am mesmerized by its legacy and impact on a more equal society, specifically, Brown v. Board of Education. The unanimous decision, that took two years to decide, is one that should act as a model for all Courts thereafter as to the resolute need for a depolarized Court. A two-year deliberation followed by a unanimous decision would not have been the case if the Roberts Court had decided Brown. United States v. Windsor, one of the most memorable civil rights cases’ of the current Court, was a 5-4 decision. The majority being Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan with the minority being Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito—a highly predictable outcome it was. The Warren Court, comprised of Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Robert H. Jackson, Harold H. Burton, Tom C. Clark, Sherman Minton, was able to forego their ideologies and recognize the groundbreaking consequences of the Brown decision. The Roberts Court’s approach to gun control, criminal sentencing, and campaign finance, to name a few, hold the disturbingly similar pattern to the Windsor decision. McDonald v. Chicago (gun control) was a 5-4 vote. Graham v. Florida (criminal sentencing) was a 5-4. Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (campaign finance) was a 5-4 vote. I regard these decisions as disturbing because what they are telling the people. This is not to suggest the Warren Court never had a 5-4 decision, for we know that to be false, in fact the Warren…
Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed a total of seven justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Author and professor of Law at Harvard, writer Noah Feldman, focuses on the Supreme Court of FDR in his book Scorpions, particularly the stories of the four most influential and revolutionary justices: Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, and Robert Jackson. Feldman seeks to analyze what influenced each justices’ decisions in the court, and follows their evolution on the bench. Overall, Feldman…
Andrew Napolitano is a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written nine books on the U.S. Constitution. His background asserts that he is a reputable individual who is qualified to speak on this topic. Though his background in law and the judicial systems will give him the purpose to make his argument favor the constitution as it is interpreted. Napolitano closes with a quote from Supreme Court Justice Felix…
After the death of Roosevelt, the relationships and ideas of FDR’s justices diverged. In part, due to a series of unfortunate events, such as the Republicans taking back the Senate and House, the weak Harry Truman in office, and numerous personal frustrations, contempt bred rapidly among the justices (306). Where once bonds held these men together, the justices became bitter enemies. While none of the justices were actual “friends,” camps, or alliances, seemed to form on the bench. On one side…
Over the course of his career, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed a total of seven justices to the United States Supreme Court. Professor of Law at Harvard, and author, Noah Feldman, focuses on the background and evolution of four of FDR’s most influential justice appointees—Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, and Robert Jackson— throughout his book Scorpions. In the Supreme Court of FDR, and in our modern-day court, one often wonders how justices’ rulings are…
the same amendment. With Bunting, the amendment’s universal protection of people irrespective of their gender became evident when the reformers made a state protection applicable to male laborers. Franklin Bunting was charged with Oregon labor law violation by making his employee work overtime without compensation. When the state court found him guilty, Bunting claimed that his due process right under the 14th amendment was violated because he saw the state law not as an hour law, but as a wage…
activism"), which injected its own legal views into constitutional law regarding issues like states rights, state elections, criminal procedures, criminal penalties, regulation of freedom of speech and press, to porn, some members of that court were appointed based solely on their belief in the New Deal, would be the only possible kind of justices to save this country and unanimously overrule Plessy in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Truth be told, and just as Supreme Court Justices who…
Imagine a university professor accuses a student of cheating on a final exam. Before the student can defend herself, the university decides to expel the student. Understandably, the student decides she wants to challenge the expulsion as a violation of her due process rights. Can the student challenge the action? Surprisingly, the answer depends on which federal circuit the student lives in. In 1975, the United States Supreme Court held that state law could provide primary students a…
Felix Mendelssohn had a very short life and was born February 3rd 1809 and died November 4th 1847 at just the age of thirty eight. Felix Mendelssohn was a very successful composer and musician throughout his short lifetime and he reflected on trends of Romanticism and used many features of nineteenth century piano music in his works. Andrew Lesser describes Mendelssohn’s music perfectly as ‘updated to the modern fashions of Romanticism.’, I agree with this as much of Mendelssohn’s music was new…
Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany on March 31st, 1685. He was raised in a family of musicians. Johann Sebastian Bach learned to play the harpsichord, organ, and violin. Bach came from generations of musicians. Johann's father taught him to play the violin and harpsichord when he was young and his father was also a musician in Eisenach. Johann Sebastian Bach was also influenced by his famous uncle Johann Christoph, a organist at the Georgenkirche in…