Scott Lemieux

Shaila Dewan‘s article about the persistence of jury discrimination in the Deep South is essential, chilling reading. Racial discrimination in jury selection is an excellent case study in precedents — it is not so much whether they are upheld, as how they’re applied. Federal and state courts have generally failed to take seriously formal requirements […]

A bare majority of the Supreme Court today, going along with a trend of interpreting ambiguities in the Miranda rule in favor of the state, created a rule requiring a suspect to explicitly assert their right to remain silent, as opposed to requiring the state to obtain a clear waiver of a suspect’s rights before […]

The New Republic‘s strong endorsement of Elena Kagan is a rather odd piece of work. To borrow an analogy from Bill James, the general thrust of the argument is sort of like the Chicago Bulls scrub who combined his “contribution” with Michael Jordan‘s 54 points and noted that North Carolina alumni had combined for 55. […]

Deciding an appalling case in which a 17-year-old was given life without parole, the Supreme Court held today that life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders violate the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. And while I had feared a “minimalist” opinion that would create a balancing test that state courts would always resolve in favor of the […]

This is something that most TAPPED readers are intuitively aware of, but I strongly recommend looking at the data contained in this Times piece about the Court’s trajectory. There’s an observable asymmetry on the Court, which contains four of the most consistently reactionary justices since World War II and has no liberal comparable to Willam […]

I completely agree with Silvana that Kagan‘s credentials as a consensus-builder don’t in themselves undermine her liberal credentials. On the other hand, as I implied yesterday, I don’t think that one should be under any illusions that Kagan actually will be able to build consensus on the Supreme Court as she did in her admirable […]

One important component of the liberal case for Elena Kagan seems to be that she could exert a strong influence on the Court’s median vote, Anthony Kennedy. Here’s Jeffrey Rosen: Obama has signaled that he wants a justice who can win Justice Anthony Kennedy to the liberal side of the Court in 5-4 votes. Given […]

So, Elena Kagan is now our nominee for the Supreme Court. I will go into more detail about this later, but there shouldn’t be any sugarcoating — it’s a poor choice. One way of seeing this is to examine Marty Peretz‘s attempted defense. Boil off the usual ad hominems and you’re left with no actual […]

A couple of items about the Supreme Court nomination that seems likely to be made next week: Earlier this week, President Obama interviewed the thinking progressive’s choice, Diane Wood. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed. As I’ve said before, two of the four nominees Obama and Biden have apparently interviewed — Elana Kagan and Merrick […]