Supreme Court of the United States Commons^™

Constitutional Decisions And The Supreme Law, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

What status do Supreme Court decisions have for officials in the political branches of our government? Six months ago, Attorney General Edwin Meese III rekindled controversy over this enduring and troublesome question when he claimed in a widely reported lecture that Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Constitution are not the supreme law of the land, and are properly subject to forms of opposition by other governmental officials. The general reaction to the speech was that it was meant to reduce the perceived authority of Supreme Court opinions, and a close reading of the speech certainly leaves this impression. Yet, even …

One Hundred Fifty Cases Per Year: Some Implications Of The Supreme Court's Limited Resources For Judicial Review Of Agency Action, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Recent writing about the Supreme Court has stressed the implications of the extraordinary growth in the Court's docket – and, even more, the growth in the overall level of judicial activity in the nation's courts – for its performance of its judicial task. Generally, this writing seeks first to determine whether the Court has been forced to bypass questions it ought normally to hear (for example, square conflicts between two of the federal circuits), editorializes about the increasing bureaucratization of the Court, and passes on to normative questions about what if anything ought to be done to ease the Court's …

The Place Of Agencies In Government: Separation Of Powers And The Fourth Branch, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

For the past few years the Supreme Court has been struggling with issues of government structure so fundamental that they might have been thought textbook simple, yet with results that seem to imperil the everyday exercise of law-administration. Under what circumstances can Congress assign the adjudication of contested issues in the first instance to tribunals that are not article III courts? The past century has witnessed the profuse growth of legislation assigning to special adjudicative tribunals – administrative agencies and other article I courts – the power to hold trial-type hearings that might otherwise have been placed in the article …

Was There A Baby In The Bathwater? A Comment On The Supreme Court's Legislative Veto Decision, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

Examining the Supreme Court's recent decisions in the legislative veto case, Professor Strauss stresses the importance of a distinction no Justice observed between use of the veto in matters affecting direct, continuing, political, executive-congressional relations, and use of the veto in a regulatory context. Only the latter, he argues, had to be reached by the Court; and only the latter presents the constitutional difficulties that troubled the Court. The utility of the veto in the political context makes the opinions' sweep regrettable.

Judicial Review And The National Political Process: A Functional Reconsideration Of The Role Of The Supreme Court, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Imagine a cold morning early in February. Slowly sipping coffee in an effort to awaken fully, you are reading through the Supreme Court advance sheets. You come across the following brief opinion:

PER CURIAM. Fisher v. Rye Co., No. 81-1, and First Savings Bank v. Smith, No. 81-2. These petitions for certiorari have been consolidated for disposition in a single opin-ion. No. 81-1 challenges an Executive Order that, in an effort to combat gender-based discrimination, requires government contractors to adopt affirmative action programs. No argument is made that the Executive Order is authorized by statute. Concluding that the …

Taking Supreme Court Opinions Seriously, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Taking Supreme Court opinions seriously emerged as a topic of discussion at a lunch I attended last year with several Supreme Court law clerks. Somehow we came round to a particular three-judge district court case which I confidently opined was "certain" to be reversed on the basis of principles announced in prior opinions. The clerks were models of politeness and circumspection; never once did they even intimate that the judgment would (by divided vote) be affirmed. But shortly after I had announced my views of that case, one of the clerks began to prod me, asking whether I simply took …

Guiding Capital Sentencing Discretion Beyond The "Boiler Plate": Mental Disorder As A Mitigating Factor, James S. Liebman, Michael J. Shepard

Faculty Scholarship

In five decisions handed down on July 2, 1976, the United States Supreme Court held that the death penalty may be imposed for the crime of murder, so long as there are clear standards to guide the sentencing authority and the sanction is not imposed mandatorily. The authors examine the eighth amendment doctrinal framework used by the Court in the July 2 Cases, with particular reference to the requirement that individualized mitigating information be considered in the sentencing decision. Illustrating that requirement, they contend that mental disorder should be considered as a possibly mitigating factor and then suggest a standard …

Constitutional Common Law, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Mr. Justice Powell has publicly characterized the 1974 Term of the Supreme. Court as a "dull" one. Whatever the accuracy of that description, the 1974 Term was, in the public eye, a quiet one. When, late in the Term, the Court ordered the death penalty case held over for reargument, it ensured that the 1974 Term would generate few front-page testimonials to the supreme authority of the Supreme Court. But neither a dull nor a quiet Term can obscure the current reality that the Court's claim to be the "ultimate interpreter of the Constitution" appears to command more nearly universal …