Showing papers on "Supreme court published in 2001"

Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation

Abstract: Author(s): Orfield, Gary | Abstract: Almost a half century after the US Supreme Court concluded that Southern school segregation was unconstitutional and "inherently unequal," new statistics from the 1998-99 school year show that segregation continued to intensify throughout the 1990s, a period in which there were three major Supreme Court decisions authorizing a return to segregated neighborhood schools and limiting the reach and duration of desegregation orders The data from the 2000 Census and from national school statistics show that the US is an overwhelmingly metropolitan society, dominated by its suburbs The high level of suburban segregation reported for African American and Latino students in this report suggests that a major set of challenges to the future of the minority middle class and to the integration of suburbia need to be addressed

The Role of Constitutional Courts in the Establishment and Maintenance of Democratic Systems of Government

Abstract: What role do courts play in the establishment and maintenance of constitutional democracies? To address this question, we elaborate a model that draws on existing substantive literature and on theories that assume strategic behavior on the part of judges, executives, and legislatures. This model, in turn, leads to several behavioral predictions about the interactions among the relevant political actors. Although those predictions could be assessed in many distinct contexts, we focus on Russia. In particular, we provide a demonstration of how the model helps make sense of the behavior of the Constitutional Court (Konstitucjonnyj sud) in light of the difficult political situation it confronted. We conclude with some thoughts on the broader implications of our theory for the study of courts throughout Eastern Europe and how it may well illuminate constitutional politics in other parts of the world. Before World War II, few European States had constitutional courts, and virtually none exercised any significant judicial review over legislation. After 1945 all that changed. West Germany, Italy, Austria, Cyprus, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Greece, Spain, Portugal and even France . . created tribunals with power to annul legislative enactments inconsistent with constitutional requirements. Many of these courts have become significant-even powerful-actors. -Herman Schwartz (1992:741) European constitutional courts have created situations in which legislators feel obliged to enter into constitutional discourse, both an internal discourse and a discourse with the court, to make and to take seriously constitutional arguments, and to cast and recast statutory language in the light of potential constitutional objections. -Martin Shapiro & Alec Stone (1994b:417) [T]here is an expansion of judicial power afoot in the world's political systems. -C. Neal Tate (1995:27) Today, at the end of the twentieth century, it is scarcely possible to recount, much less understand, the major political and social developments in industrial societies without attention to legal norms, courts and judges. -Sally J. Kenney, William A Reisinger & John C. Reitz (1999:1) These quotes, from legal academics and social scientists alike, are just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, for more than a decade now, the community of law and society scholars has acknowledged the "active role" courts are playing "in ensuring the supremacy of constitutional principles" (Henckaerts & Van der Jeught 1998) and in democratization efforts throughout the world, but especially in Eastern Europe. This expansion of judicial power-or what some term the "judicialization of politics" (Tate & Vallinder 1995a) raises whole sets of intriguing questions, and unanswered questions at that.1 For, despite an acknowledgment of their importance, we "know precious little," as Gibson et al. (1998) recently lamented, "about the judicial and legal systems in countries outside the United States. We understand little or nothing about the degree to which various judiciaries are politicized; how judges make decisions; how, whether, and to what extent those decisions are implemented; how ordinary citizens influence courts, if at all; or what effect courts have on institutions and cultures" (p. 343). Certainly no single research endeavor can fill all the voids Gibson and his colleagues identify. What we do instead is tackle one question, albeit one that is of core concern to the Gibson team, as well as to many others laboring in this field: What role do constitutional courts play in the establishment and maintenance of democracies? For judicial specialists, this question is of obvious significance, having served as a focal point for studies on the U.S. Supreme Court for over four decades (Casper 1976; Dahl 1957; Gates 1992; Rosenberg 1991). But there are at least two other groups for which our question might resonate. …

Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy

Abstract: Many people were elated when Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in May 1954, the ruling that struck down state-sponsored racial segregation in America's public schools. Thurgood Marshall, chief attorney for the black families that launched the litigation, exclaimed later, "I was so happy, I was numb." The novelist Ralph Ellison wrote, "another battle of the Civil War has been won. The rest is up to us and I'm very glad. What a wonderful world of possibilities are unfolded for the children!" Here, in a concise, compelling narrative, Bancroft Prize-winning historian James T. Patterson takes readers through the dramatic case and its fifty-year aftermath. A wide range of characters animates the story, from the little-known African-Americans who dared to challenge Jim Crow with lawsuits (at great personal cost); to Thurgood Marshall, who later became a Justice himself; to Earl Warren, who shepherded a fractured Court to a unanimous decision. Others include segregationist politicians like Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas; Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon; and controversial Supreme Court justices such as William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas. Most Americans still see Brown as a triumph-but was it? Patterson shrewdly explores the provocative questions that still swirl around the case. Could the Court-or President Eisenhower-have done more to ensure compliance with Brown? Did the decision touch off the modern civil rights movement? How useful are court-ordered busing and affirmative action against racial segregation? To what extent has racial mixing affected the academic achievement of black children? Where indeed do we go from here to realize the expectations of Marshall, Ellison, and others in 1954?

Minding the Law

Abstract: 1. Invitation to a Journey 2. On Categories 3. Categorizing at the Supreme Court Missouri v. Jenkins and Michael H. v. Gerald D. 4. On Narrative 5. Narratives at Court Prigg v. Pennsylvania and Freeman v. Pitts 6. On Rhetorics 7. The Rhetorics of Death McCleskey v. Kemp 8. On the Dialectic of Culture 9. Race, the Court, and America's Dialectic From Plessy through Brown to Pitts and Jenkins 10. Reflections on a Voyage Appendix: Analysis of Nouns and Verbs in the Prigg, Pitts, and Brown Opinions Notes Table of Cases Index

When Caring Is Just and Justice Is Caring: Justice and Mental Retardation

Abstract: It is thedisability that other disabled persons do not want attributed to them. It is the dis-ability for which prospective parents are most likely to use selective abortion(Wertz 2000). And it is the disability that prompted one of the most illustriousUnited States Supreme Court Justices to endorse forced sterilization, because

Dead Rights, Live Futures: A Reply to Habermas's “Constitutional Democracy”

Abstract: In the United States this past year, the tension between constitutionalism and democracy was not an abstract theoretical problem. In the late fall of 2000, the tension became an all-out fight over who would decide the outcome of the American presidential election: the Supreme Court or the people? Would there be a new round of voting by those in Florida who misread their ballots or were wrongly barred from casting theirs? Would ballots be recounted according to a single Court-given standard? Or would the election be called (some might say stalled) by the Court? We all know what happened in the end. Ostensibly concerned about the risks of fracture, division, and uncertainty, the Supreme Court ended the counting in Florida, effectively deciding the election on behalf of George W. Bush. Until the Court's decision of the case, Americans were becoming educated about the politics of elections. The curtain was pulled back for a moment and all saw how arbitrary, subjective, irrational, and political was the machinery of U.S. elections, the guarantor of one person one vote. Thus, along with the risks of fracture and division came the risks and promises of demystification, outrage, and involvement.' These latter risks and promises, the risks and promises of democracy, were averted by the Court's intervention. The tense relationship between constitutionalism and democracy is built into the very heart of liberal democracies, which take as their ground and goal

Lessons for the Future of Affirmative Action from the Past of the Religion Clauses

Abstract: For both educational affirmative action and the use of race in districting, this essay pursues parallels with the Supreme Court's religion clause jurisprudence in aid of the argument that the approach mapped out by the Powell opinion in Bakke, the Michigan District Court in Gratz, and the Supreme Court dissenters in the Shaw v. Reno line of voting rights cases makes more sense as a part of our constitutional law than the sort of categorical opposition to the use of race in anything other than a strictly remedial context that is rapidly becoming its chief competition. My contention is that the Supreme Court's attitude toward race, at least in the two contexts of educational affirmative action and voting rights, should follow the same trajectory as its attitude toward religion already has. The trajectory I have in mind is the following: For a period of time, on Establishment Clause grounds, the exclusion of religion and the religious from otherwise generally available opportunities was endorsed, indeed was seen as constitutionally required. Then the Court came to realize that it worked a discrimination against those whose central organizing characteristic or salient trait was their religion to allow other such characteristics, but not religion, to form the basis for inclusion. Similarly, to allow every other basis for commonality or salience to count and not race may be seen to disadvantage those for whom race is a defining characteristic in a way that itself implicates the Equal Protection Clause. To put the argument in extremely compressed and referential form, if colorblindness is analogous to aggressive enforcement of the Establishment Clause, then, while the University of California's use of race in the plan struck down in Bakke may resemble the New York legislature's use of religion in the districting legislation struck down in Kiryas Joel, the inclusion of race in the Harvard admissions plan praised by Justice Powell more closely resembles the inclusion of religion mandated by the Supreme Court for the University of Virginia's funding scheme in Rosenberger. And, if the affirmative action claims of racial minorities are like the accommodation claims of religious minorities, then, while some voluntary pursuit of racial diversity by public educational institutions is like permissible accommodation, some majority minority districting under the Voting Rights Act is like required accommodation.

Elections Online: Assessing Internet Voting in Light of the Arizona Democratic Primary

Abstract: The public furor surrounding the Florida vote count in the recent presidential election has focused attention on election administration and the need for reform. Mistakes by voters due to confusing butterfly ballots, along with difficulties in counting punch card ballots due to stubborn chads, led to legal challenges by both presidential candidates that made their way to the Supreme Court. The Court's opinion in Bush v. Gore condemns "arbitrary and disparate treatment" of voters and mandates "specific standards" and "uniform rules" for the exercise of the vote to ensure "that the rudimentary requirements of equal treatment and fundamental fairness are satisfied."' While the Court itself was not specific on what those specific standards should be, one potential response to the Court's mandate is a move to electronic voting. As a commentator in Wired remarked: "The 2000 election highlights the fact that American democracy hinges for the most part, on 1960s technology. ... So is electronic voting at precincts, if not Internet voting from remote locations the way to prevent further crises in our democracies?"2 Proponents claimed that, among other benefits, a move to electronic voting would have prevented ballot spoiling, allowed for immediate vote counts, and prevented the early guesswork by television networks that led to the misreporting of state results.3

The Norm of Consensus on the U.S. Supreme Court

Abstract: For four decades scholars have sought to explain the rise of dissensus on the U.S. Supreme Court. While the specific explanations they offer vary, virtually all rest on a common story: during the nineteenth (and into the twentieth) century, the Supreme Court followed a norm of consensus. That is, the justices may have privately disagreed over the outcomes of cases but masked their disagreement from the public by producing consensual opinions. The problem with this story is that its underlying assumption lacks an empirical basis. Simply put, there is no systematic evidence to show that a norm of consensus ever existed on the Court. We attempt to provide such evidence by turning to the docket books of Chief Justice Waite (1874-1888) and making the following argument: if a norm of consensus induced unanimity on Courts of by-gone eras, then the norm may have manifested itself through public unanimity in the face of private conference disagreements. Our investigation, which provides systematic support for this argument and thus for the existence of a norm of consensus, raises important questions about publicly unified decision-making bodies, be they courts or other political organizations. ver the course of four decades, scholars have produced mounds of paper providing explanations for the cause of the dramatic phenomenon depicted in Figure 1: the rise of dissensus on the U.S. Supreme Court (e.g., Caldeira and Zorn 1998; Halpern and Vines 1977; Mason 1956; Murphy 1964; Pritchett 1948; Walker, Epstein, and Dixon 1988).1 Certainly the specific reasons they offer vary (compare Goldman 1982 and Haynie 1992), but the underlying story contemporary scholars tell does not. During most of the nineteenth (and into the twentieth) century dissent rates remained low, so the story goes, because Supreme Court justices followed a norm of consensus, reflecting their belief that unanimity would "greatly strengthen the authority" of the Court and its rulings (Rehnquist 1996, 58; see also Beveridge 1919; Goebel 1971). That is, the justices may have privately disagreed over the outcomes of cases but they masked their disagreements from the public by producing consensual

Changes in the Standards for Admitting Expert Evidence in Federal Civil Cases Since the Daubert Decision

Abstract: The U.S. Supreme Court's 1993 Daubert decision directed federal judges to scrutinize the reliability of expert evidence proposed for admission at trial. This study uses a sample of federal district court opinions between 1980 and 1999 to examine how judges, plaintiffs, and defendants responded to the new directive. The authors find that after Daubert, judges increasingly evaluated the reliability of expert evidence. A rise in both the proportion of challenged evidence found unreliable and the proportion of challenged evidence excluded suggests that the standards for admitting evidence tightened. A subsequent fall in these two proportions suggests that the parties proposing and challenging evidence responded to the change in standards. The study also examines how "general acceptance" of proposed evidence in the expert community enters the reliability assessment and which types of evidence were affected by Daubert. The authors caution that even though judges are more actively screening expert evidence, whether they are doing so in ways that produce better outcomes has not been determined. The study concludes by identifying gaps in what is known about how well federal courts screen expert evidence and by recommending research to help fill those gaps.

Confidence in the courts: a comparison of users and non-users.

Abstract: Much work has been done on the correlates of confidence in the United States Supreme Court. However, very little research has been undertaken to discern the correlates of confidence in state and local courts. Using survey data from Louisiana, we examine confidence in state and local courts. We focus on the role of experience, arguing that the opportunity for wide participation in these courts makes the confidence calculation different from that of a remote institution like the US Supreme Court. We find that, indeed, experience matters and further, that type of experience matters. Those with more stake in the outcome of the court case and less control over it (e.g., defendants) are least confident in state and local courts, while those with little stake and substantial control (e.g., jurors) are most confident in them. Procedural justice concerns also loom large in the confidence calculation for these lower courts. Timeliness, courtesy, and equal treatment all affect public confidence.

"Haves" versus "have nots" in state supreme courts: Allocating docket space and wins in power asymmetric cases

Abstract: This article evaluates two basic issues about dockets and case outcomes in American appellate courts. First, what determines the extent to which a court devotes its docket to civil cases involving asymmetrical power relationships between litigants? Second, in civil cases in which the "have-nots" are pitted against the "haves," which forces determine the extent to which courts favor the less privileged? To answer these questions, we identify power asymmetric civil cases and the size of each court's docket by examining all 6,750 cases decided in state supreme courts in 1996. Results reveal that contextual factors are formidable in shaping both agenda space and win rates in civil disputes involving conflicts between advantaged and disadvantaged litigants. Institutional features of supreme courts and state court systems, the supply of legal resources, and public preferences all emerge as critical influences on the willingness of the states' highest courts to decide have/have not conflicts and on the ultimate disposition of these cases. In sum, a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which courts treat cases involving the disadvantaged and, more broadly, function as agents of redistributive change cannot be achieved without focusing beyond the ideological preferences of judges and the skill of the litigants. In this article, we ask two basic questions about court dockets and case outcomes. First, we ask which forces influence how much of court dockets involve asymmetrical power relationships between litigants. Second, in civil cases where the "have-nots" are pitted against the "haves," what forces shape the extent to which courts favor the less privileged? The context within which we examine these important questions is state supreme courts. Basically, we argue that some of the confusion among scholars about the ability of courts to serve as agents of redistributive change is the direct result of the case study approach dominating the literature. As it stands, and though there are obvious exceptions, much of the existing work focuses upon single institutions, an approach that precludes a direct systematic evaluation of the effects of institutional arrangements and other contextual forces on agenda-setting and decisionmaking in courts. A comparative cross-sectional research design based in the American states overcomes these limitations. Generally, and consistently with previous research, we posit that the most fundamental functions of courts are structured by the circumstances under which the courts operate, in addition to the preferences of the judges deciding the cases and the law governing the disputes. If we identify these forces and provide a strategy for testing their effects in comprehensive models, we will be able to reconcile previous contradictory findings and construct more satisfactory theories of judicial politics. In this particular case, we can improve our understanding of the ways in which courts allocate space on their dockets among competing groups and allocate resources through their decisions, producing a more refined understanding of the essential role of courts in the political marketplace. In this endeavor, we assume that the factors determining the proportion of cases on dockets involving power asymmetries also determine win rates for the disadvantaged in these cases. This assumption is well grounded in the literature. Both scholars and sitting judges have observed the close connection between deciding to decide and final outcomes. For example, Justice William Brennan (1983: 177) described the agenda-setting process and decision process as "inseparable" and "inextricably linked." Similarly, scholars have noted that "the factors that govern the selection of cases and the construction of the annual agenda are closely tied to the factors that explain the justices' decisions on the merits of the cases" (Pacelle 1995: 251). Thus, in our discussion, we consider both the agenda stage and decision stage of the judicial process, examining the effects of the same set of independent variables at both stages. …

Explaining the Overruling of U.S. Supreme Court Precedent

Abstract: The decision to overrule U.S. Supreme Court precedent, we argue, results from the justices' pursuit of their policy preferences within intra- and extra-Court constraints. Based on a duration analysis of cases decided from the 1946 through 1995 terms, we show that ideological incongruence between a precedent and a subsequent Court increases the chance of it being overruled. Two legal norms also exert substantive effects as the Court is less likely to overrule statutory precedents and more likely to overrule precedents that previously have been interpreted negatively by the Court. While certain precedent characteristics also influence this decision, the political environment exerts no such effect. Consequently, one of the principal implications of this research is that legal norms influence Supreme Court decision making.

Justices, presidents, and senators : a history of the U.S. Supreme Court appointments from Washington to Clinton

Abstract: Chapter 1 1. Introductory Reflections: Of Criteria, Evaluations, and Judgements Chapter 2 2. The Nixon Era: A Turbulent Case Study Chapter 3 3. How They Get There: Appointing Supreme Court Justices Chapter 4 4. Why They Get There: Qualifications and Rationalizations Chapter 5 5. The First Forty Years: From George Washington to John Quincy Adams, 1789-1829 Chapter 6 6. The Next Forty Years: From Andrew Jackson to Andrew Johnson, 1829-1869 Chapter 7 7. The Balance of the Nineteenth Century: From Ulysses S. Grant to William McKinley, 1869-1901 Chapter 8 8. Into the Twentieth Century: From Theodore Roosevelt to Herbert Hoover, 1901-1933 Chapter 9 9. The Court Alters Course: FDR and Truman, 1933-1953 Chapter 10 10. The Warren Court: From Ike to LBJ, 1953-1969 Chapter 11 11. The Burger Court: From Nixon to Reagan, 1969-1986 Chapter 12 12. The Rehnquist Court: Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton, 1986-2005 Chapter 13 13. The Roberts Court: 2005- Chapter 14 14. Epilogue Chapter 15 Appendix A: Rating Supreme Court Justices Chapter 16 Appendix B: Rating Presidents Chapter 17 Appendix C: Statistical Data on Supreme Court Justices

Gerrymandering and Political Cartels

Abstract: As redistricting reaches its decennial peak, and as courts await the next round of redistricting litigation, it is worthwhile revisiting some of the fundamental tenets of the law governing gerrymandering This article asks three interrelated questions First, beginning with the apparent collapse of any effort to control partisan gerrymandering, the article inquires as to the different treatment given to geographic carve-ups of territory between competing political parties and the condemnation that would ensue if market rivals were to attempt to divide their respective zones of influence so as to preserve market share The second part of the argument shows that this results from the Supreme Court having fastened on limited doctrines of individual rights and non-discrimination in the political arena, while allowing product markets to be governed by notions of consumer welfare and the preservation of competition The article then concludes with a proposal to remove from insider political operatives the power to redistrict in order to promote a more competitive political process The result of this approach would be to render suspect all purposeful districting, thereby taking the pressure off of the vulnerable category of race The aim is both to restore competition to the political process and to show a possible way out of the post-Shaw v Reno morass

The Marshall Decision and Native Rights

Abstract: This book begins in its opening chapter with the individual at the centre of this controversy--Donald Marshall, Jr. He is a figure already well known to Canadians as a result of his wrongful conviction and the subsequent judicial inquiry of the 1980's. Here, Marshall is before the Court system again B this time for fishing without a licence, selling eels without a licence and fishing during a closed season. He admits to having caught and sold 463 pounds of eels without a licence and with a prohibited net within closed times. The only issue at trial, then, is whether he possesses a treaty right to catch and sell fish under the treaties of 1760-61 which exempted him from compliance with the regulations.Joined by Mi'kmaq chiefs, the Union of Nova Scotia Indians and the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq, a legal battle ensues which works its way through the court system ending up finally before the Supreme Court of Canada. In its ruling of September, 1999, the Supreme Court not only finds for Marshall but holds that he has established the existence and infringement of a local Mi'kmaq treaty right to carry on a small scale commercial eel fishery. Amidst the controversy which follows, the Court takes the rather unprecedented step of issuing a statement of clarification [November, 1999]. The statement addresses certain misconceptions about the judgement, principal among these being, that the Marshall decision is specifically about eels and not about other natural resources. Further the treaty right referred to in Marshall is a regulated right. This recognizes the stewardship of the Federal government, the continuing pre-eminence of conservation, and the need to consider the "rights" of other users. Finally, the right to a moderate livelihood is interpreted as being limited to securing "necessaries"--meaning "food, clothing and housing, supplemented by a few amenities" and not to the open-ended accumulation of wealth.For Coates, making sense of the Marshall decision requires a very broad and comprehensive perspective which must take account of the historical as well as contemporary circumstances of First Nations within the Maritime provinces. Accordingly, there are the historical relations which developed between First Nations and newcomers culminating in the treaties of 1760-61 B the agreements immediately relevant to the case at hand (chapter 2). As well, there are the contemporary social, economic and cultural conditions among these First Nations which finds them largely marginalized from the opportunities enjoyed by most non-Aboriginal Maritimers. Indeed, hardest hit appear to be Aboriginal youth who, even in the face of more vibrant First Nation communities and the reinforcement of language and culture, continue to experience a lack of belonging in a world markedly different from that of their ancestors (chapter 3).The Marshall decision is a legal case in a long line of other such cases, from St. Catherine's Milling and Lumber Company (1888) through Syliboy (1928), White and Bob (1965), Calder (1973), Guerin (1985), Simon (1985), and Sparrow (1990) to Van der Peet, N.T.C. Smokehouse, Gladstone (1996) and Delgamuukw (1997). Together these cases form not only a body of law on issues of resource, treaty and Aboriginal rights but have come to symbolize a hope for greater opportunity (chapter 4). …

Keeping the Compound Republic: Essays on American Federalism

Abstract: The framers of the U. S. Constitution focused intently on the difficulties of achieving a workable middle ground between national and local authority. They located that middle ground in a new form of federalism that James Madison called the ""compound republic."" The term conveys the complicated and ambiguous intent of the framing generation and helps to make comprehensible what otherwise is bewildering to the modern citizenry: a form of government that divides and disperses official power between majorities of two different kinds --one composed of individual voters, and the other, of the distinct political societies we call states. America's federalism is the subject of this collection of essays by Martha Derthick, a leading scholar of American government. She explores the nature of the compound republic, with attention both to its enduring features and to the changes wrought in the twentieth century by Progressivism, the New Deal, and the civil rights revolution. Interest in federalism is likely to increase in the wake of the 2000 presidential election. There are demands for reform of the electoral college, given heightened awareness that it does not strictly reflect the popular vote. The U. S. Supreme Court, under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, has mounted an explicit and controversial defense of federalism, and new nominees to the Court are likely to be questioned on that subject and appraised in part by their responses. Derthick's essays invite readers to join the Court in weighing the contemporary importance of federalism as an institution of government.

The impact of Bush v. Gore on public perceptions and knowledge of the Supreme Court

Abstract: To those who pay close attention to the United States Supreme Court, the Court’s involvement in the 2000 Presidential election through its decisions concerning recounts of the vote in Florida was an extremely important, perhaps watershed, event in the Court’s role in the American political and legal system. The volume and tone of the online and print discussions about the Supreme Court actions among political scientists and law professors has been heated, contentious, and at times strident (see, for example, Bork 2001; Dionne and Kristol 2001; Sunstein and Epstein 2001). A central concern among many of the commentators, particularly critics of the decision, is that the Court may have undermined its own legitimacy, at least among those members of the public who had been ardent supporters of Al Gore (or ardent opponents of George W. Bush).

Race, income, and perceptions of the U.S. court system.

Abstract: This article reports on the effect of income within race on African Americans' perception of the courts. Our findings are somewhat consistent with the previous research on black middle-class relative dissatisfaction with various American institutions. That is, unlike whites and Latirios in our study, we find that higher-income African Americans are more skeptical of the notion that blacks receive equal treatment in the courts. This same group also reported less confidence in the court's handling of specific types of cases (e.g., civil, criminal and juvenile delinquency cases.) However, better off blacks were more likely than poor blacks to have confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court and community courts. These findings point a more complex account of African American perceptions of the courts, an account that draws a distinction between diffused and specific support of the courts.

Religious and philosophical exemptions from vaccination requirements and lessons learned from conscientious objectors from conscription.

Abstract: All jurisdictions in the US require proof of vaccination for school entrance. Most states permit non-medical exemptions. Public health officials must balance the rights of individuals to choose whether or not to vaccinate their children with the individual and societal risks associated with choosing not to vaccinate (i.e., claiming an exemption). To assist the public health community in optimally reaching this balance, this analysis examines the constitutional basis of non-medical exemptions and examines policies governing conscientious objection to conscription as a possible model. The jurisprudence that the US Supreme Court has developed in cases in which religious beliefs conflict with public or state interests suggests that mandatory immunization against dangerous diseases does not violate the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion. Accordingly, states do not have a constitutional obligation to enact religious exemptions. Applying the model of conscientious objectors to conscription suggests that if states choose to offer nonmedical exemptions, they may be able to optimally balance individual freedoms with public good by considering the sincerity of beliefs and requiring parents considering exemptions to attend individual educational counseling.

The Votes That Counted: How the Court Decided the 2000 Presidential Election

Abstract: The dramatic struggle over the outcome of the 2000 presidential election presented judges with an extraordinary political challenge, as well as with a historic political temptation. This book offers a critical assessment of how well the courts coped with the competing expectations for impartial justice and favourable partisan results. The book documents how the participants, the press, the academic community, and the public responded during these tension-filled 36 days. The author also provides an overview of the legal strategies and debates - from briefs and oral arguments to final decisions. However, in explaining the behaviour of the courts, he moves beyond an analysis of law to take into account the influences of partisanship, judicial ideology, and broader political and historical contexts. The book pays special attention to the judges whose behaviour generated the most controversy - the battling justices of the Florida and United States Supreme Courts. After reviewing the arguments for and aginst their decisions, it concludes that the five justices behind the "Bush versus Gore" decision acted outside what should be considered the acceptable boundaries of judicial power. The book ends with an analysis of why the justices chose such an unprecedented course of action and an assessment of whether their partisan intervention will have any lasting effect on the Supreme Court's reputation and authority.

End-of-life care: what do the American courts say?

Abstract: End-of-life care of critically ill patients generally consists of two closely related practices: the withholding and withdrawal of life support, and the administration of palliative care. In the United States, the withholding or withdrawal of life support is legally justified by the principles of informed consent and informed refusal. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that competent patients may refuse any and all treatments, including those that sustain life. All states sanction such refusal by competent patients, and most states allow surrogates to refuse treatment on behalf of incompetent patients. Although some physicians use the concept of futility to unilaterally withhold or withdraw life support, the Supreme Court has not heard a futility case, and the only clear legal rule on futile treatment is the traditional malpractice test, which measures physician actions against standards of medical care. However, the Supreme Court has furnished guidelines on the administration of palliative care. By using the principle of double effect, these guidelines allow physicians to give sedative and analgesic agents to dying patients if they intend to relieve pain and suffering but not to hasten death.

The Legitimacy-conferring Authority of the U.S. Supreme Court: An Experimental Design

Abstract: Convention holds that the Supreme Court, because of its special constitutional role, can confer an element of legitimacy on a policy simply by endorsing it. In this study, we conducted an experimen...