by Adam Baumli, JD
While President Bush has made many mistakes in during his terms, his two Supreme Court appointees are probably his biggest accomplishments. These accomplishments didn’t come without an attempt at failure. Bush’s attempted appointment of Harriet Myers was an attempt to increase his popularity among female voters. We all were lucky that he was forced to remedy this mistake. The appointment of Ms. Myers did in fact fail. The reward was Justice Samuel Alito, an exceptional legal writer and a more qualified alternative.
His other appointment was John Roberts. Chief Justice John Roberts was extremely intelligent, attended Harvard Law School, Managing editor of the Law Review, and graduated Magna Cum Laude. Roberts clerked for Judge Henry Friendly on the Second Court of Appeals.
When it comes to the Supreme Court, it is best for the country if you have the smartest legal minds on that court. A common misconception among people is the end result of how a case is decided, but it is the reasoning and precedence with which the opinions present which are the most important.
For example, Roe v. Wade gave women the right to have an abortion. The abortion right is miniscule, in my opinion, as to what the case really decided. The case determined that we as a society can determine when human life actually begins. Here is an example of the effect of that decision. A woman, 3 months pregnant, is assaulted and as a result, her baby dies. Can her attacker be charged with the murder of that baby? The answer is NO. The baby is not a living human now until it has reached the point of viability, which in Roe v. Wade it was determined is much time later in the pregnancy.
Chief Justice Roberts has been criticized along with Scalia, Thomas, and Alito for changing the mindset of the Supreme Court in a more Conservative approach. I will agree that the appointments of Roberts and Scalia do make our highest court more conservative. However, these appointments, I think, make the Supreme Court nearly perfect. The Supreme Court make-up is currently 4 Conservatives (Thomas, Roberts, Scalia, and Alito), 4 Liberals (Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer) and 1 Independent (Kennedy). The Supreme Court is as close to the make-up of the United States as it has ever been.
Here is the comment that extremely criticizes Roberts originally in an article in the New Yorker,
In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party.
Here is my response. First, the author needs to read Jones v. Flowers. Roberts voted with the liberal majority to protect the individual. He voted to require that individuals be given due diligence before tax forfeiture sales. In another case, Roberts voted against the government to protect the Right to Bear Arms, the 2nd Amendment, against legislation created by the District of Columbia. Roberts voted against a school and said that a public school is not allowed to use race as a factor to decide school admissions. This case is probably my favorite case decided by the Supreme Court, even though it wasn’t really decided. It was a plurality, not a majority opinion. Roberts stated that schools cannot use race as the determining factor. He even points out (following Grutter v. Bolinger) that race can be used if it is one of many factors, just as long as it is not the deciding factor. In another famous case, Morse v. Frederick, Roberts did decide in favor of the School vs. student in the “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case. Roberts did not go as far as to agree with Clarence Thomas that students should have no right for Free Speech.
Continuing in response, it seems to me that Toobin disagrees with Roberts decisions, not because of who they protect, but because they are conservative. Toobin goes on to say that the make-up of America is more liberal now and the court should reflect that.
Let’s take a look at the make-up of America. 53% voted for Obama, 46% percent voted for McCain. This looks to me like America is very close to the middle of the two parties and with the addition of Roberts, the Supreme Court reflects exactly that.
If you were to relook at the quote about Roberts and switch everything to the other side, that would describe Ginsburg, Stevens, and Breyer:
In every major case since they were appointed, they have sided with the defendant over the prosecution, the condemned over the state, and the individual plaintiff over the corporate defendant. They have served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Democrat Party.
I removed the executive v. legislative cases because those branches have changed many times during these judges’ terms and in most cases, if not all, these judges have decided in favor of the Democrat side.
Roberts and Alito changed the make-up of the Supreme Court. In the past, the Supreme Court was heavily liberal (thanks to Senior Bush and some of his predecessors). Casey v. Planned Parenthood, (more abortion, an extremely liberal decision) was decided under the old court and many other decisions were very liberal (Michigan Law School allowed to use race as admissions factor, Grutter v. Bollinger). The make-up of the Supreme Court is what has changed the outcome of cases, but as I said before, it’s not just the outcome that’s important, it is the reasoning and the precedence. Roberts’s reasoning seems to me to be very sound. You can generally tell how good a Justice is by the number of majority opinions that he writes. Roberts has written most of the majority opinions since he has been on the Supreme Court. That means that the other justices who sided with it believed that what Roberts was stating was correct. I would love to go through each one of them individually, but that would take forever. Check them out and if you can find holes or flawed reasoning, by all means, discuss.
If you are truly going to attack a Supreme Court Justice, attack his opinion reasoning, not the outcome.
_
0 comments:
Post a Comment