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Supreme Court Justices, Empathy, And Social Change: A Comment On Lani Guinier's Demosprudence Through Dissent, Linda C. Mcclain
Supreme Court Justices, Empathy, And Social Change: A Comment On Lani Guinier's Demosprudence Through Dissent, Linda C. Mcclain
Faculty Scholarship
Justice Souter's imminent retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court provides President Obama with his first opportunity for a judicial nomination to the high court. President Obama's remarks about the relevance of life experience and of empathy are sparking discussion of relevant judicial qualifications. This Essay examines Professor Lani Guinier's recent argument that dissenting justices, particularly through the use of oral dissents, may spur ordinary people to action and that such dissents may expand the range of democratic action, as part of what she and Gerald Torres call "demosprudence." That controversial decisions by the United States Supreme Court can spur dissenting …
Justice Ginsburg's Dissent In Bush V. Gore, Hugh Baxter
Justice Ginsburg's Dissent In Bush V. Gore, Hugh Baxter
Faculty Scholarship
In this essay, I examine Justice Ginsburg's dissenting opinion in Bush v. Gore, the decision that ended the 2000 controversy over the winner of the presidency. I look critically at Justice Ginsburg's invocation of federalism-based deference to the Florida courts' interpretations of state election law in the recount controversy. I consider also Justice Ginsburg's criticisms of the Court's remedial decision to stop the recounts. Finally, I take up the much-debated question of how to understand Justice Ginsburg's final two words: "I dissent," rather than "I respectfully dissent." My conclusion is that the omission of "respectfully" is pointed, but not for …
Justice Ginsburg's Footnotes, Jay D. Wexler
Justice Ginsburg's Footnotes, Jay D. Wexler
Faculty Scholarship
In this short article written for the New England School of Law's March Symposium on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I report on what happened when I embarked on a project of trying to read every single footnote Justice Ginsburg has ever written as a justice on the Supreme Court. As the article relates, this project was impossible to complete because Justice Ginsburg, it turns out, has written a lot, lot, lot of footnotes. Instead, I ended up reading all of Justice Ginsburg's footnotes from three of her terms. In the article, I develop a nine-part taxonomy of Supreme Court footnotes …