Judges Commons^™

Two Excursions Into Current U.S. Supreme Court Opinion-Writing, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the last weeks in June, 2015, as the present term of the U.S. Supreme Court drew to a close, many controversial and important decisions were handed down by the Court. The substance of the decisions has been written about extensively. Two of the decisions in particular, though, caught my eye as a teacher of legal techniques, not for the importance of the subject of the particular decision, but for what they may illustrate in a teachable fashion about at least some opinion writing. The two cases are Ohio v. Clark (June 18, 2015) interpreting the Confrontation Clause of the …

Of Law And The Revolution, Lama Abu-Odeh

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Egyptian revolution is proving to be a very legal one. That is not to say that the revolution’s demands have been legalized, nor that Egypt’s law has been revolutionized, rather, the forces that have come to the fore since the toppling of Mubarak in Feb 2011 have chosen law as the privileged form through which to bargain with each other. The density of the legal back and fro has been overwhelming: constitutional amendments, constitutional supplementary declarations, parliamentary laws, legislative amendments, military decrees, court trials, constitutional court decisions overturning laws passed, conflicting decisions from various courts, presidential decrees, emergency laws …

Check One And The Accountability Is Done: The Harmful Impact Of Straight-Ticket Voting On Judicial Elections, Meryl Chertoff, Dustin F. Robinson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

States that elect judges are heir to a populist tradition dating back to the Jacksonian era. In the spectrum between independence and accountability, these states emphasize accountability. Systems vary from state to state, and even within states there may be geographic diversity or different selection systems for different levels of courts. Elections can be partisan or non-partisan, contested, or, as in merit-selection states, retention. Some states have dabbled in public financing of judicial elections. Reformers are most critical of contested partisan elections. Those are the elections where the most money is spent, the nastiest ads aired, and the dignity of …

The Disdain Campaign, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A response to Pamela S. Karlan, The Supreme Court 2011 Term Forward: Democracy and Disdain, 126 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (2012).

In her Foreword, Professor Pamela Karlan offers a quite remarkable critique of the conservative Justices on the Supreme Court. She faults them not so much for the doctrines they purport to follow, or outcomes they reach, but for the attitude they allegedly manifest toward Congress and the people. “My focus here is not so much on the content of the doctrine but on the character of the analysis.” She describes Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion of the Court as …

Iowa’S 2010 Judicial Election: Appropriate Accountability Or Rampant Passion?, Roy A. Schotland

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Although 89% of state judges (appellate and general-jurisdiction trial judges) face some type of election, judicial elections are rarely thought of even by academics interested in elections. Iowa’s 2010 election, in which three Justices were defeated, is one of the most significant judicial elections ever. The Justices lost their seats because they participated in a unanimous 2009 decision upholding gay marriage. That decision stirred intense opposition among “social conservatives”, in Iowa a substantial proportion of the population and actively led by more than 100 ministers.

That active opposition was one of eight elements that created a perfect storm against the …

Impacts Of White, Roy A. Schotland

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Changes in judicial elections stem from four identifiable causes. First, court decisions involve increasingly higher stakes and more serious consequences. The U.S. Senate confirmation battles also reflect this cause. Second, non-candidate groups, many from out of state, bring in enormous sums of money which often leads to ugly, even damaging, campaigns. Third, the first two causes are making judicial campaigns more like non-judicial campaigns, bringing new elements to judicial campaigns: campaign consultants and a win-at-any-cost approach.

Proposed Legislation On Judicial Election Campaign Finance, Roy A. Schotland

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In light of the recent extraordinary rise in judicial campaign spending, illustrated in Ohio's 2000 judicial elections (and elsewhere, and in Ohio again in 2002), we must consider improving the Model Code of Judicial Conduct. The 1999 amendments to the Code addressed campaign finance, but did not address two major problems. The first one is the absence of limits on aggregate contributions from law firms; only Texas has such limits. This gap allows large contributions from law firms to go to judges presiding in cases in which those firms participate, circumventing the recusal and disqualification triggers. The second problem is …

Is The Rehnquist Court An "Activist" Court? The Commerce Cause Cases, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In United States v. Lopez, the Supreme Court, for the first time in sixty years, declared an act of Congress unconstitutional because Congress had exceeded its powers under the Commerce Clause. In 2000, the Court reaffirmed the stance it took in Lopez in the case of United States v. Morrison, once again finding that Congress had exceeded its powers. Are these examples of something properly called "judicial activism"? To answer this question, we must clarify the meaning of the term "judicial activism." With this meaning in hand, the author examines the Court's Commerce Clause cases. The answer he …

Judicial Elections And Campaign Finance Reform, Roy A. Schotland

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the judicial realm, the issue of campaign finance cuts across all states that use any form of election as part of their selection or retention system, whether the elections are partisan or non-partisan. The raising of money for campaigns is a task that has to be performed in all states that use any form of election. Like many other things that we have discussed today it seems to involve a sort of balancing act. The state certainly has a strong interest in protecting the integrity of its judiciary and encouraging the public perception of the judiciary as an institution …

Republican Party Of Minnesota V. White: Should Judges Be More Like Politicians?, Roy A. Schotland

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court's decision in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White shows how unrealistic five justices can be about what happens in judicial election campaigns, and also - ironically - about how much judges differ from legislators and others who run for office. This reality was captured concisely by Robert Hirshon, immediate past president of the American Bar Association (ABA) in his statement following the Court's ruling: "This is a bad decision. It will open a Pandora's Box.... " The decision will change judicial election campaigns in such a way that the quality of the pool of candidates for the …

Judicial Campaign Conduct Committees, Roy A. Schotland, Barbara Reed

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

As the other papers presented at this Symposium make abundantly clear, the problems associated with inappropriate statements and conduct during judicial elections are unlikely to abate anytime soon. Bench and bar leaders across the country are being joined by a growing chorus of members of the media and the public in demands that something be done. As an initial step that requires relatively little yet holds great promise, the authors endorse the use of judicial campaign conduct committees as a means of long-term improvement.

Reconstructing The Rule Of Law, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The action taken in Bush v. Gore by the five conservative Justices on the United States Supreme Court, Bugliosi argued, was not just wrong as a matter of law, but criminal: It was a malem in se, fully intended, premeditated theft of a national election for the Presidency of the United States. Now, as Balkan and Levinson would argue, this seventh, "prosecutorial" response -- that the Court's action was not just wrong but criminal -- is also not available to a devotee of either radical or moderate indeterminacy. Even assuming both criminal intent and severe harm-a wrongful, specific intent to …

Progressive And Conservative Constitutionalism, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

American constitutional law in general, and fourteenth amendment jurisprudence in particular, is in a state of profound transformation. The "liberal-legalist" and purportedly politically neutral understanding of constitutional guarantees that dominated constitutional law and theory during the fifties, sixties, and seventies, is waning, both in the courts and in the academy. What is beginning to replace liberal legalism in the academy, and what has clearly replaced it on the Supreme Court, is a very different conception - a new paradigm - of the role of constitutionalism, constitutional adjudication, and constitutional guarantees in a democratic state. Unlike the liberal-legal paradigm it is …

The Meaning Of Equality And The Interpretive Turn, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The turn to hermeneutics and interpretation in contemporary legal theory has contributed at least two central ideas to modern jurisprudential thought: first, that the "meaning" of a text is invariably indeterminate -- what might be called the indeterminacy claim -- and second, that the unavoidably malleable essence of texts -- their essential inessentiality -- entails that interpreting a text is a necessary part of the process of creating the text's meaning. These insights have generated both considerable angst, and considerable excitement among traditional constitutional scholars, primarily because at least on first blush these two claims seem to inescapably imply a …