Judges Commons^™

The Courtroom As Classroom: Independence, Imagination And Ideology In The Work Of Jack Weinstein, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores influences that have shaped Judge Weinstein's judicial behavior. The author argues that Weinstein's conception of the judicial role has been influenced in significant respects by his career as a law professor. Tracing continuities and discontinuities between the roles of a professor and a trial judge, the author concludes that Judge Weinstein manifests both the desire for intellectual autonomy and the consequent lack of regard for institutional accountability that are characteristic of the former role. The Article then seeks to evaluate the judge-centered approach to judicial independence it imputes to Judge Weinstein. The author contends that the desire …

Playing Defense, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

Noting that the Romer opinion condemns the motives behind Amendment 2 without pausing even briefly to examine the social context in which it was enacted, Professor Nagel describes the decision as a model of the intolerant impulse in action. He traces this impulse to the Justices' unwillingness to examine their own role--and that of the rest of the constitutional law establishment--in creating the underlying conditions that produced Amendment 2.

In order to identify those conditions, Professor Nagel analyzes the primary document used by Colorado for Family Values during its campaign on behalf of the initiative. He argues that this document …