Libertarian Motivations on the Vinson Court

1953 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-336
Author(s):  
C. Herman Pritchett
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Senate ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Legislative Voting ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Devil

Justice Frankfurter is fond of quoting an old English saying that “the devil himself knoweth not the mind of men.” The mind of a man who happens to be a judge is the center of many contending impulses when he is making it up, and an external reconstruction of the process is quite impossible. However, the rules of the game require that judges supply clues to their thought processes in the form of written opinions. In every major case decided by the Supreme Court, one or more of its members provide a written justification for the decision announced. The individualistic tradition of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, moreover, permits justices who do not agree with the views of their brethren to say so, and to give their reasons for dissenting. Thus the Supreme Court on decision day takes on the aspect of a small legislature in which votes are cast pro and con on significant issues of public policy, with accompanying explanations much more coherent and systematic and better-reasoned than are customarily available in explanation of votes cast, say, in the United States Senate.While it has not been usual to do so, these judicial votes can be subjected to the same kinds of analysis as have been traditionally employed for the study of legislative voting behavior.

State Constitutional Law in 1933–34

1934 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-627
Author(s):  
Charles G. Haines
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Stress And Strain ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Bar Association ◽  
Lord Chancellor ◽  
State Constitutional Law

More than ten years ago, the Earl of Birkenhead, former Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, speaking before the American Bar Association, expressed the belief that it was a question for the future to determine whether the barriers which the framers of the constitutions placed upon the complete freedom of legislative assemblies in the United States will prove equal to the emergencies as they arise and will be as adaptable to the stress and strain of political exigencies as the more flexible and more democratic arrangements of the British constitution. “Your constitution,” he remarked, “is expressed and defined in documents which can be pronounced upon by the Supreme Court. In this sense, your judges are the masters of your executive. Your constitution is a cast-iron document. It falls to be construed by the Supreme Court with the same sense of easy and admitted mastery as any ordinary contract. This circumstance provides a breakwater of enormous value against ill-considered and revolutionary changes.” On the other hand, so far as England is concerned, the genius of the Anglo-Saxon people has, rightly or wrongly, refused to shackle in the slightest degree the constitutional competence of later generations. Any law of Great Britain can be altered by Parliament and no court may challenge the constitutional force of an act of Parliament. It is on the whole premature, thought Lord Birkenhead, to decide whether you or we have been right.

Voting Behavior on the United States Courts of Appeals, 1961–1964

1966 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 374-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheldon Goldman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
United States Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Courts Of Appeals ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Research Problems ◽  
Relationship Of

Voting behavior of public decision-makers has been of central concern for political scientists. For example, studies of legislatures (notably of Congress) have investigated such research problems as: (1) the extent to which voting on one issue is related to voting on other issues; (2) the potency of party affiliation as an organizer of attitudes and a predictor of voting behavior; and (3) the relationship of demographic characteristics to voting behavior. These and related concerns have more recently occupied the attention of students of the judiciary whose focus has primarily been on the United States Supreme Court. State courts of last resort have also provided a testing ground primarily for problems (2) and (3). However, the United States courts of appeals, second only to the Supreme Court in judicial importance, have been largely neglected. This paper considers the above research problems with reference to the voting behavior on all eleven courts of appeals from July 1, 1961 through June 30, 1964.

In the Supreme Court of the United States: Clara Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust..

1988 ◽  
Vol 43 (12) ◽  
pp. 1019-1028 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald N. Bersoff ◽  
Laurel P. Malson ◽  
Donald B. Verrilli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fort Worth ◽  
The Supreme Court

The Constitutionality of Involuntary Civil Commitment of Opiate Addicts

1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 641-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Civil Commitment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Involuntary Treatment ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Narcotic Trafficking ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Opiate Addicts ◽  
The 1960S

This paper deals with the constitutionality of involuntary treatment of opiate addicts. Although the first laws permitting involuntary treatment of opiate addicts were enacted in the second half of the nineteenth century, addicts were not committed in large numbers until California and New York enacted new civil commitment legislation in the 1960s. Inevitably, the courts were called upon to decide if involuntary treatment was constitutional. Both the California and New York courts decided that it was. These decisions were heavily influenced by statements made by the United States Supreme Court in Robinson v. California. The Robinson case did not actually involve the constitutionality of involuntary treatment; it involved the question of whether it was constitutional for a state to make addiction a crime. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court declared (in a dictum) that a state might establish a program of compulsory treatment for opiate addicts either to discourage violation of its criminal laws against narcotic trafficking or to safeguard the general health or welfare of its inhabitants. Presumably because the Robinson case did not involve the constitutionality of involuntary treatment of opiate addicts, the Supreme Court did not go into that question as deeply as it might have. The California and New York courts, in turn, relied too much on this dictum and did not delve deeply into the question. The New York courts did a better job than the California courts, but their work too was not as good as it should have been.

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