Who's your favorite Supreme Court Justice?

[Che]

Who's your favorite Supreme Court Justice in US history?
Anyone from the list of Justices of the Supreme Court dead or alive.

[cheapseats]

Limited to one? I am partial to ALL the dead ones.

[Jeremy]

Why Supreme Court Justice Andrew Napolitano of course!

[fisharmor]

Living: Thomas. Dead: haven't researched it enough.

[Che]

Why Supreme Court Justice Andrew Napolitano of course!

he's a New Jersey Superior Court Judge, not Supreme.

[Chester Copperpot]

Clarence Thomas

[erowe1]

Of current SCOTUS justices, hands down, Clarence Thomas.

[Bucjason]

Antonin Scalia of course !!

YouTube - Activist vs Originalist - Part II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRKgOjNPxIM)

[Original_Intent]

Current: Thomas - any other choice would be racist! ;)
Wasn't Learned Hand a Supreme Court Justice? I have liked every quote I have seen attributed to him, so he is my choice. a quick google shows me he was not a SCJ, but I am sticking with him - so sue me.

[erowe1]

Antonin Scalia of course !!



Scalia would be better if he applied his originalism to the 10th amendment, like Clarence Thomas does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich#Dissenting_opinions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyeth_v._Levine#Concurrence_only_in_Judgment

[mport1]

Limited to one? I am partial to ALL the dead ones.

+1 They all have arbitrary, illegitamate rule over our lives. Pretty sick that they think they should have this kind of rule over sovereign individuals.

[erowe1]

+1 They all have arbitrary, illegitamate rule over our lives. Pretty sick that they think they should have this kind of rule over sovereign individuals.

You sound like someone who thinks that when you have a dispute with one arm of the federal government, you shouldn't have to go to another arm of the federal government to adjudicate it.

[rpfan2008]

It's only in RPFs you get to see a thread like this. :)

[Jeremy]

he's a New Jersey Superior Court Judge, not Supreme.

Silence

[Bucjason]

Scalia would be better if he applied his originalism to the 10th amendment, like Clarence Thomas does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich#Dissenting_opinions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyeth_v._Levine#Concurrence_only_in_Judgment

He usually does side with states rights:

"Scalia interprets the Constitution literally and is a strong states’ rights advocate. Favors limited role for courts in the three-branch system of government."

Source: Reuters article in Boston Globe, p. A45 Dec 1, 2000



"On the limited role of government, Scalia led a sharply divided court in striking down key provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, arguing on the basis of states’ rights in Printz v. United States (1997) that the federal government could not require state and local law-enforcement agencies to perform background checks on prospective gun owners. "

"Shocker! Scalia Sides With the Court Liberals, Says States Can Enforce Own Banking Laws" http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/shocker-scalia-sides-court-liberals-s


I don't understand all the legal jargon, but I'm sure there's a good reason he didn't on the few examples you can actually find.

[Mitt Romneys sideburns]

I like Scalia. The man is completely confident that he is the most brilliant man to have ever sat upon the bench. I love it. And the way he calls out the other justices. Im half expecting him to write a dissenting opinion that reads, "Nope, your fucking wrong! Kennedy, you inconsistent prick."

[erowe1]

He usually does side with states rights:

"Scalia interprets the Constitution literally and is a strong states’ rights advocate. Favors limited role for courts in the three-branch system of government."

Source: Reuters article in Boston Globe, p. A45 Dec 1, 2000



"On the limited role of government, Scalia led a sharply divided court in striking down key provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, arguing on the basis of states’ rights in Printz v. United States (1997) that the federal government could not require state and local law-enforcement agencies to perform background checks on prospective gun owners. "

"Shocker! Scalia Sides With the Court Liberals, Says States Can Enforce Own Banking Laws" http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/shocker-scalia-sides-court-liberals-s


I don't understand all the legal jargon, but I'm sure there's a good reason he didn't on the few examples you can actually find.

I don't doubt that he has all kinds of ways to use legal jargon to defend his rulings in those cases, but resorting to legal jargon is not the strategy of someone who simply submits the Constitution, it's the strategy of someone looking for loopholes on how not to. In those rulings Thomas stood alone in the court and simply held to the original intent of the Constitution and Scalia did not. I think it may not be irrelevant that in those rulings Scalia sided with the so-called conservative pro-business position, rather than a pro-freedom position like Thomas.

[mport1]

You sound like someone who thinks that when you have a dispute with one arm of the federal government, you shouldn't have to go to another arm of the federal government to adjudicate it.

Correct. The branches of the government are still all part of the government and thus the courts are extremely biased in favor of the state. I'd like to abolish the state and instead of competition in the judicial system.

[Bucjason]

I don't doubt that he has all kinds of ways to use legal jargon to defend his rulings in those cases, but resorting to legal jargon is not the strategy of someone who simply submits the Constitution, it's the strategy of someone looking for loopholes on how not to. In those rulings Thomas stood alone in the court and simply held to the original intent of the Constitution and Scalia did not. I think it may not be irrelevant that in those rulings Scalia sided with the so-called conservative pro-business position, rather than a pro-freedom position like Thomas.


Totally not true , the last link I cited Scalia sided with all the Liberal justices.
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/shocker-scalia-sides-court-liberals-s
Your Holier Than Thou Thomas actually sided with Bush and the Feds in this one.

[American Idol]

Clarence.

[surf]

current: easy pick here - Richard Sanders, Wa State Supreme Court Justice (regarded by many as the highest elected "libertarian" official in this county)

he's a stud

[Kludge]

Current: Thomas - any other choice would be racist! ;)

Heh, in some circles, Thomas is seriously considered an Uncle Tom race traitor, so it may be the most "racist" choice you could pick.

[erowe1]

Totally not true , the last link I cited Scalia sided with all the Liberal justices.
http://thirdbranch.crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/shocker-scalia-sides-court-liberals-s
Your Holier Than Thou Thomas actually sided with Bush and the Feds in this one.

Looking over that one, I have to admit, I do side with Scalia over Thomas. Thomas and the other conservatives should have known that the very institution of a federal bank is unconstitutional in and of itself, so of course no such bank could be above state laws.

[better-dead-than-fed]

Hugo Black (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Black)


Tyrannical governments had immemorially utilized dictatorial criminal procedure and punishment to make scapegoats of the weak, or of helpless political, religious, or racial minorities and those who differed, who would not conform and who resisted tyranny. The instruments of such governments were, in the main, two. Conduct, innocent when engaged in, was subsequently made by fiat criminally punishable without legislation. And a liberty loving people won the principle that criminal punishments could not be inflicted save for that which proper legislative action had already by "the law of the land" forbidden when done. But even more was needed. From the popular hatred and abhorrence of illegal confinement, torture and extortion of confessions of violations of the "law of the land" evolved the fundamental idea that no man's life, liberty or property be forfeited as criminal punishment for violation of that law until there had been a charge fairly made and fairly tried in a public 237*237 tribunal free of prejudice, passion, excitement, and tyrannical power. Thus, as assurance against ancient evils, our country, in order to preserve "the blessings of liberty," wrote into its basic law the requirement, among others, that the forfeiture of the lives, liberties or property of people accused of crime can only follow if procedural safeguards of due process have been obeyed.

The determination to preserve an accused's right to procedural due process sprang in large part from knowledge of the historical truth that the rights and liberties of people accused of crime could not be safely entrusted to secret inquisitorial processes. The testimony of centuries, in governments of varying kinds over populations of different races and beliefs, stood as proof that physical and mental torture and coercion had brought about the tragically unjust sacrifices of some who were the noblest and most useful of their generations. The rack, the thumbscrew, the wheel, solitary confinement, protracted questioning and cross questioning, and other ingenious forms of entrapment of the helpless or unpopular had left their wake of mutilated bodies and shattered minds along the way to the cross, the guillotine, the stake and 238*238 the hangman's noose. And they who have suffered most from secret and dictatorial proceedings have almost always been the poor, the ignorant, the numerically weak, the friendless, and the powerless.

(from Chambers v. Florida, 309 US 227 - Supreme Court 1940 (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6204291173885326093&q=Chambers+v.+Florida&hl=en&as_sdt=2,3))

Also an extreme defender of the First Amendment, across numerous cases.

He wrote a lot of careful dissenting opinions, which often would be cited by the majority in later cases.

[GeorgiaAvenger]

Thomas on the current court. I like Scalia on most things, but he goes off more often than Thomas, who never speaks.

[osan]

Antonin Scalia of course !!

YouTube - Activist vs Originalist - Part II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRKgOjNPxIM)

Scalia is a dickhead, so sorry. He has made a few reasonable opinions/decisions and some that can qualify him as nothing better than scurrilous - almost ALWAYS leaving the door open for the tyrant with loopholes. That is shit, so he can go suck an egg.

[Brett85]

Clarence Thomas.

[CaptainAmerica]

William Howard Taft

[cindy25]

Roger Taney

had he not died the SC would have ruled both the Lincoln draft,and the Lincoln income tax unconstitutional

the decisions were supposedly already written when he died

[heavenlyboy34]

The question should be irrelevant because SCOTUS cases were originally supposed to be heard before a jury. Too bad that Constitution thing didn't work out. ;)