{"id":5524,"date":"2009-06-10T16:10:11","date_gmt":"2009-06-10T21:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=5524"},"modified":"2009-06-11T10:05:53","modified_gmt":"2009-06-11T15:05:53","slug":"justice-roberts-has-a-little-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/06\/justice-roberts-has-a-little-list\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Roberts Has A Little List"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"the_mikado1\"The Supreme Court ruled yesterday in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Company<\/em> that the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution is violated by the refusal of a judge to recuse herself when the disproportionate campaign contributions of a litigant on behalf of that judge create a serious, objective risk of actual bias. <\/span>Rick Esenberg has posted on some of the issues raised by the majority opinion here<\/a>. <\/span>For me, the most interesting part of the case was actually the dissent by Justice John Roberts. <\/span>In it, Justice Roberts objects to the uncertainty that federal judges will encounter as they attempt to apply this constitutional right in future cases with disparate fact patterns. <\/span>In a bit of theatricality worthy of Gilbert & Sullivan, the Chief Justice\u2019s dissent presents a list of 40 questions that the majority opinion leaves unanswered.<\/p>\n

The Chief Justice makes a rather stark assertion: \u201cThe Court\u2019s inability to formulate a \u2018judicially discernible and manageable standard\u2019 strongly counsels against the recognition of a novel constitutional right.\u201d <\/span>He cites to Veith v. Jubelirer<\/em> in support of this statement, which of course held no such thing. <\/span>In fact, as a plurality opinion devoted to the issue of what constitutes a \u201cpolitical question,\u201d the Veith <\/em>case is a fairly slender reed upon which to rest such a sweeping proposition.<\/p>\n

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It was another Chief Justice, John Marshall, who famously asserted the traditional common law rule that governed the role of the Supreme Court in the administration of justice. <\/span>In Marbury v. Madison<\/em>, Justice Marshall wrote:<\/p>\n

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The Government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

By demanding that the judicial remedy be clear and manageable before the Court should undertake to recognize the existence of a constitutional right, Chief Justice Roberts would transform judicial restraint into judicial timidity. <\/span>For example, one could easily take the holding of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education<\/em> \u2013 that the maintenance of segregated schools for blacks and whites violates the Equal Protection Clause \u2013 and generate 40 unanswered questions:<\/p>\n

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1. Is the proper remedy for segregation the forced busing of students to different schools?<\/p>\n

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2. Should busing plans be designed to achieve the integration of each individual school or is it sufficient that the school district as a whole be integrated?<\/p>\n

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3. Should busing plans incorporate districts without a history of discrimination if doing so will aid in the creation of a larger integrated educational system?<\/p>\n

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4. How long should forced busing plans be maintained before integrated school districts are allowed to naturally slide back towards segregation?<\/p>\n

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5. Can school districts without a history of intentional segregation choose to voluntarily impose busing plans that create integrated schools?<\/p>\n

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I could go on and on, as there is a two decade history of busing litigation in federal courts that worked through these and countless other questions in the wake of the Brown<\/em> decision.<\/p>\n

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These cases constitute the far end of the spectrum in terms of federal judges leaping into the great unknown in order to craft a remedy for a newly created constitutional right. <\/span>Yet Justice Roberts seems to suggest that the lesson to take away from this experience is that the Supreme Court should not have overturned Plessey v. Ferguson<\/em> and ordered the desegregation of public schools. <\/span>He suggests that if the Justices cannot anticipate all of the issues raised by an attempt to remedy the violation of a constitutional right, perhaps the right shouldn\u2019t exist at all. <\/span>I prefer Justice Marshall\u2019s classic definition of the judiciary. <\/span>If there is a violation of a legal right, it is the obligation of the federal courts to find a remedy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Company that the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution is violated by the refusal of a judge to recuse herself when the disproportionate campaign contributions of a litigant on behalf of that judge create a serious, objective risk of actual bias. Rick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,68,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constitutional-interpretation","category-judges-judicial-process","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}