Scalia believed and promoted the concept of originalism, an approach which involves reading and interpreting the constitution as it was "originally understood" and "fixed in meaning" rather than treating it as " a living document" where the intepretation changes with the times. Eventhough Scalia was an firebrand conservative, this philosophy found welcome support from both liberal and conservative sides of the bench. As Justice Elena Kagan once said of his approach to statutory interpretation: “We’re all originalists now.” The Boston Globa called Scalia the “The Unrelenting Provoker.” By forcing his ideological adversaries to engage with his ideas, both through his intellectual rigor and through personal charisma, Scalia reshaped and enriched
Originalism, an orthodox principle of legal interpretation, focuses on interpretation pursuant to the original understanding of constitutional words . This incorporates arguments from the ‘text, context, purpose and structure of the constitution’. The originalist method of constitutional in...
The court case of Marbury v. Madison (1803) is credited and widely believed to be the creator of the “unprecedented” concept of Judicial Review. John Marshall, the Supreme Court Justice at the time, is lionized as a pioneer of Constitutional justice, but, in the past, was never really recognized as so. What needs to be clarified is that nothing in history is truly unprecedented, and Marbury v. Madison’s modern glorification is merely a product of years of disagreements on the validity of judicial review, fueled by court cases like Eakin v. Raub; John Marshall was also never really recognized in the past as the creator of judicial review, as shown in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford.
The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court, by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, gives the public an intimate description of the justices who serve on the Supreme Court in the 1969-1976. This book also gives an unprecedented look at the daily work and personal lives of the justices. The book describes the relationships the justices have with each other and the relationships they have with their clerks. Woodward and Armstrong give the reader insight to the justice's personalities and their personal agenda. There is an appearance that the justices use their positions on the Supreme Court to push their ideologies and create laws instead of enforcing the laws set by congress.
Justice John Paul Stevens initially took a moderate stance on abortion rights prior to and immediately after joining the Supreme Court. When President Gerald Ford nominated then-Judge Stevens, abortion rights were not as politically controversial as they are today. In a sense, Justice Stevens did not have to take a strong stance on abortion in order to make it onto the Supreme Court. As his time on the Supreme Court went on, Justice Stevens developed a more pro-choice stance in deciding abortion rights cases. After the Reagan-era rise of conservative Republicans, evangelical abortion advocates emerged to the forefront of American politics and media. Justice Stevens always recognized the right to choose established in Roe v. Wade, but may not have felt the strong need to preserve and protect it early in his career. As the years went on, Justice Stevens’ abortion jurisprudence developed into a more pro-choice friendly jurisprudence than that which he initially espoused, likely due to the increased controversial nature of the abortion debate. Justice Stevens felt the need to protect and preserve the stare decisis first established in Roe. In some of the later cases, Justice Stevens developed a strategy to approaching abortion cases and realized that some compromise was required in order to preserve the right to choose. In the early 1990s, Stevens acted as almost a mediator between the liberal and conservative Justices. Stevens did what he could to preserve the fundamental rights from Roe.
Judicial Tyranny was a very thought-provoking read and even though the reader may agree with Mr. Sutherland’s view point, a rational thinker must admit that he and his colleagues do the very same thing they accuse the federal courts are doing - forcing their beliefs and opinions (court rulings) on the reader. It can be reasonably argued that some of the statements written were just as radical and antagonistic as it accused the judiciary of being. Even though I may agree with most of what was written, as an unbiased reader I have to admit that the work was presumptive and does not fully address other important issues concerning the federal court system.
Palmer, Elizabeth A. "The Court and Public Opinion." CQ Weekly 2 Dec. 2000. CQ Weekly. SAGE Publications. Web. 1 Mar. 2000. .
In Supreme Court cases, it is difficult to determine which side the judges will rule because the cases are often very controversial. The Constitution and one’s rights need to be protected, and if it goes against the Constitution, the consequences will not be agreed upon. As a result, in Holmes’ analysis, it ultimately brings to light the importance of results often being black and white, but they truly aren’t. The public still has a long way to go in not only understanding the law, but also the reasons why judges make these different decisions. But the most important thing is that the U.S. Constitution is always followed.
Shortly after high school, Bader attended Cornell University. During her years at Cornell, she became a member of Alpha Epsilon Phi and met her future husband, Martin D. Ginsburg. Bader graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government on June 23, 1954. A month after her graduation, Bader married Ginsburg and moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Soon after, she attended Harvard Law School and became one of nine women to attend that school out of five hundred. Unfortunately, her husband took a job in the city of New York, so she transferred to Columbia Law School and received her Bachelor of Laws in 1959. The reason I chose to write about Mrs. Ginsburg is because I remember her talking to my class. My fourth grade class went on a field trip to Washington, D.C. for a whole week. Over the course of the week, we had gone many different places and learned about many different things, one of them being about the Supreme Court. I can’t remember the building that we were in, but I remember Mrs. Ginsburg talking to us about what the Supreme Court is and its responsibilities. Since I remember her sharing that information with my fourth grade class, I decided to write about
Every Justice has their own views and ideas on how cases are to be decided. The best approach to interpreting the Constitution is adopting the pragmatist approach, which is why it has lasted so many years. Opposite to originalism, where the Justices interpret the document by using the framers intended meaning at the time it was written, pragmatism follows the assumption that the Constitution is a living document; this means the interpretation of the document adapts to the growing and ever changing society. With this ideology, Justices may make decisions that do not follow the rulings on precedent cases; they also look at how their decisions will impact the current society, along with how the decision will affect future cases. Throughout Supreme Court history there have been a number of Justices that have used the pragmatic approach, including Justices Robert Jackson, Stephen Breyer, and Oliver
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how Chief Justice John Marshall affected the American Judicial System. The reader will therefore first find a brief biography of John Marshall. Then the paper will explain in detail the origins of the Judicial Power to subsequently...
Remy, Richard C., Gary E. Clayton, and John J. Patrick. "Supreme Court Cases." Civics Today. Columbus, Ohio: Glencoe, 2008. 796. Print.
Hall, Kermit L, eds. The Oxford guide to United States Supreme Court decisions New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Constitutional interpretation is the principle job of the Judicial branch, and citizens have a variety of earnest beliefs based off of the document as well. There were several incidents where Hennessey’s own opinions were present in his writing. While discussing the Second Amendment, he states, “ So, if “people” have the right to bear arms, government has the power to impose fair qualifications on that right” (p.95). I don’t have to disagree with this assertion to know that readers deserve to learn from unbiased materials. This is a fierce issue in our government, and many people contend that Second Amendment rights are absolute and should not be infringed upon. Other times, Hennessy presents both sides of an issue like whether the Constitution is a “living document” that changes as time passes, or what Textualists believe, which is that the constitution should be accepted exactly as it is written. The value of reading the
Kay, H. H. (2004, Jan). Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Professor of Law. Columbia Law Review, 104, 1-20. doi:10.2307/4099343
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was born on March 11, 1936 in Trenton, New Jersey to a Sicilian immigrant father and an Italian-American mother and was raised in Queens. He attended Catholic schools in New York City as a child and teen. Scalia then attended Georgetown University, spending his junior year at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, and graduated at the top of his class with an A.B. (Sorry, I don’t know what that means) in 1957. He also attended Harvard, serving as the editor for Law Review. Scalia graduated from Harvard in 1960. On September 10, 1960, Scalia married Maureen McCarthy, and the two went to go live in Cleveland, Ohio. While in Cleveland, Scalia was admitted to the Ohio Bar and worked for the law firm of Jones, Day, Cockley, and Reavis until 1967. The Scalias then moved to Virginia, and he was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1970. While In Virginia, Scalia taught law at the Virginia Law School until 1974. In 1971, Scalia became General Counsel of the Office of Telecommunications Policy for the White House, and from 1972 to 1974, he was the chairman of the Administrative Conference of the US. Scalia was then appointed the assistant attorney general of the Office of Legal Counsel for the Department of Justice. In 1977, Scalia returned to teaching after 6 months serving as the resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in DC. Him and his family picked up and moved again to Chicago, Illinois. While In Chicago, Scalia taught at the University of Chicago’s law school (he was also a visiting professor of law at his alma mater, Georgetown University, and also at Stanford University during that time) until President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in 1982. Scalia took his oath of office on August 17 of that year. Four years after Scalia began working at the Court of Appeals, President Reagan then chose him to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed Reagan’s appointment on September 17, and Scalia took his oath of office on the 26th of that month. In the year 2000, Scalia has made decisions in two Supreme Court cases, Troxel vs. Granville and California Democratic Party vs. Jones. I will discuss the Troxel vs. Granville case. Troxel vs. Granville is in violation of "The Washington Rev.