Origins of the book[edit]
At any given moment in the judicial history of the United States one has witnessed where the Supreme Court has rendered decisions based upon the learned jurisprudence of its constituent members and their respective backgrounds. Each of the individual Supreme Court Justices bring with them an ideological perspective whether be it conservative or liberal of their view of the interpretation of the Constitution.1 With that ideology comes their application of the law with respect to the myriad and complexity of cases that are heard before the Court. Two such cases in which there was witnessed a distinct ideological change in the opinion of the Supreme Court with respect to the Sixth Amendment include Betts v. Brady (1942) and Gideon v. Wainwright (1963).2 These two cases pondered and deliberated the argument over the course of twenty-one years as to whether defendants in a criminal case are entitled to court appointed counsel under the guarantees of the Sixth Amendment should they not be able to afford one. During the time period between these two landmark Supreme Court cases there were other factors which helped contribute to the change in Court’s opinion. These factors include a change in Supreme Court membership, the change in the political and cultural environment, as well as the change in interest group involvement between the two cases. The purpose of this paper is to show how the ideological leanings and perspective of the Supreme Court
Based on the research of Justice Alito, he was appointed by former president Gorge W. Bush as one of the Supreme Court Justices on January 31, 2006 and is currently a Republican Party federal justice. His approaches to things are very unpredictable and distinctive from what he is viewed as. However, his conservative standpoint is still a part of his image. This paper will include: the background of the justice, the judicial philosophy he approaches, and his opinion on a dispute.
The Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell displays some clues to the values of early twentieth century American society. The interpretation of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution is the lynchpin of the decision, and the values of the court can be derived from it. In this essay I will demonstrate that the ambiguity of the Amendment in question has significant consequences, the ethics of the interpretation of the Amendment is derived form the paternalistic nature of the Constitution, and that equality of the law is subservient to the desire for a homogeneous and comfortable cultural environment.
The book “Judicial Tyranny The New Kings of America?” is a compilation of articles and speeches. It is compiled by Mark Sutherland and includes writings from famed Christian personality James C. Dobson Chief Justice Roy Moore, Ambassador Alan Keyes, U.s Attorney General Ed Meese, among others. The book is a call to political action. It is aimed at Christian readers and the writers all argue that Christian politics equals constitutional purism. It is specifically meant to invoke constitutional responses and activism. Each chapter, twenty in all, are a few pages long and systematically decry the current judicial system and explain the lack of constitutional basis for their current level of power.
The subjectivity of a Supreme Court justice’s interpretation of the Constitution can sometimes create some fogginess. Such is the case when speaking of R.A.V v City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992) and Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003); Two identical cases, with the issue of cross burning and the question free-speech at the center of the arguments, yet two different rulings were handed down. In short, the nuances of the cases are what ultimately led to the different rulings, but let us take a more in-depth look at how the cases were decided.
The Supreme Court has been given credit and blame for having a wide range of effects on society. The decisions that they have made on current and past issues have initiated change in American society. These changes have had both positive and negative results. The effects of their decisions have ranged from improving the status of certain ethnic groups to limiting the procedures of law enforcers and clearly defining the rights of lawbreakers. In essence, Supreme Court decisions have had a profound influence on the behaviors of citizens as well as the political structure of this nation.
The opportunities defended by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments have two lives, one static and the other natural (Jolley & Donahue, 2016). Their static life exists in the first dialect of the alterations as they were endorsed by the states in 1791, while their natural life exists in the developing assortment of state and government case law deciphering their contents, applying it, and characterizing its extension as various genuine circumstances precede the
In the article, “A Judge Speaks Out,” Haddon Lee Sarokin discussed how the judiciary system works within the United States Court of Appels. In the article Sarokin expressed how America’s democracy faces problems of inequality and political withdrawal. Throughout the article, Sarokin implies that many decisions made by the judges are not necessarily decisions that would be made based off the Constitution as it should be, but based off the judges giving into the majorities opinions and desires. Sarokin expressed how it takes resilience and loyalty to follow the Constitution and to make decisions that are best for society, while sticking to the principles of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and not being influenced by others or one’s own desires.
Jeffery Rosen’s novel, The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America follows the history of the Supreme Court of the United States through both personal and philosophical rivalries that shaped the transformation of laws and our lives. Rosen shows us the rivalries between justices and their ideologies and how their ideologies have shaped our laws today. Starting in 1952 with President Harry S Truman and ending fifty four years later with the presidency of George W. Bush, Rosen takes and shapes the novel through the eyes of the justices. The novel, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffery Toobin, an acclaimed legal analyst at CNN shows us a deeper look at the most secret legal body of
This paper identifies, discusses and analyzes the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789. This paper addresses the historical context and the public need for the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789 (the “Act”). The paper then describes the major components of the Act and the policy issues the Act attempted to address at the time of its enactment. Finally, this paper evaluates the Act’s impact on the American justice system over the past almost two and a half centuries. This is an unbiased paper written with the sole intent to research and report on the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789.
This chapter further explains that a large issue of racial tension today has a lot to do with the court system in the United States. The courts are supposed to protect equality, rule by laws and the equal protection no matter the race, they should impeding just unjust laws from happening. This chapter has a variety of cases where the obvious issue of racism is ignored by the court in support of the status quo. This chapter also has evidence to disprove widely believed notions on the issue of race and drugs.
In his article Rosenberg analyzes the Court’s impact on public policy and their ability to create social reform. The Supreme Court’s actual influence and power it has on America’s policies and laws is often debated. There are many powers that the general public believes the Supreme court holds, but their precedent views of the Court’s power may be exaggerated.
The Warren Court is widely considered one of the two most influential and impactful courts of the US, along with the Marshall court (Cox 1). While the Marshall Court helped to shape the structure of the government itself, the Warren Court more clearly determined the relationship between the State and the people (Cox 1). The Warren Court addressed and advanced “equality among men, the openness of American society to change and reform, and the decency of the administration of criminal justice” (Cox 1). When hearing Supreme Court cases, he often used questions such as, “Is that what America stands for?” and “Is that fair?” (Cox 2). In many cases, these questions could not be answered in support of one side. In Baker v. Carr, no one could justify
New York Times and Orange County Register, both newspaper companies from liberal or democratic states, were subtly against the ruling of Section 4 unconstitutional. They could not outright condemn the majority vote of the Supreme Court due to the legitimate reputation at stake. In the next few paragraphs, there will be evidence stating why and how using course readings.
Charles Evans Whittaker served on the Supreme Court for less than five years and was known for being indecisive. His lack of ideology worked well for his roles as a judge on the lower courts, but on the Supreme Court his lack of ideology lead to him agreeing with the person who most recently spoke to him even if they did not necessarily have the best ideas (Lechtenberg, 2016). Whittaker grew up on his family farm in the Midwest; he eventually decided he wanted to go into law after seeing a murder trial at age 15 at the local district court (Smith, 2005). He attempted to go to high school, but after the lack of support from his father and the death of his mother he ended up dropping out (Smith, 2005). Eventually he returned
1. The founding of the United States is so phenomenal because a colony not only won their independence, but won it from the most powerful nation with the most powerful army and navy at the time. According the Ellis’s preface, the founding of this new nation occurred suddenly, rather than gradually. As well as the victory against England, and the sudden creation of the United States, the republic that was formed from the beginning of the nation is still in place today.