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.

Supreme Court Support for the Solicitor General: the Effect of Presidential Appointments

Abstract: HE purpose of this study is to assess whether the Supreme Court has been responsive to one aspect of its political environment, the executive branch. The measure of responsiveness used is the support by the Court for the position taken by the solicitor general (SG) in amicus curiae briefs. The solicitor general is the representative of the national government in Court. As will be discussed below, his position generally cannot differ by much from that of the President. Thus, the degree of support by the Court for the solicitor general can be seen as a measure of political responsiveness to the executive branch.

Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia

Abstract: Black and white power struggles in segregated Virginia; Tracing the erosion of white elite paternalism in Jim Crow Virginia, Douglas Smith reveals a surprising fluidity in southern racial politics in the decades between World War I and the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Smith draws on official records, private correspondence, and letters to newspapers from otherwise anonymous Virginians to capture a wide and varied range of black and white voices. African Americans emerge as central characters in the narrative, as Smith chronicles their efforts to obtain access to public schools and libraries, protection under the law, and the equitable distribution of municipal resources. This acceleration of black resistance to white supremacy in the years before World War II precipitated a crisis of confidence among white Virginians, who, despite their overwhelming electoral dominance, felt increasingly insecure about their ability to manage the color line on their own terms. Exploring the everday power struggles that accompanied the erosion of white authority in the political, economic, and educational arenas, Smith uncovers the seeds of white Virginians' resistance to civil rights activism in the second half of the twentieth century.

An unconstitutional constitution? A comparative perspective

Abstract: My purpose in this article is to draw upon a rich vein of jurisprudential thinking from judiciaries outside of the United States to address the puzzle of the unconstitutional constitutional amendment. I focus on two nations—India and Ireland—where the question has given rise to some fascinating and instructive jurisprudence. Unlike the United States Supreme Court, courts in these countries have confronted the issue of implied substantive limits to constitutional change through the formal amendment process. The Indian judiciary has invoked the idea of constitutional identity to legitimate overturning amendments, whereas the Court in Ireland has found such activity antithetical to popular sovereignty. In considering what is at stake for constitutional theory and practice, I rely on Edmund Burke to support the option of amendment invalidation, while concluding that if ever confronted with the felt need to exercise this option, sober heads might well wonder whether it would be worth doing. To enable us to correct the constitution, the whole constitution must be viewed together; and it must be compared with the actual state of the people, and the circumstances of the time. 1

Aggravating Youth: Roper v. Simmons and Age Discrimination

Abstract: In Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court confronted a difficult question: Given that being younger than eighteen is merely a proxy for diminished culpability, why not let jurors decide whether youth mitigates the culpability of an individual sixteen- or seventeen-year-old offender? The Court's subtle answer draws on psychological literature about the differences between juveniles and adults, but ultimately depends as much on concerns about the mind of the adult juror as on the distinctive traits of juveniles. Read in its best light, Kennedy's opinion seems to turn on the insight that while age-based classifications are rational - they are a good proxy for various aspects of behavior - particular judgments based on age are not necessarily rational. To the contrary, our judgments based on age may be distorted, or even inverted, because of wrongheaded thoughts and, especially, feelings. In the context of death penalty sentencing, among others, we think we favor youth, and we think we should favor youth, but in reality we may disfavor youth. Kennedy's reasoning thus suggests that, in at least this context, the law must embrace a categorical rule to align how we treat young people under law with how we think we do and should treat them. This understanding of Simmons does not establish the rightness of Kennedy's opinion. But it does suggest that the opinion is supported by a stronger rationale than it fully articulates, a rationale that has implications for other areas of law involving the irrationality of apparently rational categories, such as old-age discrimination. Kennedy's recognition that we may not be as rational about age as we think we are provides further justification for the Court's decision the same Term in Smith v. City of Jackson that disparate impact suits are available under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

The Forging of Judicial Autonomy: Political Entrepreneurship and the Reforms of William Howard Taft

Abstract: In his first four years as Chief Justice of the United States, William Howard Taft convinced Congress to pass two reform bills that substantially enhanced the power of the federal courts, the Supreme Court, and the Chief Justice. In this article, I explore the causes and the consequences of those reforms. I detail how Taft's political entrepreneurship—specifically the building of reputations, the cultivation of networks, and the pursuit of change through measured action—was instrumental in forging judicial autonomy and, subsequently, how that autonomy was employed to introduce judicial bureaucracy. By asking both how judicial reform was accomplished and what judicial reform accomplished, I offer an analytically grounded and historically rich account of the politics surrounding two of the most substantively important legislative actions relating to the federal judiciary in American history. In the process, I also draw attention to a largely neglected story of political development: the politics surrounding...