« Oil, Oil, Oil...Oy.... | Main | "Preserve as many dems as we can." »
August 28, 2005
Another angle on SCOTUS
Writing for the Atlantic Monthly, Stuart Taylor Jr. argues that while partisans focus on SCOTUS' political makeup, the country has largely ignored, and suffers from, the Court's "homogenization by professional background":
Now that Sandra Day O'Connor has announced her retirement, how many remaining justices have ever held elected office? How many have previously served at the highest levels of the executive branch of government? How many have argued big-time commercial lawsuits within the past thirty-five years? How many have ever been either criminal defense lawyers or trial prosecutors? How many have presided over even a single criminal or civil trial? The answers are zero, zero, zero, one, and one, respectively.
He continues:
Should we be concerned? After all, the Supreme Court is supposed to sit above politics and apart from popular whims. But when a large majority of the Court's justices have never cross-examined a lying cop or a slippery CEO, never faced a jury, never slogged through the swamps of the modern discovery process, something has gone wrong. As the Court has lost touch with the real-world ramifications of its decisions, our judicial system has clearly suffered.
Read the whole thing; this is an even-handed look at the issue Taylor identifies, although it's hard to discount that a judge's political leanings are the root of intellectual laziness or worse, dishonesty.
Posted by bill at August 28, 2005 11:00 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.citizen-journal.net/cgi-bin/mt-316/mt-tb.cgi/404
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Another angle on SCOTUS:
» calvin john from calvin john
shit-happens 4072234 Relevant calvin john [Read More]
Tracked on June 17, 2007 03:46 AM
» Search results xanax online. from Buy xanax online.
Order xanax online. Buy xanax online. Buying xanax online next delivery. Search results xanax online. [Read More]
Tracked on December 1, 2007 10:30 PM
» Percocet dependency. from Symtoms of withdrawl from percocet.
Percocet sexual effects. Buy percocet online. Percocet and nightmares. [Read More]
Tracked on April 30, 2008 12:01 AM
» Online phentermine. from Cheap phentermine.
Order phentermine. Phentermine. Phentermine online purchase. Generic phentermine. Danger of phentermine. Best price for phentermine. [Read More]
Tracked on August 14, 2008 01:45 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
