Litigation

?The Roberts Court,? More than Ever

By Peter Hardin

Only one day after the Supreme Court’s final sitting of its term, veteran court observers are analyzing the year.

In a New York Times article, reporter Adam Liptak writes that in the past year, the court’s profile under Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. has changed fundamentally: “Judicial minimalism is gone, and the court has entered an assertive and sometimes unpredictable phase.”

The article is entitled, “Roberts Put his Stamp on Supreme Court in Latest Term.” The evidence it offers to support the headline?

Liptak asserts, “Chief Justice Roberts, who joined the court five years ago, took control of it this year, pushing hard on issues of core concern to him, including campaign finance, gun rights and criminal procedure, even as he found common ground with his colleagues, including some liberals, on an array of other issues.”

Or, as Gregory Garre, who was a solicitor general under President George W. Bush, put it, ?More than in any other year since he became chief justice, this has truly become the Roberts court.”

A separate and comprehensive analysis is offered by Tom Goldstein, SCOTUSblog founder, at that blog’s site. It is  has a more humorous title: “Everything you read about the Supreme Court is wrong/Except here, maybe.”

Goldstein seems to delight in challenging conventional wisdom. Examining the court’s rulings case-by-case, he contends that “it is inaccurate to describe the Court as methodically on the march to the right,” and “the liberal critique of the Court as grossly pro-corporate…does not hold water.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on June 29, 2010 (boomark / email).