Word: scalias
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...concurrences and dissents that often resulted in Kennedy determining the law. In the 24 decisions that came down 5-to-4 last year, Kennedy was the decisive vote in every case, never once dissenting. Of those 24, 19 of them reflected the traditional conservative-liberal split (Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Alito versus John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer) with the conservatives winning 13 and the liberals getting six. Says Lazarus, "The only really big case the liberals won 5-4 last term was the global warming case, Massachusetts v. EPA." This term, by contrast...
Instead of rendering the Second Amendment a dormant law, the Court's ruling has given it life. "It is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct," Scalia wrote. That view aligns the Court's conservative wing with most current scholarly interpretations, says Barnett, the Georgetown professor. But despite finally affixing its imprimatur on a reading of the convoluted Amendment, the Court's ruling raises nearly as many questions as it settles. As Justice Stevens wrote, it "leaves for future cases the formidable task of defining the scope" of its impact...
...Wednesday, after the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional in cases of child rape, Obama surprised some observers by siding with the hardline minority of Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito. At a press conference after the decision, Obama said, "I think that the rape of a small child, six or eight years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that that does not violate our Constitution...
...Then Thursday, after Justice Scalia released his majority opinion knocking down the city of Washington's ban on handguns, Obama said in a statement, "I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures. The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view...
...Obama's run to the center surely won't stop conservatives from using the specter of a Democratic-appointed Supreme Court to try to rally support. "Its pretty clear that if he's elected and Justice Scalia or Kennedy retires that he's going to appoint someone who's very likely to reverse [the gun control decision]," says Eugene Volokh, a professor at the UCLA School of Law. Given how Obama has been responding to the recent Supreme Court decisions, however, you're not likely to hear him talking about appointing liberal justices much between now and November...