Court? If so, you're better informed than nearly two-thirds of the country. If you can name all nine, you beat 99% of the population.
SCOTUS Issues New Miranda Decision. The Supreme Court this morning [6/1/2010] ruled that criminal suspects must explicitly tell police they want to remain silent to officially invoke their Miranda rights during questioning.
You Can Still Remain Silent — Just Say So. The recent decision of the Supreme Court in requiring an unambiguous response to invoking one's right to remain silent has summoned a litany of panicked responses from many who believe that the Court has inflicted irreparable damage to an individual's rights.
Shooting Down the Constitution. Even a simple guy like me can figure out these words from the U.S. Constitution: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." That's contained in the Second Amendment. So why did four Supreme Court justices this week vote to infringe on the right to bear arms? The court ruled 5 to 4 that 76-year-old Otis McDonald, an African-American Democrat who lives in Chicago, can own a handgun.
Another Judicial Power Grab. You might think that being a Supreme Court justice would be the top of the line job for someone in the legal profession. But, many Supreme Court decisions suggest that too many justices are not satisfied with their role, and seek more sweeping powers as supreme policy-makers, grand second-guessers or philosopher-kings.
Court-Packing, Chicago-Style. President Obama, Senator Reid, and Speaker Pelosi showed their ability to ruthlessly ram through their legislative agenda with a combination of procedural tricks, sleight-of-hand, and painful arm-twisting, all of which could happen again. They also hope to have a Supreme Court which will rubber-stamp their legislative agenda and thus guarantee its long-term survival.
Obama's Supreme Court Choice: No Evangelicals Need Apply. In a time of increasingly unembarrassed ethnic identity politics, there is one notable exception: a serious Evangelical will not be seriously considered for the U.S. Supreme Court. There has not been a prominent Evangelical on the court since John Jay, the first Chief Justice. Evangelicals have been passed over so many times that it's as if they're invisible.
Justices Angry Over Closing Court's Doors. Over the objections of two justices, the Supreme Court announced Monday [5/3/2010] that due to security concerns the front doors of the courthouse will no longer be open to people wishing to enter the building. A pair of new entrances will now be used that are just below and to the side of the front doors which are located atop a set of marble steps that had served as a majestic entry into the nation's highest court.
Justices Want More on Massachusetts Felon Vote Case. For the past decade inmates in Massachusetts prisons have fought a state law keeping them from voting, Monday [5/3/2010] the Supreme Court announced it wants to know the views of the Obama Administration before deciding whether to hear arguments in their case.
The Editor says...
The opinions of politicians should not be a consideration. That's why Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life.
Good Riddance! Justice Stevens voted to sustain racial quotas, created "rights" out of thin air for terrorists, and took away American citizens' rights to their own homes in the infamous "Kelo" decision of 2005. ... Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the Supreme Court opinion that expanded the Constitution's authorization of seizing private property for "public use" to seizing private property for a "public purpose."
Legacy of a Judicial Activist. [Scroll down] In the 2005 Supreme Court case of Kelo v. City of New London, Stevens was part of a 5-4 majority voting to permit local government officials to take possession of private homes and businesses, and to then immediately transfer ownership of those properties to another private party — one aspiring to build upscale facilities that would, in turn, generate higher tax revenues for those same politicians. To justify this decision, which had nothing whatsoever to do with "public use," Stevens cited his concern for "public purpose" — a subtle yet monumentally large step toward the unfettered expansion of governmental power.
Most OK With No Protestants on Supreme Court. With the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens, the U.S. Supreme Court could be left without a single Protestant for the first time ever. Most American voters are OK with that, according to a Fox News Poll released Wednesday. Stevens, who announced his retirement April 9, is the only Protestant currently sitting on the court. Of the remaining eight justices, six are Roman Catholic and two are Jewish.
Oh, but if you twist my arm, I suppose I could...
Bill Clinton: Hillary and I are too old to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Bill and Hillary Clinton have both held big jobs in their lives, but the ex-president said Sunday [4/18/2010] that Supreme Court justice shouldn't be among them — they're too old. "I'd like to see him put someone in there, late 40s, early 50s, on the court, and someone with a lot of energy for the job," the 63-year-old Clinton told ABC's "This Week" when asked about President Obama's upcoming replacement of Justice John Paul Stevens.
Empathy and the Supreme Court: Obama and the vast majority of Senate Democrats believe that Lady Justice should peek from under the blindfold every now and then. Obama opposed both of President Bush's Supreme Court appointees, John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr., presumably because they lacked what he called the "quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles."
Justice Stevens was no champion of the little guy. President Obama said his nominee to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court would "be someone who, like Justice Stevens, knows that in a democracy, powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens." Tell that to the "ordinary citizens" of New London, Conn., whose homes were stolen by the government for use by real estate developers at the request of the largest drug company in America — with the approval of Justice Stevens.
Obama's 'Mainstream' Nominee. The [next Supreme Court] nominee will be marketed as a "moderate" from the "mainstream." President Gerald Ford introduced Stevens as a "moderate Republican," a species as rare as a "conservative Democrat" and as elusive as Bigfoot. Obama has confirmed that his nominee will emulate Stevens. And like Obama and Stevens, the nominee will promise to uphold the Constitution — make that the "living" Constitution.
Supreme Court Needs At Least One Veteran. The Democrats have not placed a veteran on the Supreme Court in nearly half a century. When President Obama fills Stevens' seat, will the High Court be left without anyone who has military experience? Veterans in the U.S. Senate should make sure that such an embarrassment does not occur. Cases concerning the military appear every year before the Supreme Court, and our nation will not be well-served by a court lacking in military experience.
Conservatives, Liberals and the Court: Even before it was official, the news of 89-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens likely retirement from the Supreme Court caused little excitement and with good reason. Liberals and conservatives alike assume President Obama will appoint another reliably liberal justice and the Senate will promptly confirm the choice. That's the way it has gone with the nominees of Democratic presidents going back decades. That, however, is not the way it has gone with Republican presidents and their nominees.
Bias by the numbers. Is an employment test unfair if it doesn't produce a racially balanced result? A case before the U.S. Supreme Court deals with this question. The plaintiffs in Lewis v. Chicago claim that the city violated federal civil rights law because a disproportionate number of blacks failed a written exam for firefighting jobs.
A Dangerous Dissent on Citizens United. [Scroll down slowly] I can, however, guarantee this: Left-wing and government lawyers will glom onto that language to attempt to justify the most invasive intrusions into corporations — including nonprofits — and their First Amendment, property, and other rights. That is why it is important to expose Justice Stevens' error now, before it becomes incorporated into our jurisprudence by mistake or design.
Supreme Court Leans Toward Incorporation of Second Amendment. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday [3/2/2010] in McDonald v. Chicago — the case challenging Chicago's handgun ban. Judging from the transcripts, it looks like a majority of justices favor applying the Second Amendment to the states.
Personhood: Among the interesting arguments in last week's 5-4 Supreme Court decision granting corporations First Amendment protections when making campaign contributions was the majority's decision to effectively treat corporations as persons. ... The ruling came the week of the annual March for Life, which draws thousands to Washington to mark that same court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. The march has become not so much a protest as an affirmation of the value of all human life.
Some say Obama should expand the Supreme Court. This may come as a surprise to some people, but the U.S. Constitution does not specify the size of the Supreme Court. The original Judiciary Act of 1789 set the number of justices at six. It shrank to five in 1801. It expanded to seven in 1807. It grew to nine in 1837 and 10 in 1863. It fell back to seven in 1866. It returned to nine in 1869 and has remained at that number since.
High Court Considers Whether Feds Can Make Everyone a Criminal. The problem with government is that it tends to expand, including expanding its ability to throw people in jail. Fortunately, the Constitution provides a check on this power. Often these days, "due process" is used as a catchall to advance any number of legal theories, most of them liberal. But one correct doctrine from the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment is that a statute can be "void for vagueness."
A gun case or Pandora's box? Many have heard about the historic gun rights case going to the Supreme Court. Fewer have heard that this is also a major case for businesses and family values. It could lead to anything from court-ordered Obamacare to same-sex marriage. This is the biggest case of the year, and everyone has a stake in it.
From Guns to Butter. Last week, the [Supreme] Court agreed to hear a Second Amendment challenge to Chicago's handgun ban. Since that law is very similar to the Washington, D.C., ordinance that the Court declared unconstitutional last year, it is bound to be overturned, assuming the Court concludes that the Second Amendment applies not just to the federal government (which oversees the District of Columbia) but also to states and their subsidiaries. That seems like a pretty safe assumption, since over the years the Court has said the 14th Amendment "incorporates" nearly all of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights.
Defining Activism Down. [Scroll down] Under this brave new meaning of judicial activism advanced several years ago by now-White House aide Cass Sunstein, a judicial activist is any judge invalidating a federal law, however shoddily made. Ergo, conservative judges are obliged to uphold liberal precedents no matter how narrow the vote and how recent the case, while liberals can overturn long-time principles in the name of the evolving Constitution. The effect is a liberal ratchet, where precedents like Miranda v. Arizona and Roe v. Wade are cast in stone, but any rethinking by the Roberts Court of the six-year-old 5-4 campaign-finance ruling in McConnell v. FEC is a scandal.
Still wrong on race. The most distressing thing about the now infamous Ricci case is that four Supreme Court justices effectively endorsed the racism that led the city of New Haven, Conn., to deny promotions to 17 firefighters because of the color of their skin. The court's liberal members were so caught up in defending an ugly racial spoils system that they failed to recognize the extent to which it directly conflicts with the plain language of the Constitution that they are sworn to uphold; more precisely, its 14th Amendment requiring "equal protection of the laws."
Disability, Inc.. This is not a joke. Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision that required an Oregon public school district to pay a $5,200 monthly tuition (plus fees) for a private boarding school for a high-school senior whose psychologist had diagnosed him with ADHD, depression, math disorder and cannabis abuse. Also not a joke: The Obama administration had urged the big bench to so rule. Thus the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which mandates that all "children with disabilities" have the right to a "free appropriate public education," is turning into a cash cow for disability lawyers and private schools.
No respect for the rule of law: Barack Obama says that it is most important that his replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter possess "empathy" and "understanding," and recognize "that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book." He couldn't be more mistaken. The application of constitutional principles to cases is almost entirely about abstract legal theory and footnotes found in case books. It is such because the primary quality of a Supreme Court justice should be disinterested neutrality in the service of the rule of law. ... The impression grows that we have elected a remarkably superficial and ignorant man to the presidency.
Citizens united against censorship. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments today regarding Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The case could decide what political speech is prohibited by federal campaign finance laws. To put it simply, campaign finance laws constrain free speech.
Constitutional Chess. Since the passage of "The Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937" (and the attempted "packing" of the Supreme Court by FDR) the rules of interpreting the Constitution have been rigged to support a progressive ideology. The Constitution has become "a living document." The Constitution means either whatever the Congress wants it to mean or whatever five out of the nine justices sitting on the Court at the present time say that it means.
Judicial Error. The Supreme Court's decision Tuesday [6/9/2009] to lift a bondholder stay in the Chrysler bankruptcy fails to grasp the value of legality in markets. It strengthens the hand of government but weakens the rule of law.
Rush Limbaugh, Intellectual. I was a bit surprised to hear former Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge echo President Obama's criticism of Rush Limbaugh by calling him "shrill" and "divisive" recently. Then Senator John Cronyn (sic) joined in the Rush-bashing over Limbaugh's use of the word "racist" for self-described "wise Latina woman" judge Sonia Sotomayor. I do not recall ever being enlightened or inspired by these politicians. On the other hand, as I've driven to teach afternoon classes I've enjoyed the insights and wit from Limbaugh. I am always impressed by his ability to apply historical figures, ideas, events, and Constitutional principles.
10 Questions For a Supreme Court Nominee. [#6] Do you believe that beyond the plain text of the Constitution, that there are "emanations" and "penumbras" which contain unwritten and previously unknown provisions that remove issues from democratic determination, and which therefore may be used to strike down popularly enacted state or federal laws?
Identity Justice: The 1987 fight over President Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork interred the tradition that the Senate, in evaluating judicial nominees, would not delve deeply into the nominee's jurisprudential thinking. Bork's defeat was unjust, but the new approach to confirmations was overdue, given the court's increasingly central role in American governance.
A Truth Not Self-Evident: Only Americans Should Make U.S. Laws. Zimbabwe should not be making American law. Neither, for that matter, should France, India, Mexico, Switzerland or any other country. Only America should be making laws for Americans. Incredibly, not everyone agrees with this principle. Astonishingly, some of the people who do not agree are justices of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Why the Law is Foreign to Ginsberg. She and her fellow travelers really don't understand. That is, they don't grasp the correct legal philosophy well enough to understand what they're rejecting. Note that I called the legal philosophy "correct" and not "strict constructionism," and for good reason. When you call it correct, it follows that other positions are incorrect. But what is the other side of the coin of constructionism?
The Supreme Court and the Tyranny of Lawyers. At one level, Wyeth v. Levine is just another lawsuit with a silly result. ... The legal issue was whether the medical experts at the FDA had pre-empted state lawsuits by mandating clear warnings. A majority of justices said that such implied pre-emption could not block lawsuits. The case would have been different if Congress had specifically pre-empted state drug lawsuits.
FOX News Poll: Pick Supreme Court Justice Based On Experience. Americans think judicial experience should be the most important factor in selecting the next Supreme Court justice, far outdistancing other qualities such as the nominee's race, gender, sexual preference, and issue positions.
Poll: Americans Don't Want Pro-Abortion Justices. As speculation builds around President Barack Obama's nomination to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter, a new survey revealed Thursday a majority of Americans would oppose nominees who hold staunch pro-abortion viewpoints, including support for partial-birth abortions and taxpayer-funded abortions.
Hatch: Obama Using 'Code' for Activist Judge. Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the longest serving Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on "This Week" Sunday that President Barack Obama used "code" for an activist judge this week when describing his ideal nominee to replace retiring Justice David Souter. "It's a matter of great concern, if he's saying that he wants to pick people who will take sides. He's also said that a judge has to be a person of empathy — what does that mean? Usually that's a code word for an activist judge," Hatch told [George Stephanopoulos] on "This Week."
The Pity of Obama's Judicial Doctrine: If Obama's campaign promises last year are to be taken seriously, here is what the current president intends to use as a litmus test for filling vacancies on the court: "We need [judges] who've got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."
'Empathy' versus law. People who are speculating about whether the next nominee will be a woman, a Hispanic or whatever, are missing the point. That we are discussing the next Supreme Court justice in terms of group "representation" is a sign of how far we have already strayed from the purpose of law and the weighty responsibility of appointing someone to sit for life on the highest court in the land.
"Empathy" Versus Law: Part II. The great Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is not the kind of justice who would have been appointed under President Barack Obama's criterion of "empathy" for certain groups. ... Justice Holmes saw his job to be "to see that the game is played according to the rules whether I like them or not."
"Empathy" Versus Law: Part III. There is a reason why the statue of Justice wears a blindfold. There are things that courts are not supposed to see or recognize when making their decisions — the race you belong to, whether you are rich or poor, and other personal things that could bias decisions by judges and juries. It is an ideal that a society strives for, even if particular judges or juries fall short of that ideal. Now, however, President Barack Obama has repudiated that ideal itself by saying that he wants to appoint judges with "empathy" for particular groups. This was not an isolated slip of the tongue. Barack Obama said the same thing during last year's election campaign.
"Empathy" Versus Law: Part IV. While President Barack Obama has, in one sense, tipped his hand by saying that he wants judges with "empathy" for certain groups, he has in a more fundamental sense concealed the real goal — getting judges who will ratify an ever-expanding scope of the power of the federal government and an ever-declining restraint by the Constitution of the United States. This is consistent with everything else that Obama has done in office and is consistent with his decades-long track record of alliances with people who reject the fundamentals of American society.
Supreme Court makes it easier to fight deportation. The Supreme Court has made it easier for illegal immigrants seeking to avoid deportation to get another chance at a court hearing. The decision came in the case of Jean Marc Nken, who came to the United States in 2001 and did not leave when his visa expired.
High Court Curbs Power of Police to Search Cars. The Supreme Court ruled that police couldn't search the car of a person arrested unless the officer's safety was threatened or there was reason to think the car contained evidence of a crime, reviving a constitutional protection against unreasonable searches. The court effectively closed a loophole opened in a 1981 opinion that has been widely interpreted to allow police, without a warrant, to search cars — as well as bags or containers within them — when they arrest a driver or passenger.
Step Away From the Vehicle. In August 1999 police saw Rodney Gant pull into the driveway of his Tucson home and arrested him for driving with a suspended license. After handcuffing Gant and locking him in a cruiser, Officer Todd Griffith searched his car, finding a bag of cocaine in the pocket of a jacket on the backseat. When he was asked at an evidentiary hearing why he searched the car, Griffith replied, "Because the law says we can do it." Not anymore.
Scalia Says Original Intent is Making a Comeback in U.S. The idea that laws have fixed meanings that transcend generations has gradually been restored to a respectable station in the academic community and in the judiciary, said Scalia during the closing session of the Federalist Society's annual meeting in Washington D.C. ... Unfortunately, the "contagion" of a "living constitution," one where written phrases can be divorced and reshaped away from their original meaning, has begun to spread internationally, even as U.S. courts have begun to show some improvement, he said.
Supreme Court Steps Closer to Repeal of Evidence Ruling. This month, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority in Herring v. United States, a 5-to-4 decision, took a big step toward the goal he had discussed a quarter-century before. Taking aim at one of the towering legacies of the Warren Court, its landmark 1961 decision applying the exclusionary rule to the states, the chief justice's majority opinion established for the first time that unlawful police conduct should not require the suppression of evidence if all that was involved was isolated carelessness.
Obama Is (Supreme) Courting Disaster. All law school students have heard a constitutional law professor explain that the concept of a "living Constitution" is superior to the discredited theory of "originalism" advocated by Justices Scalia and Thomas. The argument most often advanced to support this assertion is that the living Constitution expands our freedom by finding new constitutional rights. But while jurists appealing to the living Constitution have discovered additional rights — often by usurping the prerogatives of the democratic process — they have also been alarmingly willing to contract or eliminate many of the rights for which the constitution explicitly provides.
Supreme Court considers anti-Clinton movie. When a special three-judge panel considered the scathingly critical Hillary: The Movie last year, the judges deemed it a campaign ad with the unmistakable message that people should vote against then-presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton because she "is unfit for office." The conservative Citizens United, which produced the 90-minute movie partly with corporate funds, said it was merely making a documentary about the issues. The court rejected that argument and agreed with the Federal Election Commission that the movie was subject to campaign-financing law restricting when messages can be aired and advertised.
Obama, Ginsburg and Guns. Last year the Supreme Court held in D.C. v. Heller that the Second Amendment secures the right to bear arms for individual Americans. In doing so, the Court rejected the view put forth by liberals that the Second Amendment only empowers state governments to equip their National Guard units. But too many lose sight of the fact that the Heller decision was a 5-4 decision. Four justices —only one short of a majority —adopted the liberal argument that the Second Amendment does not involve any rights whatsoever for private citizens.
Greek to Me. In its flattering piece on Justice Ruth Ginsburg's feisty determination to remain active on the Supreme Court, the Washington Post quotes her on the topic of judges' use of foreign law...
High Court Poised To Closely Weigh Civil Rights Laws. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to reaffirm or reshape the nation's civil rights laws as it faces a rare confluence of cases over the next two weeks, including a high-profile challenge brought by white firefighters who claim they lost out on promotions because of the "color of their skin." The cases also touch on the Voting Rights Act, the need to provide English classes for immigrant children and, more tangentially, discriminatory mortgage lending.
Supreme Courtier? Have you ever had a boss who treated you like a child, second-guessed you, reworked whatever you did so that you felt no ownership of the final product? As a result, did you take your job less and less seriously precisely because you knew that whatever you produced wouldn't really be yours anyway? Well, the Supreme Court is the boss, and Congress is the Dilbert.
Plankton Watch. How many plankton can fit on the head of a pin? And how much are they worth? In an environmental case argued this month, the Supreme Court was asked to consider whether any cost is too high for limiting damage to the environment. How the Justices decide will have important consequences for energy efficiency and the future cost of electricity.
The Republic of Kennedy: When you consider that the court is pretty well divided between four liberals and four conservatives with Justice Kennedy swinging from one side to another as the spirit moves him, we now enjoy a Republic of Kennedy. All this fuss and bother about the presidential race is misplaced. The most powerful man in the land is someone most Americans couldn't pick out of a lineup.
Justice Anthony Kennedy and Our Schizophrenic Supreme Court: Conservatives were, rightly, thrilled by the recent Supreme Court decision that affirmed our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Not so fast. Of the four important decisions the court has rendered in this term, three of them have gone the wrong way. Let's first take a brief look at each of these four cases.
An Indecent Decision. Earlier this term, Kennedy wrote the 5-4 opinion that extended habeas corpus rights to foreigners captured abroad and held on foreign soil. Such a right had never been granted in American history. This was a victory for the terrorists held at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who now can challenge their detention in federal courts. For his next trick, Kennedy wrote last week another 5-4 opinion declaring the death penalty for child rapists unconstitutional.
Court to decide if illegal immigrants' use of Social Security numbers is ID theft. The Supreme Court agreed Monday [10/20/2008] to decide whether people picked up on immigration violations also can face charges of identity theft if they use Social Security and other identification numbers that belong to others. Federal appeals courts have split over whether the defendant must know that the phony ID numbers belong to a real person and the court said it will resolve the question.
US Supreme Court turns down David Parker's appeal. Validates state's right to teach homosexuality to young children over parents' objections! Allows outrageous lower court rulings to stand.
High Court to hear appeal over anti-Clinton movie. The Supreme Court will hear an appeal from a conservative group that wanted to promote and air its anti-Hillary Clinton movie without complying with a landmark campaign finance law. The justices, in an order Friday [11/14/2008], said they will review a lower court ruling that Citizens United's "Hillary: The Movie" was clearly intended to influence people to vote against Clinton in her run for the presidency.
Supreme Court's Embarrassing Error. A blogger, Caaflog, caught Justice Kennedy having made the biggest error in modern Supreme Court history that I can recall. In the death penalty child rape case, when he said that the death penalty for this crime was "against evolving standards" he overlooked, what a blogger found, that in 2006 Congress itself had made rape of a child a crime subject to the death penalty under the military code.
The Supreme Court Can't Ignore the Facts. The factual basis of the [Kennedy v. Louisiana] ruling was in error. The court overlooked the amendment to the Uniform Code of Military Justice — passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in 2006 — which imposed capital punishment for child rape. So much for the national consensus. On July 21, Louisiana filed a petition for rehearing. Will the Supreme Court grant such a request? It has in the past.
Supreme Court rejects jury Bible case. The Supreme Court is refusing to consider a murder case in which a jury foreman read passages of the Bible to hold-out jurors who subsequently voted to impose the death penalty.
US Supreme Court rejects new trial for former Black Panther. The US Supreme Court Monday [10/6/2008] refused to hear arguments for a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther accused of killing a police officer who has become an icon for anti-capital punishment campaigners.
Supreme Court shuns appeal by ex-professor in terror case. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday [10/6/2008] declined to hear an appeal from a former Florida professor trying to get the court involved in federal prosecutors' efforts to have him testify about terror financing. The high court's decision eliminates one of two major impediments that have stalled prosecutors from bringing ex-professor Sami Al-Arian to trial for refusing to testify to a grand jury in Northern Virginia investigating terror financing.
Save the Whales, or the U.S. Navy Sonar?. National security and environmental law went head-to-head today [10/8/2008] at the Supreme Court when a government lawyer argued the U.S. Navy's use of sonar for antisubmarine-warfare training is critical for national defense, while environmentalists claimed the practice causes irreparable damage to marine mammals.
Justices strike down 'millionaire's amendment'. The Supreme Court on Thursday [6/26/2008] struck down the "millionaire's amendment," a campaign finance law intended to level the field for House candidates facing wealthy opponents who spend lots of their own money. … The justices, in a 5-4 ruling that reflects skepticism of campaign finance overhauls, said the law violates the First Amendment.
High Court Deals Blow To Campaign Finance Law. The Supreme Court dealt another blow yesterday [6/26/2008] to the landmark 2002 campaign finance law crafted by Sens. John McCain and Russell Feingold, declaring unconstitutional a provision that eased fundraising restrictions for political candidates running against wealthy opponents who were bankrolling their own bids for federal office.
High court strikes down gun ban. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a sweeping ban on handguns in the nation's capital violated the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The justices struck down the ban in a 5-4 decision, with Justice Antonin Scalia writing the opinion for the majority. Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said he was disappointed in the ruling but will give the district's police department 21 days to implement a process for registering handguns. It still will be illegal to carry handguns outside the home, and all pistols must be registered with police.
Supreme Court Shoots Down D.C. Gun Ban. The Supreme Court has overturned Washington, D.C.'s strict gun ban. Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that the Constitution protects an individual's right to keep and carry a gun. The decision will affect gun control laws across the country.
Scalia the Grammarian. There will be a great deal to say about today's landmark Supreme Court decision, the first in American history that explicitly finds in the Constitution a personal right to keep and bear arms and overturns a 32-year-old ban on handguns in the District of Columbia. What strikes this non-lawyer, as I read Justice Scalia's majority opinion, is how anchored it is in the elementary logic of grammar.
Read the full text of District Of Columbia et al. v. Heller.
Liberty Wins a Big One. Liberals, who hate guns almost as much as they hate cars, got a well-deserved lesson in Second Amendment rights when the Supreme Court spit in their face by ruling that the Constitution really does guarantee the right of Americans to own guns. The ruling, which struck down the District of Columbia?s laws almost totally restricting handgun ownership, affirmed the traditional view that the Second Amendment means exactly what it says when it guarantees "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."
An Individual Right Rekindled. Dick Heller is a special police offer in the District of Columbia who patrols the Federal Judicial Center. He is permitted to carry a handgun while on duty during the day and wished to possess one at his home to defend himself and his family. He applied for a permit, but was denied: the city's law bars the registration of handguns to nearly all private citizens.
Bull's-Eye! In a 5-4 decision written by Antonin Scalia, the kind of justice John McCain says he'd appoint, the high court overturned a draconian District of Columbia law enacted 32 years ago that barred private ownership of handguns. The court ruled the Second Amendment indeed protected an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that firearm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
The Court defers to plain language. No sulking conservative can imagine the Second Amendment would have been upheld if Republican presidents had not appointed the five members of yesterday's majority. Who can doubt that Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry and ol' Bubba would have appointed judges dedicated to throwing out the constitutional guarantee upheld yesterday?
Silver Bullet. The 2008 Supreme Court term ended with a bang yesterday as the Justices issued their most important ruling ever in upholding an individual right to bear arms. The dismaying surprise is that the Second Amendment came within a single vote of becoming a dead Constitutional letter.
The Meaning of the DC Gun Case Decision: Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion for the 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court in the recent landmark Second Amendment gun case, District of Columbia v. Heller, is a major contribution to American constitutional law. It is at once a rich exposition of the Second Amendment's historical context, a textbook demonstration of Originalist analysis of an important constitutional amendment, a surgical dissection of virtually every word of the amendment, and a point-by-point refutation of the dissents of Justice Stevens….
Right to Bear Arms: Washington, D.C., will become a safer place to live and work thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday [6/26/2008] against the city's absolute ban on handguns. The Court ruled that the Second Amendment's guarantee of the right to bear arms is an individual right, not just one that permits states to maintain militias, striking down one of the nation's toughest anti-gun laws. As someone who lived in the District at the time the city imposed its ban 32 years ago, I say it's about time.
Americans have right to guns under landmark ruling. Individual Americans have a right to own guns, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday for the first time in the country's history, striking down a strict gun control law in the U.S. capital. The landmark 5-4 ruling marked the first time in nearly 70 years the high court has addressed the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It rejected the argument the right to keep and bear arms was tied to service in a state militia.
Court takes giant step backward. I often wonder if Antonin Scalia might not be more comfortable in another century, past not future, one not touched by the miseries and dangers of urbanization. I certainly think we would be if he were. Maybe most fittingly he would do well in the 18th century where a firearm larger than a one-shot pistol and a long rifle could not be imagined, especially by those who were drafting a plan for the rest of us to live by forever and where citizen soldiers in local militias were the national defense.
Rights, Arms and the Man. "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Because of the inclusion of the M-word (militia), gun-control advocates have long argued that the Second Amendment applies to militia, but not to individual citizens. Last week, the Supreme Court put an end to that nonsense when it issued a decision overturning the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns — even in citizens' own homes.
Citizens' Rights Reloaded. Because of the high court's decision to affirm the Second Amendment as an individual right, local, state and federal governments will have a much harder time infringing on citizens' rights to protect themselves and their families. This is the biggest victory for individual rights in decades.
How a Young Lawyer Saved the Second Amendment: The case that became D.C. v. Heller was the brainchild of three lawyers at a pair of libertarian organizations, the Cato Institute and the Institute for Justice. All were busy with other matters, so they hired Mr. [Alan] Gura.
High court: Don't execute child rapists. The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed executions of people convicted of raping a child. … In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be imposed for raping a child violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Court rejects death penalty for raping children. The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed executions of people convicted of raping a child. In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be imposed in such cases violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Supreme Court Rejects Death Penalty for Child Rape. The death penalty is unconstitutional as a punishment for the rape of a child, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled Wednesday [6/25/2008]. The 5-to-4 decision overturned death penalty laws in Louisiana and five other states. The only two men in the country who have been sentenced to death for the crime of child rape, both in Louisiana, will receive new sentences of life without parole.
The Editor says...
I guess the death penalty is reserved for someone who has committed a really serious crime.
Evolving Standards of Indecency: The Supreme Court's barring of the death penalty for child rapists in Kennedy v. Louisiana underscores the hazards in the court's abandonment of moral absolutes in favor of "evolving standards of decency" and the court's unbridled arrogance in substituting its subjective judgment for the legislatively enacted will of the people.
Supremely Screwed Up. [Scroll down] As it happened, not just the Kennedy majority failed to notice the existence of this federal law. So did the four dissenting justices. So did petitioner Kennedy and respondent Louisana. Moreover, none of the 10 friends of the court in the case, not even one, cited the law. Neither did the solicitor general's office...
Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings and the Senate. For most of our history, despite the Supreme Court's important role, Justices nominated by a President were subject to little scrutiny beyond character and ability. As several Senate Judiciary Committee members noted in the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts, before 1955 nominees almost never appeared before the Committee. The nomination was simply voted on in the Senate.
John McCain and Barack Obama: Two visions of the Supreme Court. John McCain and Barack Obama, the two leading presidential candidates, have set out sharply contrasting views on the role of the Supreme Court and the kind of justices they would appoint.
Top 10 Things to Expect From Obama Court: (# 10.) Expanding and perpetuating the use of racial preferences … (# 6.) Banning the death penalty … (# 4.) Creating new constitutional rights to massive government welfare and medical care programs…
A Cautious Right Turn. The [Supreme] Court has moved notably back to the center, but its alleged new "conservatism" is more in temperament than politics. You wouldn't know this from the horror masks brandished on the political left, which is reacting as if the Court had laid waste to a generation of precedents.
Has the Court Moved Right? The mainstream media are quick to proclaim that the Supreme Court is moving radically to the right, but a closer look reveals that the court has quite a way to go before it can be considered truly conservative.
'Conservative' court actually may be more liberal. The nation's highest court returns to work Monday [10/1/2007], ready to grapple with cases that test the constitutionality of lethal injection, the legal rights of suspected terrorists and the legitimacy of hotly contested voter ID laws in more than two dozen states.
Stare Decisis: Not Quite What Senator Schumer Would Have You Believe. It is the substantive rulings which the critics dislike, not the legal reasoning. The charge amounts to a bit of legerdemain aimed at a public not familiar with the doctrine, a public whose principal source of information about the Court and its rulings is a media unwilling or unable to examine the charge on its merits. This one-two-punch by Democrats and the media has created a distorted view among the public of the Court's methods and rulings.
Expect Big Labor Power Grabs Next Year. Focused on raising forced-union-dues dollars, union officials have made expanding Big Labor's government-granted special privileges a top priority. So, although the Supreme Court's decision in Chamber v. Brown may slow coercive union organizing down from its current breakneck speed, workers likely face a renewed assault on their freedom of association after the November elections.
Stare Decisis: Eight Recent Cases. The recent claims that newly-confirmed Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito were ignoring precedent, contrary to their confirmation hearings pledges, are partisan chum hurled into the waters where swim the most radical members of the Democratic base. … I find no basis for such a charge in any of these opinions.
Boiled Frog Alert ...
High Court Rules on Illegal Searches. The Supreme Court affirmed Wednesday [4/23/2008] that police have the power to conduct searches and seize evidence, even when done during an arrest that turns out to have violated state law.
The Editor says...
The way I see it, this ruling opens the door for the police to make "traffic stops" for no reason at all, hoping to find drugs or firearms in someone's car. This ruling effectively drains the life out of the Fourth Amendment.
Texas argues global courts, Bush have no say in state case. Neither the president nor an international court can tell Texas how to treat criminal defendants, the state's top Supreme Court advocate told the justices in arguments yesterday [10/10/2007] over the fate of a Mexican citizen on death row.
Read the details of the case in this article.
Houston case gets lively Supreme Court hearing. President Bush and Texas, the state he once led, were on opposite sides of a Supreme Court dispute today [10/10/2007] over the role of international law and claims of executive power in the case of a Mexican on death row for rape and murder in Houston.
Sparks Fly at the Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that achieving "diversity" is too weak an argument to justify shuffling kids around on the basis of skin color. Though Chief Justice John Roberts's opinion is couched in language of precedent and respect for existing law, this case is a clean win for individualists — i.e., for those who oppose racial preferences or racial handicaps.
Imperial, exclusive Supreme Court of the United States. From their high seats above us all, both these Justices ignore that they serve on a public court, paid by taxpayer funds; and because of increasingly limited coverage of the Supreme Court in newspapers and on both broadcast and cable television, many Americans know little of these nine distant arbiters of our rights and liberties in so many spheres of our existence.
Why conservative justices go liberal. Most of the leading conservative intellectuals were at least liberal, and often radical, in their youth. That includes Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and the neoconservative movement. In politics, the leading conservative figure of the 20th century — Ronald Reagan — was a liberal in his early years. On the Supreme Court of the United States, however, the movement has been in the opposite direction.
One More Supreme Court Appointment for President Bush? Conservatives stand a strong chance of securing at least one more seat on the U.S. Supreme Court before President Bush leaves office, according to one conservative court-watcher. Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, didn't say who might be the next justice to leave, but speculation has recently swirled around Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, a Gerald Ford appointee, who will turn 87 in April.
Now she tells us. The latest critic of a Supreme Court ruling turns out to be the justice who supplied the key vote in its favor: Sandra Day O'Connor. … The case was decided 5 to 4, and Justice O'Connor's concurring opinion made all the difference. Renowned in her time on the court as its swing vote, she's now swinging back.
A justice gets her swing back. The latest critic of a Supreme Court ruling turns out to be the justice who supplied the key vote in its favor: Sandra Day O'Connor.
Rules are More Important Than Personalities. We have a set of rules that are known, neutral and intended to be durable. Those rules were created by our founders and embodied in the U.S. Constitution. Those rules have been weakened by a Congress of both parties that picks winners and losers in the game of life. The U.S. Supreme Court, which was intended to be a neutral referee, has forsaken that role and become a participant. All of this means we can expect a future of bitterly fought elections and enhanced conflict.
In the 1960's it was called "integration".
Justice or racism? The Seattle School District decided to engineer a precise racial balance in its most popular — because much better — high schools, which are chosen by more students than they can accommodate. The district wanted each oversubscribed school to reflect the entire system's ratio of 40 percent whites and 60 percent nonwhites. So it adopted a race-based admission plan to shape the schools' "diversity."
Spitzer Argues For Race-Based School Admission. The Supreme Court is set to hear two cases today [12/04/2006] that call on it to decide whether school officials can assign students to individual public schools according to race to further school integration efforts.
Supreme Farce: It might be a hilarious comedy routine to have a group of highly educated judges solemnly expounding on something that everybody knows to be utter nonsense. But it isn't nearly as funny when this solemn discourse about nonsense takes place on the Supreme Court of the United States — and when most people are unaware of what nonsense the learned justices are talking.
Coming full circle to 'separate but equal'. A conservative majority of the Supreme Court appears poised to undercut Brown v. Board of Education, the historic ruling that outlawed racial segregation in schools and sparked the civil rights movement. This is hard to fathom, since the country has spent more than 50 years trying to integrate schools and improve opportunities for children who suffer racial discrimination. But an anti-Brown ruling early next year shouldn't surprise anyone.
Racial Fairness on Trial. Affirmative action is on trial at the Supreme Court. Judging by the chilly reception that five of the nine justices gave it during oral arguments this week, the only question left is how far the court will go in overruling racial preferences as a constitutional way to remedy the historical damage done by racial preferences.
Supreme farce, Part II. In a recent interview, Justice Stephen Breyer claimed that laws are "not clear," so that judges are forced to base their decisions on the "values" they see behind the laws, rather than the specific words in those laws. "Not clear" is an old ploy and "values" are a blank check.
Questions for Obama: Voting against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, [Obama] said: Deciding "truly difficult cases" should involve "one's deepest values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy." Is that not essentially how Chief Justice Roger Taney decided the Dred Scott case?
The Final Six Reasons Not To Vote For Obama: [Scroll down slowly] One of the most important reasons to vote against Mr. Obama involves his court appointments. He voted against confirming Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Alito. This was wrong as both of these jurists were highly qualified and he was voting against them only because they follow the U.S. Constitution rather than make law from the bench. Mr. Obama would appoint justices of the Associate Justice Ginsburg variety, a leftist who is more interested in her concept of what the law ought to be rather than the concepts of the founding founders as expressed in the Constitution.
Cruel and Unusual Punishment? This is why "original intent" of the Founders is important to consider, because what they meant by the phrase and what we think we believe about it differs considerably. At the time the Bill of Rights was written, the authors specifically sought to ban such execution methods as burning at the stake, crucifixion and breaking on the wheel. In modern times, the Supreme Court has decided cases that redefine what the Founders meant.
Taking a Molecule to Court: The Supreme Court, by agreeing to hear a case on whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must take steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, will finally judge on the alleged threat of global warming. The stakes are huge. Should the Court find in favor of the plaintiffs, it would put the EPA in control of the U.S. economy for the foreseeable future.
High Court Hears Global Warming Hoax. This week the Supreme Court heard arguments in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, a lawsuit brought by a coalition of 12 states, the cities of New York, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., and environmental groups including the Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. The case is an attempt to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon dioxide as a dangerous air pollutant under the definition of the Clean Air Act.
The Right to Breathe: The United States Supreme Court this month heard arguments on the issue of whether carbon dioxide should be identified as a pollutant and be brought into the Environmental Protection Agency enforcement policies of the Clean Air Act. Webster describes a pollutant as a harmful chemical or waste material discharged into water or the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, as it exists in the earth's atmosphere, has never been proven harmful. It is not a waste material. Carbon dioxide just happens to be the single most important part of the Earth's atmosphere as it relates to life on this planet.
Note: Much more information about the carbon dioxide debate can be found on this page.
Court finds a right to jihad in the Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court has now blown a hole in the animating principle behind the Geneva Conventions by choosing to elevate an enemy that disdains the laws of war in order to facilitate the bombing of civilian targets and the beheading of individuals. The argument made by Justice John Paul Stevens is an Alice-In-Jihadland ruling that stands the Conventions on their head in order to give words the precise opposite of their plain meaning and intent.
Liberal Judges Fire another Bullet into US Anti-Terrorist Efforts. Apparently celebrating its first major victory over the US citizenry (SCOTUS' Kelo decision to do away with the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution and allow private developers to steal American citizens' property was only a year ago), on Thursday [6/29/2006] the US Supreme Court ruled that the President of the United States cannot order terrorist enemy combatants to be tried before a military tribunal. The court wrongly cited the rules according to the Geneva Convention. This unfathomable reasoning, using the Geneva Convention as the basis for its decision, does not apply to this situation.
Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Insanity Law. The Supreme Court ruled Thursday [6/29/2006] that Arizona's law on the insanity defense is not too restrictive in limiting evidence defendants can present at trial.
Court limits self-representation for mentally ill. Mentally ill criminal defendants don't have the same constitutional rights as everyone else, the Supreme Court said Thursday [6/19/2008] in carving out an exception to the right to represent yourself.
The U.S. Constitution: dead or alive? The "living Constitution" is the notion that the meaning of the Constitution changes over time. One day nine justices simply wake up, and when they arrive at work that day, they discover that the words in the document they studied their entire adult lives suddenly mean something new and fresh.
Obama's Supreme Court: Those who subscribe to Living Constitution ideology believe that the founding principles of this Nation are passé, that the Declaration of Independence's ringing endorsement of limited government and individual rights is outdated, that the Constitution's creation of a representative republic is from a long past moment in history, and that the Bill of Rights is not a restraint on government but rather a source of newly invented "rights."
Psychoanalyzing the loony left: The thing that has me stumped is trying to figure out what leftists want. For example, when left-wing judges take it upon themselves to legislate from the bench, liberals are quick to say that the Constitution is a living document and that it has to evolve to accommodate a changing world. However, whenever a conservative suggests that the 14th amendment, which grants automatic citizenship to any person born in America, ought to be changed in order to deny that gift to those born to illegal aliens, those same people carry on as if the Constitution, like the Ten Commandments, was carved in stone.
Scalia slams 'living' document philosophy: The Constitution is an enduring document but not a "living" one, and its meaning must be protected and not repeatedly altered to suit the whims of society, says U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Judicial supremacists strike again. Who could have guessed that Osama bin Laden's driver/bodyguard would be one of the privileged few to be granted a hearing by the high and mighty U.S. Supreme Court. After refusing to hear appeals from thousands of Americans during the past year, the court's liberals jumped at a chance to rule that President George W. Bush was wrong.
Police Search May Divide the Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices sparred Thursday [5/18/2006] over police searches in a case that could signal a change in direction for the court after the arrival of two new conservative members.
Revisiting affirmative action: The Supreme Court has decided to revisit the issue of race-based admissions, this time in K-12 schools. In 2003, in a pair of cases involving the University of Michigan, the Court handed down decisions that pleased neither side in the debate. … Once again, the Court is faced with having to decide whether a little bit of racial discrimination is OK, so long as it's employed in the service of achieving "diversity."
Paganism gaining popularity in prison. No national statistics are kept on how many inmates follow Asatru. But experts say its popularity enjoyed a boost from the Supreme Court, which last year sided with an Asatru inmate by upholding a federal law requiring state prisons to accommodate prisoners' religious affiliations.
Court Eases 'No Knock' Search Ban. The Constitution does not require the government to forfeit evidence gathered through illegal "no knock" searches, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday [6/15/2006], in a far-reaching ruling that could encourage police with search warrants to conduct more aggressive raids.
Ginsburg's global constitution: The Framers intended to make it so difficult to actually "perfect" the Constitution … that they required three-fourths of the states to ratify any proposed amendment. By contrast, Ginsburg believes five justices can amend the Constitution if their personal opinions happen to coincide — and if they can gain sufficient ideological reinforcement, if not actual authority, from foreign courts.
Some Legal Activists Have Hearts Set on 'True Liberal'. If Obama had the opportunity to make an appointment, it would be only the fourth nomination from a Democratic president in more than 40 years. And for activists on the left, it could signal the opportunity to create a new dynamic for the court. "It is a court with no true liberal on it, the most conservative court in 75 years," said Geoffrey Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, where Obama once taught constitutional law.
The Editor asks...
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not a "true" liberal? That's what the Washington Post would have us believe.
SCOTUS Tells Foreign Court to Butt Out. Over the past few years many Americans have become deeply concerned that judges have begun relying more and more on foreign law to decide questions of U.S. constitutional law. One doesn't have to be a constitutional scholar to object to foreign laws and foreign courts — laws that are not enacted by our democratic g government and judges who are not selected as our Constitution provides — ruling on Americans' rights and the powers of American government. These concerns are largely well founded….
A Visit To The Supreme Court. She was a diminutive woman; rather what some authors would have called bird-like a half-century or more ago. But there was something predatory about her manner, and far from being sociable; she seemed to be wishing to be somewhere else. … Still, there was the impression that despite your greater height, she was still talking down to you.
Supreme Court backs searches in some cases. The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday [3/22/2006] that police cannot search a home when one resident invites them in but another tells them to go away, provoking a strong objection from the new chief justice about the possible impact on battered women. The 5-3 decision put new limits on officers who want to search for evidence of a crime without obtaining a warrant first.
An epic battle — PLEASE. In a pre-9/11 world, there was no more important issue, for conservatives or liberals, than who would be making [appointments to the Supreme Court]. The future of our constitutional republic depended on this election; it depended on whether generations of laws would be made by judicial activists, or whether our Constitution would be restored as the supreme law of the land.
It's time to reclaim our republic from the Supreme Court. There are those in this country who truly believe that the Supreme Court is the repository of all that is good and just. There are those who believe that the Supreme Court should be the ultimate and exclusive interpreter of the Constitution because members of the Court are wiser, fairer, more consistent and more far-seeing than members of the general public. And then there are those who actually look at the jurisprudence of the Court.
Holding Court: Abortion is only one of countless areas in which a mere nine lawyers in robes have imposed their personal policy preferences on the rest of us. The court has conferred due process rights on terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay and benefits on illegal immigrants. It has ruled that animated cyberspace child pornography is protected speech, but certain broadcast ads aired before elections are illegal; it has held that the Ten Commandments can't be displayed in a public building, but they can be displayed outside a public building; and the court has invented rationales to skirt the Constitution, such as using foreign law to strike down juvenile death penalty statutes in over a dozen states.
Ginsburg: 'Any Woman Will Not Do' for Job. Ruth Bader Ginsburg told an audience Wednesday [9/21/2005] that she doesn't like the idea of being the only female justice on the Supreme Court. But in choosing to fill one of the two open positions on the court, "any woman will not do," she said. There are "some women who might be appointed who would not advance human rights or women's rights," Ginsburg told those gathered at the New York City Bar Association.
Editor's comment: Ms. Ginsburg apparently doesn't understand (or believe) that Supreme Court Justices are not appointed for life to advance human rights, women's rights, or any other issue. The purpose of the Supreme Court is to weigh laws and lower court decisions against the Constitution. The Justices are not there to create new rights or to advance utopian ideas of their own.
And suppose someone is appointed to the court who disagrees with everything Ms. Ginsburg believes. Aren't the liberals constantly promoting "diversity in the workplace?"
Table of Past and Present Supreme Court Justices.
Ginsburg is linked to liberal group: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has lent her name and presence to a lecture series cosponsored by the liberal NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, an advocacy group that often argues before the court in support of women's rights that the justice embraces.
Expanding Rights vs. Protecting Rights. As the war for the Supreme Court heats up, it's important for conservatives to understand why the nominations matter. Many conservatives have seized on issues where the Court has played, or might play, a decisive role — such as abortion, gay marriage, or the separation between church and state. While these issues are important, they're only part of a broader trend: The left has been fighting the culture wars through the courts for more than three decades.
At this point, the editor interjects his personal views:
The left uses the courts to advance liberalism because the voters consistently reject their ideas. This is one of the reasons that liberals rely on the votes of dead and fictitious people, felons, and "motor voters."
Supreme quotas? It wouldn't matter if all nine Justices of the Supreme Court were women, if these were the nine best people available. But to decide in advance that you were going to appoint a woman and then look only among women for a nominee was a dangerous gamble with a court that has become dangerous enough otherwise.
Editor's comment: The following article describes an important legal question that nobody seems concerned about. Justice O'Connor has submitted her retirement notice, yet she still serves on the Supreme Court, pending the confirmation of her replacement. But until she leaves, there is no vacancy to fill.
Sandy's Catch-22. Ed Whelan speculates about the effects of a delay in Judge Roberts's confirmation, and along the way he notes that Justice O'Connor's "resignation is effective only upon her successor's confirmation." I'm not sure that is altogether true. It may be what O'Connor said, but that doesn't make it so.
Bench Memos. Additional articles about the Supreme Court nomination process.
Flailing and Flummoxed: Borking has met its match. Borking was pioneered by Ted Kennedy, of course, when Judge Robert Bork was nominated to the court by President Reagan in 1987. It is a practice that involves destroying conservative nominees in all-out smear-fests.
Why we need conservative judges: Citizens don't need their lives defined by others. They need protection. And the vulnerable particularly need protection. Protection means having a legal code that has integrity and having judges that see their job as relating to that law to protect people from the unjust encroachment by others. I would say a society of tyranny is one in which it is never clear what the law is and how I am protected. Ironically, this also characterizes a liberal society. This couldn't have been driven home more clearly than by the Supreme Court's recent eminent-domain decision in the Kelso v. City of New London case.
Thanks for That Subpoena! Quicker than you could say "chilling effects," "the sanctity of the First Amendment," and the "public's right to know," journalists were blubbering that unchecked subpoena power was poised to destroy the press. The current crying jag could come to a halt, however, if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the elegant petition on behalf of Pierre Thomas.
No relief for reporters seeking to shield sources. The US Supreme Court on Monday [6/5/2006] declined to take up the reporters' cases to examine whether a generally recognized "reporters' privilege" against revealing sources should extend to a civil lawsuit brought by former nuclear-weapons-lab scientist Wen Ho Lee.
Judgment Day: President Bush should listen to his base, not his opponents. What's wrong with this picture? President Bush was quick to slap his conservative base, yet he has shown an inexhaustible supply of sensitivity to those who plot to derail his presidency. Early on, the president was solicitous of Senator Ted Kennedy, inviting him to the White House residence to watch a movie and share popcorn. He even named the main Department of Justice building after Robert Kennedy. In return, Kennedy has never missed an opportunity to stick a knife between the president's ribs.
Advice and Consent? You might be surprised by the way Clinton chose Ginsburg.
Courting trouble. The current battle over the future of the Supreme Court reminds us of another foe in the culture war — judges who prefer legislating from the bench to interpreting the law. Don't think this is just a matter for legal experts, the talking heads on cable-TV news shows and our politicians in Washington. The Supreme Court has a more profound effect on the culture war than you may realize.
Big Corporations Finance the War on Bush's Judges. The liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, which has sought to kill a number of President Bush's judicial nominations in recent years, is preparing to play a leading role in opposing the president's nominee for a place on the Supreme Court. But what few people know is that PFAW will do its work financed, in part, by several of the country's leading public — and ostensibly apolitical — corporations.
Excellent!
Senate Sense & Nonsense: Three general principles should apply to the Senate's consideration of any judicial nominee: The Senate should focus its attention on judicial qualifications, not personal political beliefs; the Senate should engage in respectful and honest inquiry, not partisan personal attacks; and the Senate should apply the same fair process — confirmation or rejection by majority vote — that has existed for 214 years of our nation's history.
Let's not get Borked again. [Senator Ted] Kennedy's now-infamous "Bork's America" speech has to be one of the lowest moments in modern American history. Coupled with the constant onslaught of hatred perpetrated by liberal groups such as People for the American Way, NOW, NARAL and Planned Parenthood, it left Judge Bork's nomination in tatters by sundown of the first day.
Flashback:
The Constitution is whatever Sandra Day O'Connor says it is ...on any given Monday. That modifier is crucial, because she does change her mind, and when she does, so does the Constitution.
The Constitution must trump Senate collegiality. What narcissism! The composition of our appellate courts and the right of the president to appoint qualified judges is what is at stake here — not whether the reputation of the Senate as a pristine body of backslapping, congenial good old boys emerges from the process.
Judicial havoc: There was a time when criminals had to fear the courts but honest people did not, a time when doctors did not have to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year for malpractice insurance to guard against frivolous lawsuits.
Supreme
Court Year in Review 2003-04. The opinions included in this Review
involve a broad range of issues that should include something for everyone: national
security and the war against terrorism – the Commander-in-Chief v. the courts; the
Pledge of Allegiance – prayer or patriotism; Internet pornography – who bears the
burden to protect children; religious liberty – or religious discrimination; sexual
harassment in the workplace; when there's a right to remain silent and when
there isn't; cities v. sex businesses; and the increasing reliance on "international
law" by federal courts.Who started the Supreme Court circus? Republicans have been willing to grant Democratic presidents their right to select nominees of their choice, while Democrats have used an explicitly ideological standard since the 1987 trashing of Robert Bork: If you're conservative, you're disqualified — period.
Legislative Lowdown. Five justices on the U.S. Supreme Court triggered a judicial earthquake on June 23. Their ruling in Kelo v. City of New London sparked bipartisan anger on Capitol Hill and showcased the breathtaking power activist judges have to redefine the Constitution.
Republican appointees disappoint again. The Supreme Court banished the Ten Commandments from courthouses in McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union, and ruled against private property in Kelo v. City of New London. The term would have been a complete disaster if Justice Stephen G. Breyer, a Clinton-appointee, had not surprisingly voted to save the Ten Commandments displayed on the Texas State Capitol grounds in Van Orden v. Perry.
Judicial supremacists and the despotic branch. While riding roughshod over the Ninth and Tenth Amendments as they overturned the laws of 19 states, the Supremes blithely pushed the nation one step closer toward what everyone since Plato has described as governance in its most degenerative form.
Equal protection? Just protect the Constitution from the Supreme Court. In 1866, when members of the 39th Congress of the United States submitted the Constitution's 14th Amendment to state legislatures for ratification, they would have been stunned to learn that they had just written a provision mandating that homosexual sex be treated on the same moral plane as heterosexual sex.
Judicial havoc: Part III. In addition to the havoc wrought by the judiciary in our times, there is the havoc wrought on the judiciary itself by others.
The case of Boumediene v. Bush
President Kennedy. Justice Kennedy's opinion is full of self-applause about his defense of the "great Writ," and no doubt it will be widely praised as a triumph for civil liberties. But we hope it is not a tragedy for civil liberties in the long run. If there is another attack on U.S. soil — perhaps one enabled by a terrorist released under the Kennedy rules — the public demand for security will trample the Constitutional delicacies of Boumediene. Just last month, a former Gitmo detainee killed a group of Iraqi soldiers when he blew himself up in Mosul. And he was someone the military thought it was safe to release.
Is the US Constitution a suicide pact after all? The US Supreme Court has just decided to allow terror suspects captured in foreign combat to challenge their detention in Federal civilian courts. This decision contradicts US law for the last 232 years, through the Civil War and the two World Wars.
The Supreme Court Wins, America Loses. [Chief Justice Roberts wrote] that the Boumediene decision is "not really about the detainees at all, but about control of federal policy regarding enemy combatants," and that "[a]ll that today's opinion has done is shift responsibility for those sensitive foreign policy and national security decisions from the elected branches to the Federal Judiciary." More specifically, in the last four words of Justice Roberts's dissent about who has won he names names: "unelected, politically unaccountable judges."
McCain: Guantanamo Ruling One of the 'Worst Decisions' in History. John McCain said Friday that the Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo Bay detainees is "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." The presumptive GOP nominee said the decision, a 5-4 ruling Thursday that determined Guantanamo detainees have the right to seek release in civilian courts, would lead to a wave of frivolous challenges.
The United States Supreme Court Versus America: Thursday's 5-4 decision awarding "unlawful combatants" at Gitmo — terrorists — the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus" has left millions of Americans stunned. What in the world is the majority of the Supreme Court thinking? … It is as though the five justices and their clerks are wholly ignorant of the rising stack of books and flood of articles detailing the nature of the enemy and their creed of death.
Adios, Guantanamo. "The Nation will live to regret what the Court had done today," Justice Antonin Scalia writes at the end of his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush, the case in which a bare majority of the Supreme Court, for the first time ever, extended rights under the U.S. constitution to enemy combatants who have never set foot on U.S. soil.
Combating the Combatants Decision: In a bitterly divided 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in Boumediene v. Bush that alien enemy prisoners, waging a jihad against the American people and captured by our military in a war authorized by Congress, have a right — under our Constitution — to petition our courts for their release. So doing, the Court invalidated laws it had only recently implored Congress to enact, laws that provided these prisoners with generous protections never previously extended to enemy operatives in American history.
Scalia dissents. One of the joys of the Web is the ability to get the Supreme Court's opinions in real time and, particularly, reading the dissents of Justice Scalia to outrageous left-wing opinions. So it is with Boumedienne v. Bush, the Supreme Court's ruling on habeas corpus for detainees in Guantanamo, released yesterday (June 12).
Lord Kennedy. As the swing vote on a polarized United States Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy is among the most powerful men in the country. With yesterday's 5-4 decision in Boumediene v. Bush, Kennedy, who authored the majority opinion, showed that not only is he very comfortable with power, he is also intent on shoring up and expanding the power of the federal judiciary system that he sits atop.
The Gitmo Nightmare: It's hard to summarize a decision as long and complicated as the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling last week in Boumediene v. Bush. But we can try. Unprecedented. Reckless. Harmful. Breathtakingly condescending.
A Supreme Error. Upon reading the opinion in Boumediene v Bush, one must conclude that the majority knew where they wanted to go and simply had to figure out how to get there. The trip was not a pretty one. How could it be when the justices seemingly wrote a map based on ideas cherry picked from over 400 years of established law and backfilled with justifications to create a new right for alien combatants that Americans themselves do not enjoy?
The Supreme Court Goes to War. From the celebrations on most U.S. editorial pages, one might think that the court had stopped a dictator from trampling civil liberties. Boumediene did anything but. The 5-4 ruling is judicial imperialism of the highest order.
Sen. Obama's 9/10 Mind-Set: Does Barack Obama think Osama bin Laden has a right to an attorney and should be read his Miranda rights if captured? As shocking as this is, it's in the proud tradition of his party. In an interview with ABC News on Monday [6/16/2008], Obama indicated that, like President Bill Clinton in 1993 after the first bombing of the World Trade Center, he too would treat the war on terror as a law enforcement matter.
On Terrorism, Obama Is Living History. The justices have dumped potentially hundreds of detainee cases on the federal district courts with no guidance about the rules and procedures that should govern those proceedings. Naturally, this prospect has prompted intense debate.
Boumediene: A Supremely Problematic Court Decision. In Boumediene v Bush, besides, for the first time in history conferring habeas corpus rights on alien enemies detained abroad by our military during a war, the Court struck down as inadequate what Chief Justice John Roberts called "the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded enemy combatants."
Our Miserable Court: Supreme Court in its infinite wisdom decided that violent foreigners who will use any means at their disposal and have declared war on us are to be given all the rights and protections under our Constitution. It is a really strange decision coming from a bunch of justices who routinely look to international law for their inspiration.
We'll Rue Having Judges on the Battlefield. For the first time in our history, the Supreme Court has rejected the considered judgment of both the Congress and the president on an issue of national security. The writ of habeas corpus, a bulwark of domestic liberty, has been extended to foreign nationals whose only connection to the U.S. is their capture by our military.
Update: We are now harvesting the bitter fruit.
The Terrorists Next Door: On Tuesday [10/7/2008], D.C. District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered that 17 foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay be transferred to the U.S. and released. Judge Urbina relied on the Supreme Court's June Boumediene decision, which extended the Constitutional right of habeas corpus to aliens captured abroad and incarcerated outside the U.S. Had an appeals court not granted an emergency stay, the men would have been let go today.
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