Judges Commons^™

The Word Is "Humility": Why The Supreme Court Needed To Adopt A Code Of Judicial Ethics, Laurie L. Levenson

Pepperdine Law Review

The Supreme Court is one of our most precious institutions. However, for the last few years, American confidence in the Court has dropped to a new low. Less than 40% of Americans have confidence in the Court and its decisions. Recent revelations regarding luxury trips, gifts, and exclusive access for certain individuals to the Justices have raised questions about whether the Justices understand their basic ethical duties and can act in a fair and impartial manner. As commentators have noted, the Supreme Court stood as the only court in America that was not governed by an ethical code. The question …

Partisanship "All The Way Down" On The U.S. Supreme Court, Lee Epstein

Pepperdine Law Review

Just as the American public is politically polarized, so too is the U.S. Supreme Court. More than ever before, a clear alignment exists between the Justices’ partisanship and their ideological leanings (known as “partisan sorting”). Disapproval of opposing-party identifiers also appears to have intensified (“partisan antipathy”). This Article offers evidence of both forms of polarization. It shows that partisan sorting has resulted in wide gaps in voting between Republican and Democratic appointees; and it supplies data on “us-against-them” judging in the form of increasing antipathy toward opposite-partisan presidents. Taken collectively, the data point not to law “all the way down,” …

Abortion And Affirmative Action: The Fragility Of Supreme Court Political Decision-Making, William E. Nelson

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

This Article shows, on the basis of new evidence, that the canonical case of Marbury v. Madison has been grossly misinterpreted and that as a result of the misinterpretation we cannot understand what is wrong with contemporary cases such as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The Article will proceed as follows. Because Marbury cannot be properly understood without understanding the eighteenth-century background against which it was decided, Part I will examine legal practices in colonial and post-Revolutionary America, focusing on cases in which judicial review emerged …

The Pioneers, Waves, And Random Walks Of Securities Law In The Supreme Court, Elizabeth Pollman

Seattle University Law Review

After the pioneers, waves, and random walks that have animated the history of securities laws in the U.S. Supreme Court, we might now be on the precipice of a new chapter. Pritchard and Thompson’s superb book, A History of Securities Law in the Supreme Court, illuminates with rich archival detail how the Court’s view of the securities laws and the SEC have changed over time and how individuals have influenced this history. The book provides an invaluable resource for understanding nearly a century’s worth of Supreme Court jurisprudence in the area of securities law and much needed context for …

Three Stories: A Comment On Pritchard & Thompson’S A History Of Securities Laws In The Supreme Court, Harwell Wells

Seattle University Law Review

Adam Pritchard and Robert Thompson’s A History of Securities Laws in the Supreme Court should stand for decades as the definitive work on the Federal securities laws’ career in the Supreme Court across the twentieth century.1 Like all good histories, it both tells a story and makes an argument. The story recounts how the Court dealt with the major securities laws, as well the agency charged with enforcing them, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the rules it promulgated, from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. But the book does not just string together a series of events, “one …

Fears, Faith, And Facts In Environmental Law, William W. Buzbee

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Environmental law has long been shaped by both the particular nature of environmental harms and by the actors and institutions that cause such harms or can address them. This nation’s environmental statutes remain far from perfect, and a comprehensive law tailored to the challenges of climate change is still elusive. Nonetheless, America’s environmental laws provide lofty, express protective purposes and findings about reasons for their enactment. They also clearly state health and environmental goals, provide tailored criteria for action, and utilize procedures and diverse regulatory tools that reflect nuanced choices.

But the news is far from good. Despite the ambitious …