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| 5/25 |
| 2004/6/28-29 [Politics/Domestic/California, Reference/Law/Court] UID:31037 Activity:insanely high |
6/28 Not quite unanimous: Three Supreme Court decisions today. 8-1,
6-3, 5-4. President does not get blank check for detaining U.S.
citizens indefinitely without a legal hearing during wartime (8-1).
Non-citizen detainees also have access to federal courts (6-3).
Guantanamo is in U.S. jurisdiction. Padilla case rejected on
technicality (should have filed in S. Carolina, not New York, since
he is detained in Charleston) (5-4).
\_ Sad that the Rheinquist court is the last bastion of sanity in the
Federal govt. But three cheers for these decisions.
\_ My opinion had been that it would have been unanimous against
\_ Think of it as the court voting to preserve the authority of the
court.
\_ I think of it as the court voting to preserve the authority
of the constitution. You remember what that is?
\_ "The constitution? Oh, that thing."
\_ My opinion had been that it was going to be unanimous against
detaining U.S. citizens indefinitely without a legal hearing.
Guess who the lone dissenter was?
\_ What's odd is that Scalia and Thomas usually vote together...it
had to be one of them, right?
\_ If you say to yourself, Scalia prides himself on being the
smartest dude on the Supreme Court and won't go into history
books as clearly making the wrong decision -- what do you
have left?
\-Does anyone know what STEVENS J. wrote in the where
he wrote a separate opinion? Also I was crossing my
he wrote a separate opinion? I was also crossing my
fingers that the Ct would be the "last bastion of sanity".
I think it affirms their role in the checks and balance
system against the executive power and i think the very
idea of *anybody* should *never* get a day in *any* court
is completely shocking to any lawyer and undermines the
meta-principle of the "rule of law" rather than taking
sides on any particular law. --psb
\_ The process that gave Thomas a seat does damage to the
"last bastion" ideal - particularly as a raft of judges
are headed to the SC the same way. -- ulysses
\_ This must also apply to O'Connor then?
\_ What do you mean? Was there something particular
about the way O'Conner was apppointed to the court
or her voting patterns that you object to?
\_ She was a Reagan judge.
\- The SupCt isnt responsible for Thomas being
there. The executive is. The OCONNOR comment
\_ the legislative branch must take some
share of the blame as well, for politi
cizing the consent process. -crebbs
\-i dont think "advise and consent"
leaves them with much room. yeah i
suppose it is too bad they had to
go in for all the anita madness
when they just should have said
"you are too short to be on the ct".
and i think if anything the executive
cyntically used the black factor
to put the legislature in an awkward
position. if you decompartmentalize
from just talking about thomas to
the bork as well, i suppose you
have a point. but that doesnt
mean you float thomas to "get even"
and it certainly doesnt make him
well qualified. --psb
\_ It's not exactly "to get even"
(though...), It is simply a
case of "hey, you played politic
with someone who was qualified
so here's one at least as conserv.
but who is immune to that tactic.
\- well really to "get even"
the went with souter the
stealth candidate who
didnt have a long record
like bork. and that sort
of backfired. but nobody
is saying DS isnt qualified
to be there. --psb
\_ C.T. was chosen also
because he is immune to
the type of character
assassination that hurt
Bork. If there had not
been so much playing
politics by the Leg.
with exec. appointments
I do not believe C.T.
would have been
nominated. -crebbs
doesnt make any sense. Not only is OConnor
super-well qualified to be on the Ct [Rhenquist
was 1st in his law class at Stanford and OConnor
was 3rd in that class] but arguably she is more
influential than the chief because she is closer
to the center. It is amazing how many of the
most sig decisions have been written by her.
See e.g. http://csua.org/u/7yq --psb
\_ She *is* the swing vote, but she seems to favor
pragmatism over principle too much for my
taste.
\_ I remember when I posted that the USSC would probably declare
that it had jurisdiction over the Guantanimo detainees and was
that it had jurisdiction over the Guantanamo detainees and was
mocked for claiming this and especially mocked for using the
qualifier "probably." Well, Right Wing Nutjob, I mock you back
for being wrong and especially mock you for being such an
idiot extremist that you only respect people who claim
certaintly when they do not have it. Like the entire White
House Administration, come to think of it. No wonder you
are so lost.
\_ Why does the Court hate America?
\_ Why is it a "right wing nutjob" who you think was in favor of
us upholding our own constitution? --conservative
\_ Claiming that Bush is above the law is upholding the
Constitution? Sorry a very conservative supreme court
voted 6-3 against your very vocal and strenuous claim
that Bush could do anything he wanted to in Gitmo.
All your quotes from WH lawyers to naught. You and
the WH are both way out on a limb and you don't
even know it.
\-this is quite a simplistic comment.
her equal protection approach to in
texas vs johnson is quite principled.
part of the jobs of the USSC is to give
practical advice lower courts can apply
with some consistency, such as the
lemon test. do you really have any idea
what you are talking about. --psb
\_ hun? url please. I went and read this
case and do not see anything by her at
all, let alone anything regarding
"equal protection". -!principle boy
\- sorry, my mistake. the case to look
at is lawrence v texas, not
tx v johnson [which was the flag
burning case]. there are a lot of
strange departures from "principle"
in sup ct jurisprudence. it's not
so simple as practical vs principle.
like how to blanace sep powers,
federalism, legis intent, article i
powers, orig intent, stare decisis,
process vs. substance, disparate
impact ... see e.g. Benjamin Nathan
Cardozo: Nature of the Judicial
Process, A. Bickel: The Least
Dangerous Branch etc. i assume that
is the case you are asking about,
not the "lemon test" case, which
is lemon v. kurtzman interpreted by
oconnor in various "establishment
clause" cases like lynch v donnelly
to define govt endorsement. --psb |
| 5/25 |
|
| csua.org/u/7yq -> news.findlaw.com/csmonitor/s/20030630/30jun2003084425.html As O'Connor votes, so tilts the Supreme Court By Warren Richey WASHINGTON - It now seems almost impossible in this city of unrestrained superlatives to overstate the influence of Sandra Day O'Connor at the US Supreme Court. In her 22 years on the nation's highest court, Justice O'Connor has firmly established herself as the single most important voice on a nine-member tribunal that decides some of America's most difficult and politically contentious issues, including abortion, religion, race, and the death penalty. By occupying the middle ground on a polarized court, she has been able to ensure more often than not that it is her more moderate view of the law that prevails rather than those of her more liberal or conservative colleagues on the court. This year, more than any other, her power and influence have been on full display. And it goes a long way in explaining how a moderate-to-conservative court can sometimes deliver major liberal victories. In the term that just ended, the Supreme Court issued 13 decisions decided by a 5 to 4 vote. O'Connor voted in the majority in every one of them, including writing a landmark opinion upholding the use of race as a factor in college admissions programs. She is neither consistently conservative nor consistently liberal. And that has legal analysts searching for the right combination of words to describe her importance. "She is the most powerful woman in the history of the universe," quips Thomas Goldstein, a Supreme Court advocate and scholar, during a panel discussion of the court's recently concluded term. Although the comment drew laughter from a contingent of bleary-eyed Supreme Court reporters who have spent recent days pouring over landmark opinions dealing with affirmative action and gay rights, no one challenged the underlying assertion. "If we didn't have a tradition of naming courts after the chief justice, this would be the O'Connor court," says Ronald Klain, a Washington lawyer and former counsel to Al Gore. Casting the decisive vote It isn't just that O'Connor often emerges as the tiebreaker in an otherwise even split between conservatives and liberals. She often uses her deciding vote to achieve what in her view is a measure of justice. To do it requires a close examination, not only of the law, but often of the particular facts of a case. This ad hoc approach, unmoored from an overriding judicial philosophy, can sometimes make hers a difficult vote to predict. On the liberal side, she concurred in a landmark gay rights decision authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy. She chose women's rights over federalism in upholding the application of the federal Family Medical Leave Act to state employers. And she sided with the court's liberal wing in upholding a challenge to the use of client escrow accounts to underwrite legal services for the poor. On the conservative side, she wrote two majority 5-4 decisions upholding California's Three Strikes Law, authorizing potential life prison terms for repeat shoplifters. In a key immigration case, she joined the conservative wing in a ruling that criminal aliens detained pending their removal proceedings do not have a constitutional right to challenge their automatic detention. And she joined a four-justice plurality upholding a federal law requiring libraries to use Internet filtering software to protect children from exposure to pornography on public library computers. Influence on affirmative action Perhaps the best example of O'Connor's influence came exactly a week ago Monday when she made history by writing a majority opinion that, in effect, split the difference between liberal court members favoring affirmative action and conservatives opposed to it. What emerged from O'Connor's pen was an endorsement of a 25-year precedent allowing the limited use of race in college admissions to help achieve a diverse student population. Only moments after her decision was released, the court delivered a second opinion striking down a second affirmative action program. In that case, the use of race in undergraduate admissions to the University of Michigan went too far, she said in a concurring opinion, because it did not provide an individualized assessment of each candidate. "She has an intermediate view on race preferences, not as open to them as some and not as opposed to them as others," says Eugene Volokh, a constitutional law professor at UCLA law school and a former O'Connor clerk. "The test that she gives for when race preferences are allowed has a considerable gray area." Tempering the majority Three days after the affirmative-action decision, the court handed down another landmark. It struck down Texas' Homosexual Conduct Law, which criminalized certain intimate sexual conduct between same-sex couples but not heterosexual couples. In an important expansion of privacy rights, he and the court's four liberal justices invalidated the Texas law because they said it violated a fundamental right to be free from government interference in sexual matters between consenting adults. O'Connor concurred in striking down the law, providing an important sixth vote in support of the judgment. "This is the quintessential example of her jurisprudence and her approach to the judicial role," says Nancy Maveety, a political science professor at Tulane University and author of the book, "Sandra Day O'Connor, Strategist on the Supreme Court." "For her in this case, the decision of the majority was going farther than it needed to go to invalidate the problematic law," Ms Maveety says. "She is not a judge who makes broad, sweeping pronouncements or goes along with them when the court announces them. com and other related marks used on this site are trademarks owned by The Christian Science Publishing Society. Materials may not be modified, distributed, retransmitted, or used, in whole or in part, in derivative works. All other uses, including reprinting, republishing, broadcast, or any further distribution require written permission from The Christian Science Publishing Society. |