Browsing by Subject "Supreme Court"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    “The Brooding Spirit of the Law”: Supreme Court Justices Reading Dissents from the Bench
    (2010-01) Blake, William D; Hacker, Hans J
    In rare instances, a Supreme Court justice may elect to call attention to his or her displeasure with a majority decision by reading a dissenting opinion from the bench. We document this phenomenon by constructing a data set from audio files of Court proceedings and news accounts. We then test a model explaining why justices use this practice selectively by analyzing ideological, strategic, and institutional variables. Judicial review, formal alteration of precedent, size of majority coalition, and issue area influence this behavior. Ideological distance between the dissenter and majority opinion writer produces a counterintuitive relationship. We suspect that reading a dissent is an action selectively undertaken when bargaining and accommodation among ideologically proximate justices has broken down irreparably.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Jurisprudence Transcending Time and Space: Affirmative Action and the Revolution of 1937
    (2005-04) Blake, William D
    The purpose of this paper is to compare the jurisprudential debate on affirmative action to economic rights questions facing the Court during the Lochner Era. Proponents of the antidiscrimination principle believe that all racial classifications, including affirmative action, are unconstitutional, a view that corresponds with Lochner v. New York. Supporters of the anti-caste principle support affirmative action programs as a means to ensure that the circumstances of one's birth do not preclude the opportunity to succeed, a principle similar to West Cost Hotel v. Parish. These similarities demonstrate that legal principles reflect evolving notions of American ideals present throughout our history.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The left needs its own story of American greatness
    (Washington Post, 2018-10-17) Wheeler, Rachel
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Outlaw, outcast, and Obergefell: an analysis of the United States Supreme Court’s ideology in cases that impact the LGBT community
    (2017-09-13) Handlon, Russell L., Jr.; Dobris, Catherine
    This study employs an ideological rhetorical analysis to investigate three United States Supreme Court decisions concerning the liberties of the LGBT community. An analysis of the rhetoric from these cases for both the majority and dissenting opinions is conducted. These artifacts include Lawrence v. Texas (2003), United States v. Windsor (2013), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). The purpose of this study is to analyze the rhetoric of these cases to understand the themes undergirding decisions about cases concerning the LGBT community. Themes of liberty, fundamental rights, equal protection, power, and polarization emerge in this study. Ultimately, it is determined that two groups are impacted by these decisions, these groups include the LGBT community and religious members who deem homosexuality as immoral.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item