Legal News

It?s a Wrap: Sizing Up the 2008-2009 Supreme Court Term

By Ashby Jones

For several of the nation’s Supreme Court justices, the end of a term means they can turn their attention to foreign lands. Justice Anthony Kennedy and Sam Alito will head to Austria for part of the summer; Chief Justice Roberts will do a teach a course in Ireland; and Ruth Bader Ginsburg is slated to do the same in Rome.

But for the reporters who cover the Supreme Court, the term officially ends after they’ve penned their end-of-term wrapups. Today, we’re in wrapup heaven, with the WSJ’s Jess Bravin, the NYT’s Adam Liptak, and the Washington Post’s Robert Barnes all contributing their own takes on the term that was. Click here, here and here for the pieces, respectively.

If there’s a theme to the term, it seems to be the emerging influence of Chief Justice Roberts. Liptak opens thusly:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. emerged as a canny strategist at the Supreme Court this term, laying the groundwork for bold changes that could take the court to the right even as the recent elections moved the nation to the left. The court took mainly incremental steps in major cases concerning voting rights, employment discrimination, criminal procedure and campaign finance. But the chief justice's fingerprints were on all of them, and he left clues that the court is only one decision away from fundamental change in many areas of the law.

Adds Barnes:

[I]ts path was clear: a patient and steady move to the right led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., one that is likely to continue even if President Obama is successful in adding Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the high court — and perhaps two others like her.

Despite what appears to be Robert’s growing power, the court still largely belongs to Justice Kennedy. He voted in the majority 92% of the time this term, and, writes Bravin, likely continues to have a moderating effect on the conservative justices, even in the instances in which he sides with them: “With Justice Kennedy on the court, “the conservatives don’t have the five votes needed to strike down the Voting Rights Act or challenge the basic validity of disparate impact” as evidence of racial bias, says Steven Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.”

Bringing the biggest surprises over the course of the term, writes Liptak, were votes cast by Justices Scalia and Thomas, who are “apt to follow what they understand to be the original meaning of the Constitution, even when the consequences might not align with their policy preferences.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 01, 2009 (boomark / email).