Today is Justice Anthony Kennedy's last day (It's also Harry Potter's birthday), He has had a great career. (Kennedy, but so has Potter if you think about it). Nominated by one of our favourite Presidents: Ronald Wilson Reagan, Kennedy has had profound effect on Constitutional Law and life in the United States.
In Boumediene v. Bush, Kennedy wrote for the court that Guantanamo detainees are entitled to the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus. (5-4 decision.
In US v. Windsor, Kennedy wrote for the court that the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as an act between a man and a woman violated the Fifth Amendment guarantees of liberty.
But for our money, Kennedy's shinning hours were his decisions in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 holding that a statute that criminalized homosexual conduct was unconstitutional, and in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which Kennedy and the court reaffirmed the central holdings of Roe. Kennedy's defense of precedent is masterful and a firmament of the concept we are a society that is ruled by laws, not people or passions.
When you see something that is not right, not fair, find a way to get in the way and cause trouble. Congressman John Lewis
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5 comments:
And all that great legal stuff will be dust in the wind once the GOP gets to load the court with a couple more picks.
The lives and careers of these justices are vastly overrated. Their brilliance is squandered on case after case about gerrymanding, voting rights and abortion. Meanwhile we cannot tackle as a nation the most basic social domestic problems and are 21 trillion in debt because we are the policemen of the world, especially NATO and Europe.
We have not solved in decades homelessness (build a building, convert an abandoned mall), children killing children, 1.3 million children a year telling their guardians that they don't want to go to school anymore, I could go on and on. The UN just came out with a study about how poor the quality of life is for children in the U.S. Oh, and by the way, we have a death penalty and more incarcerated than any nation and weekly, almost daily, a minority is shot and killed by a white police officer, almost always about something very trivial.
Castigated by conservatives but praised by liberals when it should be the other way around. His judicial philosophy was always that the Constitution puts limits on government power. His joinder in the Heller decisions and the Obama Care ruling that the federal government cannot force you to buy health insurance (Roberts upheld it on tax power grounds)are his most lasting contributions to our jurisprudence. The so called gay rights rulings only accelerated what was the developing general consensus on these issues.
Rumpole:
Can you create a blog entry on attorney John Hogan? Any memories about him? He passed away this Saturday July 28. I know he worked with the State Attorney's office in the late 80's and early 90's. I remember seeing him on tv while he represented the state in the William Lozano case. I was most impressed by what I saw. Thank you.
Sadly John Hogan has passed away. A chief assistant under Janet Reno, I had the good fortune to try a case with him back in the 80’s. It was then when I learned what a brilliant man and kind person he was. R.I.P. John.
BR
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