Justice Weighs Desire v. Duty (Duty Prevails)--NYTimes

[Demeter]

The Constitution Made Me Do It! and other fables by John Paul Stevens:


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/politics/25memo.html?hp&ex=1125028800&en=fc0731cc95daae22&ei=5094&partner=homepage




By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: August 25, 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 - It is not every day that a Supreme Court justice calls his own decisions unwise. But with unusual candor, Justice John Paul Stevens did that last week in a speech in which he explored the gap that sometimes lies between a judge's desire and duty.

Justice John Paul Stevens at an American Bar Association meeting this month in Chicago, where he was critical of the death penalty.
Addressing a bar association meeting in Las Vegas, Justice Stevens dissected several of the recent term's decisions, including his own majority opinions in two of the term's most prominent cases. The outcomes were "unwise," he said, but "in each I was convinced that the law compelled a result that I would have opposed if I were a legislator."

In one, the eminent domain case that became the term's most controversial decision, he said that his majority opinion that upheld the government's "taking" of private homes for a commercial development in New London, Conn., brought about a result "entirely divorced from my judgment concerning the wisdom of the program" that was under constitutional attack....


Justice Stevens said he also regretted having to rule in favor of the federal government's ability to enforce its narcotics laws and thus trump California's medical marijuana initiative. "I have no hesitation in telling you that I agree with the policy choice made by the millions of California voters," he said. But given the broader stakes for the power of Congress to regulate commerce, he added, "our duty to uphold the application of the federal statute was pellucidly clear."


RANT TIME

It's so interesting that the 2000 election never triggered any public rumination or remorse, isn't it? And if taking people's homes for private corporate profits is in the Constitution, I'll eat said document. What part of "Medical" doesn't compute? The 18th century geniuses who created a document designed to breathe and grow with a growing nation would take one look at these specious arguments and respond "Tcha!" in good old 18th century speech. (That's bullshit, for those too green to history to translate).

[TabulaRasa]

1. Are you talking about Stevens with that rant?

I believe there was public rumination and remorse in his dissenting opinion on the 2000 election. As I recall, he had some very biting words for the majority in that case, in which he claimed that the loser of the election (the winner remaining unknown because of the stopped recount) was the public's faith in the impartiality of the judge.