Judicial Restraint/Activism Essay

Founders of the United States of America believed in providing the people of this great nation with a fair, and impartial judicial system. The basic rights of the people, which are listed in the Bill of Rights, needed to be respected and protected by the government. Abraham Lincoln once said “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth”. Every part of the United States government has a duty to protect the people that gave the government power, and one organization in particular plays a very large role in this charge. The Judicial System of the United States America is a complex organization constructed to uphold the authority of the Constitution, and federal law. The judges within the

    I believe that the U.S constitution should be applied in a more expansive sense. A lot of our country has changed since 1789 when the constitution was first written. The way of life is different, the way we prosecute criminals is different, even the way we handle civil disputes is different. At the beginning, the constitution served as an application to that era’s disputes and defiances. Today we are seeing new issues arising. Human rights, police brutality, protesting in a criminally provocative way , yes, you name

‘Transformed beyond recognition from the vision of the Founding Fathers.’ Discuss this view of the modern US constitution.

Judicial activism and judicial restraint are two opposing philosophies when it comes to the Supreme Court justices' interpretations of the United States Constitution; justices appointed by the President to the Supreme Court serve for life,and thus whose decisions shape the lives of "We the people" for a long time to come.

From the beginning, the United States Constitution has guaranteed the American people civil liberties. These liberties have given citizens rights to speak, believe, and act freely. The Constitution grants citizens the courage to express their mind about something they believe is immoral or unjust. The question is, how far are citizens willing to extend the meanings of these liberties? Some people believe that American citizens take advantage of their civil liberties, harming those around them. On the contrary, many other people feel that civil liberties are necessary tools to fight for their Constitutional rights.

This book emphasizes the alternative interpretations offered by Americans on the origins of the Constitution. Holton’s purpose with this book was to show that the framers interests involved making America more attractive to investors. In order to do so, they purposefully made the government less democratic with the writing of the Constitution. However, with the addition of the Bill of Rights, one could argue the Framers had at least a slight concern for the American people and their civil liberties.

Barron V. Baltimore (1833) is a significant case in history because it concluded that the fundamental rights provided by the Bill of Rights were not guaranteed by the state. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Baltimore, concluding hat the 5th amendment was limited and should be followed by the Federal government. Through this case, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall declared that the Bill of Rights applied to the federal government, not including the states. According to Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, “government laws must not abridge upon the life, liberty, or property on an individual without just cause”. Because of the Due Process Clause in the 14th amendment, the decision in Barron V. Baltimore had been

The United States government consists of three main branches: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. Within the contents of this essay, the judicial branch will be examined. The judicial branch of the United States government oversees justice throughout the country by expounding and applying laws by means of a court system.1 This system functions by hearing and determining the legality of such cases.2 Sitting at the top of the United States court system is the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of the United States encompasses the federal judiciary, explicitly the judicial branch. This court is comprised of life-long serving Justices who are selected by the President of the United States and approved by the Senate.3 Cooperatively,

     The constitution is the document that has framed and shaped the United States from inception. It is the document that is defended by all new presidents and also the document which affords the citizens of the United States freedoms and rights that cannot be removed. In its drafting it shaped the formation of a new country and a new style of governance. It is a ‘bottom up’ as opposed to established ways of government which are ‘top down’. However for all its virtues the Constitution is somewhat ambiguous and there is some debate of the intent of the drafters, did they intend to

Also commonly referred to as The Steel Seizure Case, it was a United States Supreme Court decision that limited the power of the President of the United States to seize private property in the absence of either specifically enumerated authority under Article Two of the US Constitution or statutory authority conferred on him by Congress. The Majority decision was that the President had no power to act except in those cases expressly or implicitly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress.

Alexander Hamilton's definiton of the Supreme Court's power of judicial review was argued in Federalist No. 78.

It is, after all, the “law of the land” and is still used everyday when it comes to the government. Although, I agree that things do change over time, and the founding fathers could not predict what would happen in the future, they did the best job at trying to account for everything. For the things they could not account for, they essentially did, by adding in the ‘elastic clause’, as well as allowing for amendments. In some instances too, I agree there could be room for interpretation, however as a judicial originalist, it should be done “based on the ‘original intent’ of the framers” (88). Hudson describes how “by determining what the words meant to those who chose them and then applying those meanings to the particular issues” it allows for judges to “avoid any accusation that their decisions impose their own values or policy preferences” (90), which is what the judges are suppose to do in the first place. They are unelected, have life tenure, cannot be removed from the bench, and have constant salaries, just to make sure that they can make “unpopular decisions without fear of retribution” (71). If the interpretations are not based on the origin intent, it not only interferes with this idea of the judges, but also allows for the ideas of the Constitution to be entirely lost, which then means we lose our “law of the land”. The Constitution is what we were founded on and has allowed us to make it this far, so why start to interpret its text for something it is not written to

Stare Decisis plays a large role in Judicial Restraint. Stare Decisis is sticking to an established ruling that was handed down by past judges or jurors. A form of judicial restraint is called the political question doctrine, and it is significant in understanding this interpretation of the law. The political question doctrine is when a court acknowledges that the constitution is violated but does not decide to act. There are plenty of examples of Judicial Restraint throughout our history but the one that stands out the most in my mind is Gore Vs. Bush. In this case the Florida supreme courts methods of recounting the presidential ballots was considered and ruled as having violated the Equal Protection Laws which is under the fourteenth amendment in a presidential election. Everyone seems to know that something wrong was done, but no one really understands what happened. Before this debate I didn’t realize that this was an example of Judicial Restraint. And this is why I caint agree with either interpretations of the law.

According to Scott (2008), the Constitution of America has undergone several translations within the history of America because they found it to be unclear. Whereas it appears discrepant that the unclear Constitution could be useful, the disagreement is the case (Robertson, 2005). Americans regard the Constitution to be helpful for the reason that it allows for diverseness of views. In the history of America, a variety of thoughts would develop with alarming and formidable support through various factions (Robertson, 2005). Today, the main political arguments are presented from the Republican group or Democratic group. During the early periods of the American government, arguments on politics were made by Thomas Jefferson

I prefer to the approach of living when interpreting the Constitution. I think the majority of law should change and evolve over time as the society advances constantly. The Constitution was established over two hundred years and it was created to deal with the issues at that time. With time passed by, some terms were not suitable for the current issues. The pioneers who drafted the Constitution could not predict the changes on the technology, the economy, the international relationship and the social media. It was not realistic to make the outdated rules to guide the life of people invariably. Changing the law with the time was a positive practice, so that the Constitution could better fit the society.