Patterico's Pontifications

7/2/2008

The (Continuing) Arrogance of Justice Anthony Kennedy

Filed under: Constitutional Law,Court Decisions,General,Judiciary — Justin Levine @ 1:28 pm



[posted by Justin Levine]

In light of the extremely disingenuous rulings from Justice Anthony Kennedy recently, it might be good to once again remind readers to try and seek out Jeffrey Rosen’s article from the June 18th, 2007 edition of the New Republic entitled “Supreme Leader: The Arrogance of Justice Anthony Kennedy”.

To my mind, it remains THE key analysis of Justice Kennedy’s style, and one of the best articles ever written on a sitting Supreme Court Justice.

Regretfully, the entire article no longer seems accessible on the Internet. But trust me, it is well worth seeking out in traditional print form. The entire article is pure gold, but some snippets can be found here, here and here. Many writers and commentators have recognized its significance  (with some quoting other parts of the article).

One of Kennedy’s former law clerks takes exception to the tone of the article – probably because even he suspects that Rosen is on to something here. Dorf is right in one sense – the article IS a personal attack, and a well justified one at that. If Rosen’s tone takes on the character of a personal attack, it is only because the tone of Kennedy’s opinions are personally offensive – much more so than the opinions of the consistently liberal Justices on the court which manage to be merely wrong as a matter of legal theory.

Kennedy has proven that he does not have the temperament worthy of the power afforded to those sitting on the nation’s highest court. I say this even though the practical results of his decisions will more often comport with my own views when compared with some other Justices of the Court. But if I had the power to vote one (and only one) Justice off the island, Kennedy would easily be the first choice.

[posted by Justin Levine]

Comments are closed.


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.3912 secs.