Word: rightward
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They showed their colors last term. From civil rights to criminal procedures to privacy protections, the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court took a series of dramatic rightward steps that made them the most conservative high bench in a generation. This week, as the Justices open a new session, the question is not whether the court will continue along that path but how far and how fast it will go. Says University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein: "Some decisions that people on the left saw as benchmarks are contestable again...
...Miranda warnings to inform arrested suspects of their rights, left little doubt that the court's tough law-and-order majority is firmly entrenched. "The days of criminals' getting off on technicalities are over," declared Daniel Popeo, head of the conservative Washington Legal Foundation, surveying the overall rightward drift of the Rehnquist Court's criminal jurisprudence this year...
...surprisingly, by one of the court's last liberal lions, Brennan. Equally unsurprising, the most consistent conservative on the bench, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, crafted the main dissent. What was noteworthy, however, was the unusual lineup behind them. John Paul Stevens, who by virtue of the court's rightward swing is now considered a liberal, joined with Sandra Day O'Connor and Byron White in dissent. On the other side, Ronald Reagan's two conservative appointees, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, showed that when basic First Amendment rights were involved, they could come down in defense even of flag burning...
...Reagan appointees, the court hands down two decisions that confirm its rightward shift. In his first full term, Justice Anthony Kennedy is tipping the scales...
Given their meager influence on Israeli public opinion, which is moving furiously rightward, these interlocutors are strengthened by such criticism. At one meeting in Bardin's Jerusalem home, Jad Isaac, a Palestinian biology professor imprisoned after urging West Bank Arabs to plant vegetable gardens to achieve agricultural self-sufficiency, put it simply: "Even if all we do is talk, it is good...