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Indecisive Reasons For Action: Socrates, Not Hercules, As Judicial Ideal, Eric J. Miller
Indecisive Reasons For Action: Socrates, Not Hercules, As Judicial Ideal, Eric J. Miller
Eric J. Miller
Ronald Dworkin famously introduces the idealized judge, Hercules, to demonstrate how to identify one right answer for any legal problem. Since judicial disagreement makes sense, according to Dworkin, against the background of plural theories of the good, Hercules solves a particular political problem: how to avoid apathy or indecisiveness in choosing among competing theories. Dworkin's judge is supposed to stand by his or her political convictions in the face of competing, plural points of view. Choosing the one right answer is thus a method of political commitment.
My claim is that Dworkin is caught between a rock and a hard …
Forget Privacy: The Warren Court’S Regulatory Revolution In Criminal Procedure, Eric J. Miller
Forget Privacy: The Warren Court’S Regulatory Revolution In Criminal Procedure, Eric J. Miller
Eric J. Miller
The standard story describing the Warren Court’s criminal procedure “rights revolution,” claims that the Court, motivated by liberal egalitarianism, engaged in a rights-expanding jurisprudence that made it harder for the police to search, seize, and interrogate criminal defendants. Frightened by the popular backlash against high crime rates, a cowed Court in Terry v. Ohio shifted from its rights-expanding to a rights-constricting phase, making it easier for the police to search and seize criminal suspects. Measured by this rights revolution, there were in fact two Warren Courts, a liberal and a more conservative one, emblematically separated by Terry.
The standard story …