For those of you interested in the inner workings of the U.S. Supreme Court, here are a couple of recent very interesting articles.
(1) The March 28, 2005, issue of the New Yorker magazine contains a rather interesting profile of Justice Scalia. Here is a link to the article itself and here is a a link to the Q&A with the profile's author Margaret Talbot. Even if you (like me) find yourself in disagreement with Justice Scalia more often than not, you will enjoy this article - Scalia is certainly an interesting and outspoken fellow. The one idea from the profile that stuck with me the most is that Justice Scalia's venom for attacking the proponents of the "living constitution" concept has no rational explanation. Since the Constitution does not mandate (or even express a preference) for one mode of interpretation over another, the dispute between Scalia and someone like, say, William Brennan, is nothing more than a philosophical dispute. Perhaps, a good case can be made for each position, but Justice Scalia surely does not have either legal or moral superiority on his side.
(2) Linda Greenhouse's Evolution of a Justice should be a required read for any law student in the Constitutional Law - Individual Liberties course. I don't know if Ms. Greenhouse is an attorney (she often writes about the Supreme Court), but her article puts the key gender-discrimination and abortion decisions in a coherent historical perspective.
(3) In the current issue of Atlantic Monthly, Benjamin Wittes writes about the often-overlooked fact in discussing the possible impact of Bush's Supreme Court nominees. In The Hapless Toad, Mr. Wittes postulates that the biggest threat from those nominees would come to the federal protection of the environment (through limitation on the Commerce Clause application and tightening of the standing rules). I have had my issues with some of the things Mr. Wittes writes, but here, he might actually have a point.
Comments