When I was clerking at the court in the early 1980s, Rehnquist told me that the court was like a ship that had become badly tilted — and he made a gesture, signaling that the court had tilted left....
Reducing federal power and limiting the reach of numerous Warren court rulings, Rehnquist... succeeded in restoring what he considered to be the right constitutional balance.
১ এপ্রিল, ২০১৪
Cass Sunstein picks the top 8 Supreme Court Justices of all time...
... and includes William Rehnquist.
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I appreciate the format of the list. All on one page, not those horrid click through monstrosities.
He gives no substantive reason for Felix Frankfurter and Oliver Wendell Holmes wasn't important as a US Supreme Court justice, as opposed to his legal writings and his work on the Massachusetts Supreme Court.
Justice Kennedy has been the most important justice in the last generation when it comes to individual rights. He was the swing vote in Casey and wrote part of the opinion, wrote the opinion in Roemer and Lawrence, and was the swing vote in Heller and McDonald.
He is much more important than Brennan.
ha, I knew he would leave off Black. Sunstein hates Black, hates free speech, despises Black's jurisprudence.
Justice Kennedy has been the most important justice in the last generation
Nothing Kennedy has written will outlive him. He has no jurisprudence, just outcomes.
oh shit, I forgot it's April Fool's day.
My bad, mccullough, I thought you were serious.
> He gives no substantive reason for Felix Frankfurter and Oliver Wendell Holmes
Holmes wrote Buck vs Bell, which is a huge deal to progressives such as Sunstein.
Count to five...
I'm curious why Sunstein wouldn't name a "Top Nine" to match the number of seats on the current court?
mccullough wrote: "Justice Kennedy has been the most important justice in the last generation when it comes to individual rights. He was the swing vote in Casey and wrote part of the opinion, wrote the opinion in Roemer and Lawrence, and was the swing vote in Heller and McDonald.
He is much more important than Brennan."
In reply, Saint Croix wrote: "Nothing Kennedy has written will outlive him. He has no jurisprudence, just outcomes."
I subscribe to the latter. Kennedy will no doubt rank as important because he was the fifth vote. But it is Scalia's dissent in Lawrence that is the real standout (Kennedy's majority opinion is a mess) and it was Scalia who wrote the majority opinion in Heller.
Kennedy would only be important in the way that the "one-billionth customer" was personally important in the history of MacDonald's hamburgers.
Kennedy will always be famous for describing the homicide of a baby in a Supreme Court opinion.
The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.
The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp...
They will talk about that for 100 years. Law students will ask, why didn't he overrule himself?
What, no Justice Whitaker??? The second-best Justice named Charles Evans...
I began to admire the second Justice Harlan when I was in law school. Nothing since has given me cause to change my view.
Saint Croix, don't selectively quote. I said Kennedy was the most important justice in this generation when it comes to individual rights. Sunstein's standards were legal ability and historical significance.
Justice Scalia's dissents in Casey, Roemer, and Lawrence are not important. And his future dissent to Kennedy's future opinion saying laws forbidding gay marriage are unconstitutional will also be historically insignificant.
Scalia's opinions on the criminal jury right and the confrontation clause are historically important.
Warren was a politician, not a judge. It was important politically to get a unanimous court for Brown, but he didn't provide any jurisprudence.
Holmes is greatly overrated. He's remembered because he wrote memorable phrases ("three generations of idiots is enough"), not because he enhanced our understanding of the law.
Brennan on this list is a joke.
Strike those three and replace them with Hugo Black and both Justices Harlan.
mccullough: Kennedy's future opinion federally imposing same-sex marriage on the states will be as admired and as uncontroversial as Justice Blackmun's majority opinion in Roe v Wade. The one that even makes Ginsburg uncomfortable.
Holmes is greatly overrated.
I think his free speech dissents (and his Locher dissent) are rated just right.
"I would suggest that the Quakers have done their share to make the country what it is, that many citizens agree with the applicant's belief, and that I had not supposed hitherto that we regretted our inability to expel them because they believed more than some of us do in the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount."
Ouch!
Oops, Lochner is the Supreme Court case.
Locher is a pretty cool artist.
The real problem with same-sex marriage is in regard to children. Every child has a biological father and a biological mother. Can lesbians contract with a man and have a baby? Can gay men contract with a woman and have a baby? Can these contracts be enforced? Who are the parents? Biological parents or contractual parents? Can you sue the biological parents for child support? Can the biological parents sue for custody?
Do children need a mother and a father? Or are they fine with two mothers? Or two fathers? Or one mother? Or one father?
Liberals have not thought about children at all in regard to gay marriage. They haven't really thought about the purpose of marriage, or why marriage has been a heterosexual institution for thousands of years. Even in places where homosexuality was quite common, marriage was an institution for straight people. Why? Because children need marriage. That's why we have this institution. Liberals skip over that part.
Chuck,
Who said anything about the opinion being admired. I said historically significant.
And why give Blackmun such grief. Roe was a 7-2 decision. Plenty of blame to spread around.
Brennan was an important justice, just like Scalia. They both display strong legal ability and a pretty consistent jurisprudence. Different sides of the same coin.
Saint Croix,
You should have fought harder against no default divorce and AFDC.
Also, gays can adopt in every state. So what these states are saying is that gays have the right to be single parents but not get married. That doesn't make much sense.
You should have fought harder against no fault divorce
There's no question divorce is bad for children. If the Supreme Court said divorce was a constitutional right, I would mock that.
I just wish the people who were fighting for gay marriage would spend a little time thinking about the reproductive issues. What's the plan for reproduction? Biology or contract?
I don't actually think the Supreme Court will find a right to gay marriage. But if they do, they will see uglier cases down the road (like the gay version of Michael H. v. Gerald D.)
Interesting to note that Dred Scott was also 7-2. Just sayin'...
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