For one last go-round, I’ll respond to a couple of the creative attempts in comments to justify essentially indefensible life tenure for judges. Essentially, all of these arguments are “largely speculative effects that would be trivial even if they existed with no attempt to balance them against the very real and identifiable costs of life […]
Tag: Supreme Court
I have some thoughts about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court tenure over at Comment Is Free.
Sandy Levinson makes the argument again. Before I get to some potential objections, I think a couple points should be emphasized. First, it’s abundantly clear that life tenure is in no way a req
The comments here focusing (correctly) on the age of potential judicial appointments — a problem given that current norms favor appellate judges and there hasn’t been a Democratic president for 8 years (and moreover that president mostly had a Republican Senate and didn’t make judges a high priority) — reminds me that it would be […]
A couple of commenters in the previous thread have asked about who I’d like to see chosen if (God forbid) Ginsburg is forced to leave the Court. I addressed this in a post a while back. I still
Dahlia Lithwick makes the case for a liberal of the Brennan/Marshall variety (although I suppose the best analogy to Scalia would be William O. Douglas.) Unfortunately, I think she’s also convin
Ruth Bader Ginsburg has had surgery for pancreatic cancer. As noted, “[s]he was treated for colon cancer in 1999 and did not miss a day on the bench,” so her departure from the Court is not necessarily imminent, but obviously our thoughts should go out to her.
In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled in Apprendi v. New Jersey that under the 6th Amendment’s right to a jury trial, any factor that increased a defendant’s sentence had to either 1)be admitte
One potential list here. I must admit that I have a strong sympathy for Sonia Sotomayor, given her role in stopping MLB’s attempted bad faith union-busting in 1995, but she seems too moderate to
Since we haven’t heard much about the courts in this election, I suppose it’s worth noting that given the likely retirements of Ginsburg (75 year-old cancer survivor), Souter (69, hates D.C. and isn’t crazy about the job) and Stevens (in college when the word “damn” could generate national controversy; may have seen Cap Anson play […]
Kay Steiger has an excellent article about how vulnerable Roe is under the current Supreme Court, which quotes yours truly. The bottom line for me remains that the argument that Roe‘s overturn i
Steven Calabresi waxes hysterical and ludicrously implausible: If Mr. Obama wins we could possibly see any or all of the following: a federal constitutional right to welfare; a federal constitutional