More Please

This story about reading dissents from the bench reminds me why Pamela Karlan belongs (with Diane Wood) at or near the very top of Obama’s Supreme Court shortlist:

Consider Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 decision that said there was nothing in the Constitution to stop states from making it a crime for gay men to have consensual sex at home. Justice Harry A. Blackmun had written a dissent, and he was thinking about summarizing it from the bench.

That sounded good to his law clerk, Pamela S. Karlan.

“The majority’s treatment is a disgrace,” she wrote in a memorandum to the justice that became public when his papers were released “and it’s well worth making clear to everyone what the case is really about.”

The dissent itself — which, if I understand correctly, was primarily authored by Karlan — is a very good one.