Given that the 5-4 decision seems to have been decided along party lines, with Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas deciding in the majority; with Associate Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, and John Stevens dissenting, liberals and progressives also see this 5-4 decision as decided on partisan lines.
This is an existential and political argument; not one based on ‘Legal Theory.’ However, it bears repeating that the United States Constitution is for all Americans, not just the small sub-set of citizens who are lawyers or legal scholars.
This is the third in the series listing landmark mistakes of the US Supreme Court. Some decisions, like Dred Scott and Plessy, and hopefully, Citizens United, and Florence, will be overturned. Others, like Korematsu, will be apologized for. Yet while these rulings are in force damage will be done.
Will there be more stupid, foolish, and political decisions? Probably, perhaps as early as this year when the Supreme Court decides on President Obama’s landmark health care legislation.
Series on Landmark Mistakes of the US Supreme Court
- Landmark Mistakes of the US Supreme Court, Part 1, L. J. Furman, 4/4/12
- Landmark Mistakes of the US Supreme Court, Part 2, L. J. Furman, 4/9/12
- Landmark Mistakes of the US Supreme Court, Part 3, L. J. Furman, 4/10/12