Tag Archives: roberts

Roberts’s First Opinion

Posted on by

Chief Justice Roberts issued his first Supreme Court opinion yesterday. Here’s a stylistic analysis of the opinion. My favorite part of the analysis:

For anyone who attended the oral argument in the case, Wednesday’s decision also shows that Roberts is unafraid of standing up to Justice Antonin Scalia. One of the relevant precedents in the case was a 1968 case called Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises. When one of the lawyers at argument referred to the case by the shorthand Piggie Park, Scalia interrupted and said, only half-jokingly, “You know, it really would improve the dignity of this Court if we referred to Piggie Park as Newman.”

Without apology, Roberts referred to the case throughout his opinion Wednesday as Piggie Park.

Alito, Kennedy, Gays

Posted on by

Here’s an interesting post touching on Alito, gay rights, and Kennedy becoming the new swing justice. See the comments as well. Of course, Kennedy’s becoming the swing vote merely means that the Court will move to the right, not that Kennedy will move to the left, but Balkin notes that Kennedy “supports gay rights claims a bit more than O’Connor.” One of the commenters notes that in Lawrence, O’Connor’s concurrence was limited to the issue of equal protection, whereas Kennedy’s majority opinion was broader, focusing on due process and liberty while also incorporating O’Connor’s equal protection argument.

Another commenter thinks that Chief Justice Roberts might be a swing vote on gay rights.

Finally, here’s a piece on Alito and a couple of gay harrassment cases.

Thoughts on Alito

Posted on by

Get used to saying “Scalia, Alito” rapidly, as in, “Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas,” who will be voting closely together in lots of cases.

Fortunately, there are still five pretty solid votes on the Court for the area I care most about, gay rights – Stevens, Kennedy (who wrote Lawrence and Romer), Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. Now that O’Connor’s presumably gone, I think Kennedy’s going to become the new swing vote. Also interesting and still semi-applicable: this SCOTUSblog article from June about a possible “gang of three” – just replace “Rehnquist” with “Alito” in the following excerpt:

On a Court somewhat more conservative without O’Connor, Kennedy’s influence seems sure to grow. He has a chance to become the new balance wheel, a role that was filled so routinely by O’Connor. (Even if there were to form a solid Rehnquist-Scalia-Thomas-Roberts phalanx, they would still need Kennedy to prevail, and he would not be with such a quartet automatically.) Kennedy also has more influence than is sometimes credited to him. He has a store of common sense that saves him from ideological rigidity, and that steers him away from agenda-driven voting. He has an even deeper sense of what history asks of the few who become members of the Court. Those are summonses to the use of sound judgment.

As I’ve said recently, despite my relatively liberal social views, my judicial views have been in flux lately. Alito seems not be an ideologue or an asshole like Scalia, which is good. I prefer him to someone like Janice Rogers Brown or Priscilla Owen. (And hey – go, New Jersey, with two out of nine seats!)

The Harriet Miers nomination was bad for the Court as an institution. The Alito nomination is good for the Court, regardless of how good or bad it turns out to be for the country.