The Supreme Court of the United States has made many bad decisions throughout history. Whether that be the decision of the Court itself, their decision making process, the reasoning, or just by accepting the case for review can all aid in what makes a bad decision. Justice Louis D. Brandeis created a set of rules known as the Ashwander rules in his concurring opinion of Ashwander v Texas Valley Authority 1936. These guidelines were created to help the Court and future justices determine what kind of cases should or should not be accepted, and if they are accepted, what kind of things to stay away from or adhere to. The Ashwander Rules, also known as the Brandeis Rules are: No friendly suits meaning the two sides cannot have the same interest …show more content…
Glenn Phelps and Graduate Assistant Emily Schnurr in the Spring 2015 semester came up with their own set or rules that the Court should adhere to known as the P.S. (Phelps-Schnurr) Commandments for the Prevention of SCOTUS Bad Decisions. From this point, this will be shortened to the P.S. Commandments. The P.S. Commandments are reasons why some of the decisions that the Supreme Court made in the past are bad ones. Some examples are: Thou shalt not announce a legal principle and then refuse to apply it, thou shalt not use purely partisan reasons, and thou shalt not grant standing to a third party, to name a few. This class also analyzed and concluded the Top 10 Worst Supreme Court Decisions. They are Marbury v. Madison, Bush v. Gore, Dred Scott v. Sandford, The Flag Salute Cases (Minersville School District v. Gobitis, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette), Hammer v. Dagenhart, Plessy v. Ferguson, Korematsu v. United States, Roe v. Wade, Bradwell v. Illinois, and Buck v. Bell. All of which are considered bad decisions for varying reasons. As for the number 11 spot of the worst Supreme Court decisions, there are many potential candidates. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is arguably the 11th worst decision made by the Supreme Court because when it held that corporations were protected under the First and Fourteenth Amendments as having the same rights as people to spend …show more content…
Their goal was to cast a shadow over this candidate and place her in the negative views of the electorate. In 2008, Citizens United completed the production of this documentary and they set out to air it on broadcast television (Sitaraman, 2014). As Citizens United was well aware, doing this within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary violates the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. This set into motion the historical case Citizens United v Federal Election Commission 2010. Before the Supreme Court, this case was compared to the precedent set in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which was dealing with a similar issue. It was expected of the Court to rule on the narrowly formed question originally presented, could this conservative lobbyist group, Citizens United, show their film? Citizens United argued that Section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act violates the First Amendment and when applied to their documentary and its related advertisements, and the sections 201 and 203 were also unconstitutional when applied to the circumstances (Sitaraman, 2014). The United States District Court denied their order. Section 203 was not unconstitutional. The District Court also held that The Movie was not directly degrading towards Clinton
Brennan (Majority Decision): Justice Brennan read the decision which stated that the ruling from the previous court was not consistent with decisions from other courts regarding the same types of cases (Pembaur v. Cincinnati, 1986).
The decision in the Gibbons v. Ogden case is, in my opinion, a very just
...nsible for the content of this advertising.” Citizens United, aware that the airing of Hillary during the 2008 primaries would be illegal, tried to obtain an injunction to preclude the Federal Election Commission from enforcing the McCain-Feingold Act, claiming that sections 201, 203, and 311 of the law violated the First Amendment. The Federal Election Commission, despite Citizens United’s efforts, held that broadcast of Hillary would violate the McCain-Feingold Act and proceeded to ban the film from airing on television. Citizens United, seeking injunctive relief, decided to bring its case before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. However, upon discovering that the United States District Court for the District of Columbia had denied its application, Citizens United decided to appeal the case to the Supreme Court of the United States.
The final outcome to the case of Clinton v. The City of New York was very surprising to many different people. The constitutional issues that were brought up was that with the Line Item Veto Act the President had too much power. Many arguments were brought up in the Supreme Court from both the majority and the dissenting sides. The whole case being ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and then coming to a mooted point to this day. I believe that this ruling was incorrect in the fact that the majority should feel good that they had received the rest of the bill.
...ice it when the said sources contain no clear information regarding the topic at hand. In situations like these, the Supreme Court is essentially free to do whatever it wishes, and often exercises judicial activism. Thus, there is a disconnect that exists between the theoretical practice of judicial review, which is reasonable and justifiable, and the actual practice of judicial review that is often used in the Supreme Court, which may potentially allow the Judiciary to surpass the powers granted to it in the Constitution and as stated by Hamilton in Federalist 78. There are two main sides to the debate about how Justices should approach judicial review: the strict constructionists, who advocate for strict adherence to the text of the Constitution when deciding a case, and the loose constructionists, who advocate for more freedom for the judges when deciding a case.
When the rights of the American citizen are on the line than the judiciary should utilize the powers invested in them to protect and enforce what is constitutional. However, in times of controversy, where personal preference or aspects of religious or personal nature are at hand, the judiciary should exercise their power with finesse, thereby acting out judicial restraint. An example of such is in the case of Engel v. Vitale where Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the court directing the School District’s principal to read a prayer at the commencement of each school day. In cases that do not regard whether an action is constitutional or not, the judiciary should suppress their power of judicial review.
Through the years many changes have taken place, and technologies have been discovered, yet our Constitution remains. Some say that the Constitution was written for people hundreds of years ago, and in turn is out of step with the times. Yet its principals and guidelines have held thus far. The framers would be pleases that their great planning and thought have been implemented up until this point. However this does not compensate for the fact, that the we the people have empowered the government more so than our fore fathers had intended. Citizens were entrusted with the duty to oversee the government, yet so many times they are disinterested and only seem to have an opinion when the government’s implications affect them. As time has changed so has the American people, we often interpret our freedoms in a self serving manner, disregarding the good of the whole and also the good for the future. Thus there are no true flaws in the Constitution, it appears that the conflict emerges in the individual and their self, and poses question when we must decide when to compromise the morals that our Constitution was founded on, or when to stick to what we know is right and honest.
Campaign finance reform has a broad history in America. In particular, campaign finance has developed extensively in the past forty years, as the courts have attempted to create federal elections that best sustain the ideals of a representative democracy. In the most recent Supreme Court decision concerning campaign finance, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court essentially decided to treat corporations like individuals by allowing corporations to spend money on federal elections through unlimited independent expenditures. In order to understand how the Supreme Court justified this decision, however, the history of campaign finance in regards to individuals must be examined. At the crux of these campaign finance laws is the balancing of two democratic ideals: the ability of individuals to exercise their right to free speech, and the avoidance of corrupt practices by contributors and candidates. An examination of these ideals, as well as the effectiveness of the current campaign finance system in upholding these ideas, will provide a basic framework for the decision of Citizens United v. FEC.
The court system has jumped back and forth throughout the years and this may seem very confusing to the average person but they’ve never changed their mind on the big cases that were said in the previous paragraph. But the court seems to be sporadic in its decisions outside of these big cases. It all starts in 1962 when they held that prayer in the public schools was a violation of the first amendment.
Such precedent setting decisions are usually derived from the social, economic, political, and legal philosophy of the majority of the Justices who make up the Court, and also represent a segment of the American population at a given time in history. Seldom has a Supreme Court decision sliced so deeply into the basic fabric that composes the tapestry and direction of American law or instigated such profound changes in cherished rights, values, and personal prerogatives of individuals: the right to privacy, the structure of the family, the status of medical technology and its impact upon law and life, and the authority of state governments to protect the lives of their citizens.(3-4)
The Supreme Court, which sees almost 150 petitions per week, called cert petitions, must carefully select the cases that they want to spend their time and effort on (Savage 981). If they didn’t select them carefully, the nine justices would quickly be overrun, so they have put in place a program to weed through the court cases to pick out the small number they will discuss. There are a few criteria that are used to judge whether or not a case will be tried. The first is whether or not the lower courts decided the case based on another one of the Supreme Court’s decisions for they will investigate these in order to withhold or draw back their conclusion that they made in their court case. Another is the case’s party alignment: sometimes the justices will pick cases that will align with their party beliefs, like trying to get a death row inmate off of his death sentence. They also make claims about the “life” of the case- the Supreme Court only hears “live” cases- they do not try to go back in time and re-mark a case that has long since been decided (Savage 981). Lastly, they like to take cases where the lower courts did not decide with one another -these cases can have t o do with interpretations of the law that have been left up to the lower courts and should be specifically defined by the Supreme Court (Savage 982).
The life of every American citizen, whether they realize it or not, is influenced by one entity--the United States Supreme Court. This part of government ensures that the freedoms of the American people are protected by checking the laws that are passed by Congress and the actions taken by the President. While the judicial branch may have developed later than its counterparts, many of the powers the Supreme Court exercises required years of deliberation to perfect. In the early years of the Supreme Court, one man’s judgement influenced the powers of the court systems for years to come. John Marshall was the chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, and as the only lasting Federalist influence in a newly Democratic-Republican government, he and his fellow justices sought to perpetuate their Federalist principles in the United States’ court system. In one of the most memorable court cases of all time--the case of Marbury v. Madison-- Marshall established the idea of judicial review and strengthened the power of the judicial branch in the government. Abiding by his Federalist ideals, Marshall decided cases that would explicitly limit the power of the state government and broaden the strengths of the national government. Lastly, the Marshall Court was infamous for determining the results of cases that dealt with the interpretation of the Constitution and the importance of contracts in American society. The Marshall Court, over the span of a mere three decades, managed to influence the life of every American citizen even to this day by impacting the development of the judicial branch, establishing a boundary between the state and national government, and making declarations on the sanctity of contracts ("The Marshall Court"...
Conflicting judicial philosophies define the essence of the nation’s highest court: The Supreme Court. These two conflicting doctrines are judicial restraint and judicial activism. Judicial restraint occurs when justices attempt to limit their own power by only declaring actions of the other branches unconstitutional when the decision is obvious. Precedent, the concept of stare decisis, is also highly revered by judicial restraint justices. Judicial activism revolves around the idea that justices should “legislate from the bench” by entering into social and political matters.
Separate but equal, judicial review, and the Miranda Rights are decisions made by the Supreme Court that have impacted the United States in history altering ways. Another notable decision was made in the Tinker v. Des Moines Case. Ultimately the Supreme Court decided that the students in the case should have their rights protected and that the school acted unconstitutionally. Justice Fortas delivered a compelling majority opinion. In the case of Tinker v Des Moines, the Supreme Court’s majority opinion was strongly supported with great reasoning but had weaknesses that could present future problems.
Hall, Kermit L, eds. The Oxford guide to United States Supreme Court decisions New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.