Supreme court

About: Supreme court is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 41858 publications have been published within this topic receiving 306787 citations. The topic is also known as: court of last resort & highest court of appeal.

The Consistency of Judicial Choice

Abstract: Despite the fact that scholars of judicial politics have developed reasonably well-specified models of the voting behavior of U.S. Supreme Court justices, little attention has been paid to influences on the consistency of the choices justices make. Aside from the methodological problems associated with failure to account for heteroskedasticity with regard to the justices’ voting behavior, I argue that variance in judicial choice is also of theoretical import. Simply put, by uncovering influences on the stability of judicial choice, a more complete understanding of judicial decision making is provided. I explore this possibility by developing a theoretical framework that identifies influences on the consistency of judicial choice, which are then subjected to empirical testing. I show that the stability of judicial decision making is affected by attitudinal and strategic factors, as well as the Court's informational environment. The result is a more fully integrated model of Supreme Court decision making.

The Revolution That Wasn't

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION A principal legacy of the Rehnquist Court is its revitalization of doctrines associated with federalism. That jurisprudence has many critics and many defenders. They disagree about how to describe what has happened, the importance of what has happened, and the wisdom of what has happened. But they all agree that something has happened. There has been genuine innovation in this area of constitutional law. Not so with separation of powers doctrine. Commentators do not perceive important shifts in the doctrine. Nor should they-the reasoning and results in the Rehnquist Court cases are of a piece with what came before. Lack of "revolution" (using the term loosely) was not for lack of opportunity. The Supreme Court had many opportunities to revise its doctrines. And, from the perspective that the Court has invoked in explaining many of its federalism cases, there is much-very much, in fact-that is not right about the structure of the federal government and the constitutional rules that permit that structure. This paper asks why there has been no "revolution" in separation of powers jurisprudence during the Rehnquist Court. Many would expect doctrinal developments in federalism and separation of powers to track one another. Investigating why they have not done so reveals, in fact, that the internal and external factors that influence the developments in the two areas are quite different. II. READING THE REHNQUIST` COURT A. A Federalism Revolution The Rehnquist Court has worked important changes in the doctrines relating to federalism. For the first time since the post-New Deal period, the Court has invalidated some acts of Congress as beyond the scope of the commerce power, making clear in the process that there are some judicially enforceable outer limits on the scope of that power.1 It has also invalidated some acts of Congress on Tenth2 and Eleventh Amendment3 grounds. And it has held invalid some exercises of Congress's power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.4 While their long-range effects are not entirely clear, taken together the Court's rulings plainly restrict the scope of federal power. B. Separation of Powers The Rehnquist Court had a steady stream of separation of powers cases,5 and it becomes a flood if one includes Article III standing cases.6 Several of the cases were high-profile and politically salient. The Court validated the Independent Counsel Act7 and the creation of the U.S. Sentencing Commission;8 it invalidated the line-item veto9 and rebuffed President Clinton's executive-power based claim that he was entitled to a stay in a civil suit arising out of actions he took before he was President.10 There were low-profile cases as well, some of them consequential. The Court invalidated a statute extending the statute of limitations for securities fraud cases;" it rejected a challenge to a statute on Origination Clause grounds;12 it sustained delegations of authority from Congress to the executive13 and the judiciary;14 and it evaluated several Appointments Clause cases.15 In contrast to the Rehnquist Court's federalism decisions, these cases had no notable impact on separation of powers law. This claim is difficult to prove. For instance, perhaps some years hence the line-item veto case will be the centerpiece of an invigorated separation of powers jurisprudence. Oddly enough, that invigorated doctrine could go in two different directions. If the dissenters' views of what was at stake in the case-namely, that the case was about the permissible scope of delegations to the executive16-the invalidation of the veto could conceivably later be read to restrict the sort of authority Congress can delegate to the executive. Or the case might be read as a pro-legislative power opinion in the sense that the functional complaint about the veto was that it diminished legislative power relative to the President. The President's power was enhanced, so went the argument, because the line-item veto undermined Congress's ability to get what it wanted by bundling proposals together and forcing the President to an all-or-nothing choice on a Congressionally-designed package. …

Beyond the Cruzan case: the U.S. Supreme Court and medical practice

Abstract: In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a Missouri ruling that sharply limited family decisions about life-sustaining treatment for incompetent patients. The Court held that the Constitution protects the refusal of life-sustaining treatment by competent patients. For incompetent patients, states may require "clear and convincing" evidence of refusal, specifically for the withdrawal of tube feedings, if such a person were in a persistent vegetative state. The ruling left many clinical questions unanswered, such as whether life-sustaining treatment must be given to terminally ill incompetent patients, whether patients may refuse artificial feedings, and what constitutes clear and convincing evidence of refusal. The decision also has potentially harmful consequences. It may undermine family decision making, encourage cynicism and disregard of the law, and promote defensive medicine. Physicians can minimize such consequences by encouraging patients to provide advance directives, such as the durable power of attorney for health care, by urging legislative action, and by setting national practice standards for decisions regarding incompetent patients.

When Christianity Was Part of the Common Law

Abstract: Nineteenth-century American judges and lawyers often claimed that Christianity was part of the common law. From Kent and Story in the early part of the century, to Cooley and Tiedeman toward the end, the maxim that “Christianity is part and parcel of the common law” (or some variant thereof) was heard so often that later commentators could refer to it as a matter “decided over and over again,” one which “[t]ext writers have reiterated and courts have affirmed.” The maxim even received an endorsement of sorts from the Supreme Court, which in 1844 affirmed that “the Christian religion is part of the common law of Pennsylvania.”

Constitutional Deliberation in Congress: The Impact of Judicial Review in a Separated System

Abstract: In Constitutional Deliberation in Congress J. Mitchell Pickerill analyzes the impact of the Supreme Court’s constitutional decisions on Congressional debates and statutory language. Based on a thorough examination of how Congress responds to key Court rulings and strategizes in anticipation of them, Pickerill argues that judicial review—or the possibility of it—encourages Congressional attention to constitutional issues. Revealing critical aspects of how laws are made, revised, and refined within the separated system of government of the United States, he makes an important contribution to “constitutionalism outside the courts” debates. Pickerill combines legislative histories, extensive empirical findings, and interviews with current and former members of Congress, congressional staff, and others. He examines data related to all of the federal legislation struck down by the Supreme Court from the beginning of the Warren Court in 1953 through the 1996–97 term of the Rehnquist Court. By looking at the legislative histories of Congressional acts that invoked the Commerce Clause and presented Tenth Amendment conflicts—such as the Child Labor Act (1916), the Civil Rights Act (1965), the Gun-Free School Zones Act (1990), and the Brady Bill (1994)—Pickerill illuminates how Congressional deliberation over newly proposed legislation is shaped by the possibility of judicial review. The Court’s invalidation of the Gun-Free School Zones Act in its 1995 ruling United States v. Lopez signaled an increased judicial activism regarding issues of federalism. Pickerill examines that case and compares congressional debate over constitutional issues in key pieces of legislation that preceded and followed it: the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1997. He shows that Congressional attention to federalism increased in the 1990s along with the Court’s greater scrutiny.