December 7, 2006
FIRST, DO NO HARM:
Case of the Dwindling Docket Mystifies the Supreme Court (LINDA GREENHOUSE, 12/07/06, NY Times)
Last year, during his Senate confirmation hearing, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said he thought the court had room on its docket and that it “could contribute more to the clarity and uniformity of the law by taking more cases.â€But that has not happened. The court has taken about 40 percent fewer cases so far this term than last. It now faces noticeable gaps in its calendar for late winter and early spring. The December shortfall is the result of a pipeline empty of cases granted last term and carried over to this one.
The number of cases the court decided with signed opinions last term, 69, was the lowest since 1953 and fewer than half the number the court was deciding as recently as the mid-1980s. And aside from the school integration and global warming cases the court heard last week, along with the terrorism-related cases it has decided in the last few years, relatively few of the cases it is deciding speak to the core of the country’s concerns.
The reasons for the decline all grow out of forces building for decades. The federal government has been losing fewer cases in the lower courts and so has less reason to appeal. As Congress enacts fewer laws, the justices have fewer statutes to interpret.
Until one of the liberals retires the remaining precedents from the Warren/Burger years that need to be undone can't be. In the meantime, the less they do the better. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 7, 2006 9:03 AM
This is also evidence of the stupid right not using the same avenues as the left.
Now that we have some clout (a balanced instead of liberal Court) the left probably sees less value in pushing some cases up stream.
We conservatives should be throwing piles of cases into the pipeline, with ginned up "test" cases (like Roe v. Wade) and every other variety of 1st Amendment cases, KELO overturning test cases, and 14th Amendmemt "equal protection" that expose the obvious flaws in the silly leftist constructs that have been built up over the years.
Alas, we fund think tanks, but not "Act Tanks."
Posted by: Bruno at December 7, 2006 9:16 AMWe won the cases and changed the legislation. You're speaking of the Right's inability to accept having won.
Posted by: oj at December 7, 2006 9:23 AMWe didn't win on Kelo or CFR.
Posted by: Sandy P at December 7, 2006 10:15 AMConservatives won Kelo. The Court followed the written Constitution. No one's violated CFR yet. When they do the Court will toss it.
Posted by: oj at December 7, 2006 10:47 AMIn Arlington Heights IL, a city is "condemning" a perfectly good (and rented) mall in the hopes of turning it over to a SuperTarget.
The idea that this type of condemnation is in line with the Const. (or with any "conservative intent" or "Founder's Intent) is absurd.
Further, this is going on everywhere to some degree or another.
It is the blatant abuse of Gov. power and morally corrupt, if not legally corrupt on its face.
There have been few issues upon which a go against all other "morally based" issues upon which you post.
Posted by: bruno at December 7, 2006 1:47 PMThe Constitution specifically allows for such actions. The routinized is never exceptional.
Posted by: oj at December 7, 2006 2:04 PM"The federal government has been losing fewer cases in the lower courts and so has less reason to appeal." Isn't this stupid or what? Does this mean the courts are doing the Fed.'s bidding? Hasn't the Court decided for Anna Nicole Smith, when did the Fed get involve in that? The Kelo's case was not a Fed case. Anyone who lost in the lower courts may appeal, the federal govt. is not the only party who may do so. NYT can say that since there were less death penalty cases, there were less auto appeals to the Supreme. In other words, NYT is stupid. I wonder why anybody still read it.
Posted by: ic at December 7, 2006 4:27 PMYes, a more conservative judiciary consistently defers to the federal government.
Posted by: oj at December 7, 2006 4:34 PM