Daedalus articles from September 2008

Daedalus archives from September 2008

Independence: why & from what?(judicial independence)(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... "Judicial independence" is a concept easier to salute reflexively than to grasp fully. The why of judicial independence is simple enough: the rule of law clearly cannot survive alongside the "telephone justice" that Justice Stephen Breyer...

Fair & independent courts.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... More than one hundred years ago Roscoe Pound delivered an important address to the American Bar Association called "The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice." (1) In that address, Pound, who would later become...

Will ignorance & partisan election of judges undermine public trust in the judiciary?(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as...

Judicial independence, judicial accountability & interbranch relations.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... Recent years have witnessed attacks on the courts, federal and state, that have been notable for both their frequency and their stridency. (1) Many of these attacks have been part of strategies calculated to create and sustain an impression of...

Interdependent federal judiciaries: puzzling about why & how to value the independence of which judges.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... Judicial independence is a norm presumed to have been settled upon at the founding of the United States. (1) Yet the authority accorded to judges has been a hauntingly provocative topic since the country's inception. Article III of the U.S....

Packages of judicial independence: implications for reform proposals on the selection & tenure of Article III judges.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... Judicial independence is necessary to assure the rule of law and protection of rights; accountability in some form is necessary for legitimate judicial review in a democracy. (1) Rules about selection, tenure, and removal of judges are...

Threats to judicial independence, real & imagined.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... Public criticism of the federal courts is nothing new. (1) Since the beginning of the republic to the present day, politicians and populace have attacked judicial opinions and decried judicial activism. For example, the response to the landmark...

Congress & the court: restoring balance.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... The judicial trend of diminishing deference to Congress's power to find facts and then legislate pursuant to those findings deeply concerns many on the Article I side of government. (1) To be sure, courts must be able to assess--with total...

Congress & the court: judicial confirmation.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... The congressional-judicial relationship is frayed but not broken. (1) Positive aspects of the relationship don't grab headlines: Congress has frequently been responsive to the judiciary's budget requests and courthouse security needs, and open...

Congress & the court: the scope of national legislative power.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... At the beginning of the twentieth century, constitutional law did not sharply distinguish between questions of structure and questions of rights. (1) To the contrary, the Court self-consciously defined individual rights in ways designed to...

Methods of judicial selection & their impact on judicial independence.
September 22, 2008... Within the legal community judicial independence is understood, not as an intrinsic good or an end in itself, but as a means to achieve other ends. (1) If judges are independent-if they are insulated from political and other controls that could...

Keeping courts impartial amid changing judicial elections.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... That's obscene for a judicial race.... What does it gain people? How can people have faith in the system?--Justice Lloyd Karmeier, Illinois Supreme Court, Election Night 2004 (1) More than 89 percent of America's state judges...

Why state courts--and state-court elections--matter.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... The vast majority of law cases in our nation are filed, heard, and determined in the courts of the various states. (1) Yet the attention paid to the role of state courts in our society--and threats to that role-often has lagged behind that...

Threats to the rule of law: state courts, public expectations & political attitudes.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... "The law makes a promise: neutrality. (1) If the promise gets broken, the law as we know it ceases to exist." These are the words of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. (2) They remind us of the potential vulnerability of our system of...

State courts & judicial outreach.(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... State-court judges are no strangers to community outreach. (1) Because most come from and remain an integral part of the communities in which they sit, state-court judges have long played an active role in interacting with those whom they...

Serving America's best interests.(federal court judges)(Viewpoint essay)
September 22, 2008... A poll was conducted in 2001 that asked people whether they believed that judges decide cases impartially and according to law or whether they believe that judges do whatever they wish as soon as they put on a judicial robe. (1) When that poll...