Comments on: Court rules on habeas, county government immunity

By: Marc Shepherd

Marc Shepherd — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 14:22:03 +0000

If we are going to acknowledge–as we should–that Justice Scalia’s votes aren’t always neatly pigeon-holed into the so-called “conservative agenda,” then we should acknowledged that the same is true of the purported “liberal” Justices.

Of course, this does not mean that the labels “liberal” and “conservative” are utterly meaningless. (Michael Dukakis famously tried to argue that these labels were meanningless, and we remember how well that worked.) Over the course of 100 cases, Justice Scalia will vote with the conservative viewpoint considerably more often than Justice Breyer will. It isn’t just an accident that the conservatives are bigger fans of Scalia than they are of Breyer.

By: Kent Scheidegger

Kent Scheidegger — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 19:05:39 +0000

Roger, are you asking me? I don’t think it will change the minds of the people you describe. I just think it is useful evidence to the contrary. Arguing with people who are impervious to evidence is for the purpose of convincing the spectators, not the participants.

BTW, have any of the other SCOTUS-watchers here ever seen an opinion “dissenting in the judgment” before? I don’t recall one.

By: rodgerlodger

rodgerlodger — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:58:03 +0000

There is little chance the line-up in the habeas case will discourage those who neatly divide justices into white and black boxes. Scalia has chosen extremely liberal positions for the court and in dissent and it has made no difference. He thinks you have a 4th Amendment privacy right in the back of your stereo, he thinks 24 hours, not 48, is the most an arrestee can be constituionally held without a judge passing on probable cause, he (alone, except for Justice Stevens) thinks an American cannot be held by the executive as an enemy combatant (absent congressional suspension of habeas corpus). So why think today’s case will change the minds of the Scalia haters?

By: Rumpole

Rumpole — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:20:47 +0000

Note that although Stevens and Breyer have filed a joint dissent from the Court’s judgment, Stevens agrees with Gizburg’s opinion and Breyer agrees with Scalia’s dissent.

By: Rumpole

Rumpole — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:14:52 +0000

Fascinating reading. Ginsburg’s opinion is the “conservative” view, and Scalia’s the “libera” view, with Breyer seeming to be on both sides and Stevens concurring in the result.

By: Kent Scheidegger

Kent Scheidegger — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 15:16:35 +0000

Cornell has the text. This is a fascinating lineup. The next time someone implies that the Justices can be neatly plotted on a conservative-liberal spectrum and the prosecution v. defense lineup predicted from that, this case is Exhibit A for the rebuttal.