Supreme Dicta

It’ll bring tears to your eyes.

Why am I crying at my desk? Blame it on C-SPAN’s The Supreme Court podcast. It’s basically a series of interviews with the nine sitting justices, and retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Right now, I’m listening to Justice Sonia Sotomayer tell her story of the morning she received “the phone call,” … wherein she was asked by President Obama to be the next Associate Justice in our nation’s highest court. Perhaps most touching is the way she talks about what the President asked her to promise — to remain the person she is, and to stay connected to her community. You can hear the emotion in both the voices of Justice Sotomayer and her C-SPAN host, Susan Swain as they discuss her career’s highlight.

The series is a must-listen for anyone who’s interested in the dynamic personalities that compose the court. They’re all truly wise beings in their own right. Even Clarence “I’m just happy to be here” Thomas. But not Scalia. He’s just an asshole.

I bet Stevens keeps a couple Werther’s Originals in his pocket.

Subrcribe to C-SPAN’s The Supreme Court podcast in iTunes here.

Posted Thursday, January 7th, at 4:06 PM (∞).

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Finding the laws that govern us

infoneernet:

As many of us recall from our civics lessons in school, the United States is a common law country. That means when judges issue opinions in legal cases, they often establish precedents that will guide the rulings of other judges in similar cases and jurisdictions. Over time, these legal opinions build, refine and clarify the laws that govern our land. For average citizens, however, it can be difficult to find or even read these landmark opinions. We think that’s a problem: Laws that you don’t know about, you can’t follow — or make effective arguments to change.

Starting today, we’re enabling people everywhere to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. You can find these opinions by searching for cases (like Planned Parenthood v. Casey), or by topics (like desegregation) or other queries that you are interested in. For example, go to Google Scholar, click on the “Legal opinions and journals” radio button, and try the query separate but equal. Your search results will include links to cases familiar to many of us in the U.S. such as Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, which explore the acceptablity of “separate but equal” facilities for citizens at two different points in the history of the U.S. But your results will also include opinions from cases that you might be less familiar with, but which have played an important role.

Seen at The Official Google Blog

Found via infoneer-pulse. Posted Tuesday, November 17th, at 10:53 PM (∞).

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People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system. They didn’t allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice. Spain held an open trial in Madrid for the individuals accused of that country’s 2004 train bombings. The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings on trial right in their normal courthouse in London. Indonesia gave public trials using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali. India used a Mumbai courtroom to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents. In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes.

It’s only America’s Right that is too scared of the Terrorists — or which exploits the fears of their followers — to insist that no regular trials can be held and that “the safety and security of the American people” mean that we cannot even have them in our country to give them trials. As usual, it’s the weakest and most frightened among us who rely on the most flamboyant, theatrical displays of “strength” and “courage” to hide what they really are. Then again, this is the same political movement whose “leaders” — people like John Cornyn and Pat Roberts — cowardly insisted that we must ignore the Constitution in order to stay alive: the exact antithesis of the core value on which the nation was founded. Given that, it’s hardly surprising that they exude a level of fear of Terrorists that is unmatched virtually anywhere in the world. It is, however, noteworthy that the position they advocate — it’s too scary to have normal trials in our country of Terrorists — is as pure a surrender to the Terrorists as it gets.

Glenn Greenwald, The Right’s textbook “surrender to terrorists” (via soupsoup)

This.

(I know this isn’t really what this blog was intended for, but since it’s been fallow for so long, and I needed someplace to reblog this, I’m hoping Jess won’t mind.)

Found via soupsoup. Posted Saturday, November 14th, at 7:36 PM (∞).

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Welcome!

We’d like to shed light on the philosophy of law that inspires, and sometimes lords over, the legistative, judicial, and executive decisions du jour. The media doesn’t cover it, so why not us? It’s not likely that we’ll be following current events as they unfold. Rather, our goal is to school you; to expose you to the contentions and theories that our Nation has held tightly to in interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Legal interpretivism, formalism, realism, activism, strict constructivism, international jurisprudnence, … they all underly modern judical decision-making and public policy initiatives advanced by the legislature Modern issues will be examined through the lense of jurisprudential history.

Join us as we discuss our most influential legal and philosophical minds, landmark cases, federalism, and recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the underlying public policies that shape judicial decisions, and decisions’ practical implications on our daily lives.

Our hope is that you will be able to see the opportunity for change and frank discussion that exists around us. The Constitution is more of a living document than some would have us realize, and is ready, willing, and able to grow with our changing culture.

My first article will be entitled, The Men Behind the Curtain. It will be a run-down of some of the basic philosophy and theories of government that inspired our Founding Fathers, first in penning The Articles of Confederation, and then The Constitution of the United States. I’ll try to have it up by the end of the weekend.

Our contributing writers are @cranberryperson, @doublejack, and @frageelay.

Got a question or idea? Want to drop some knowledge on the huddled masses? Email us at Supreme.Dicta@gmail.com.

Posted Saturday, August 22nd, at 3:52 AM (∞).

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