Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> Lawbeat

Legal News

: Lawbeat

A thousand-word legal history lesson

By Mark Obbie

David Savage, the veteran Los Angeles Times Supreme Court correspondent, used a recent Sarah Palin controversy to expose readers to some legal history in this story today. It's a creative idea, and done well under tight time and space constraints. But I wish Savage had added one or two more grafs of explanation to make the lesson for laymen that much more valuable.Savage was inspired by one of Palin's uncomfortable moments under questioning by CBS' Katie Couric. Because Palin was unable to name a Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade that she disagreed with, Savage -- without condescension -- offers 14 other decisions, mostly from modern times, that scholars of the right or left consider among the "worst." Each ideological team from Savage's reasonably balanced survey of 15 Court and constitutional scholars suggests notorious nominees for worst designation. Savage gives each case a few words -- that's all he has time for -- before concluding with two that transcend partisan boundaries: Gonzales v. Raich (2005) on federal regulatory power and Buckley v. Valeo (1976) on cash as political speech.Witty premise, well-executed, by a smart legal writer who says more than I'd expect about the Court's reasoning in each case in remarkably few words. The omission: Explaining to non-lawyers the whole eye-of-the-beholder business. When critics (even scholars) hate the result of a Court ruling, they find ways to hate the reasoning. Laymen (who don't know any better) and journalists or cable commentators (who should know better) usually pay no attention to why a court reached a particular result -- what legal principle or rule arguably led to the hated result. They simply pound on the court for not making the case turn out as the critic wished. That angle would have put the critiques, and the underlying controversy, in a more complete context.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on October 23, 2008 (boomark / email).