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The Kennedy Court : U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) burdened by Politically Predictable Justices who should be deciding the LAW only

By Andis Kaulins

At The Volokh Conspiracy, Jonathan H. Adler comments on Sotomayor?s First Term, based on Robert Barnes' review at the Washington Post.

Their commentary is correct in that there have been no real surprises in Sotomayor's voting or opinion-writing at SCOTUS and that is part of the problem faced by a U.S. Supreme Court divided into two -- more or less -- political factions:

the liberal wing - Sotomayor, Ginsburg, Breyer and Stevens (retired at the end of the term) - with Stevens due to be replaced by Elena Kagan, who will surely be no less liberal than he was

the conservative wing - Alito, Thomas, Scalia, Roberts

the political centrist in the middle - Kennedy

Although Roberts is the Chief Justice and although most Supreme Courts in the past have been identified by the name of the Chief Justice, this is by no means "The Roberts Court". Rather, this Court is clearly "The Kennedy Court", as Justice Kennedy, given the political intransigence of his colleagues, almost singlehandedly decides "the big cases", with both blocs voting on either side of him. Do we really need the other 8?

The Supreme Court Justices ought to sit down and seriously ponder a change in the way they do their business: it is not the JUSTICES that should be so politically predictable in their case decisionmaking, but rather it is THE LAW itself which should have some predictability in its application to concrete cases.

As it currently stands, we could replace any Justice on the liberal block of the Court with people like Michael Moore or Arianna Huffington and any Justice on the conservative bloc of the Court with people like Rush Limbaugh or Michelle Malkin and NOTHING greatly perceptible would change in the Court's decisionmaking. That is not the way things should be.

We allegedly have a system of LAWS not MEN (viz. WOMEN).

Supreme Court Justices should for a change attempt to interpret the law the way that it IS, rather than using it as a medium for judges to exercise their personal political predilections in shaping the world the way they want the world to be, even if the law actually tells them that they should decide things differently.

The hallmark of every judge should be IMPARTIALITY before the law. Judges should have only ONE loyalty -- the law itself.

Full post as published by LawPundit on July 16, 2010 (boomark / email).