Day 13: John Paul Stevens

[A18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Stevens

Discuss.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Freedom Fighter

[bullmoose88]

I like his political ideology; however, I feel that his opinions are styled to get the right political, rather than judicial result.

Still FF

[Nym90]

One of the best of the current Justices, though my personal number one is Breyer.

[MaC]

horrible person

[A18]

Well, in the Equal Protection field of constitutional law, Stevens has sought to replace the traditional, three-tiered test with a uniform "rational basis" standard, which in his view includes "a requirement that an impartial lawmaker could logically believe that the classification would serve a legitimate public purpose that transcends the harm to the members of that disadvantaged class." "In every equal protection cases," he continues, "we have to ask certain basic questions. What class is harmed by the legislation, and has it been subjected to a 'tradition of disfavor' by our laws? What is the public purpose that is being served by the law? What is the characteristic of the disadvantaged class that justifies the disparate treatment? In most cases the answer to these questions will tell us whether the statute has a 'rational basis.'"

Of course, this atrocious 'test' is painfully subjective. At least under the more orthodox three-tiered standard (which is itself quite subjective), "rational basis review," to which the vast majority of classifications are subject, almost always poses no threat to challenged legislation. Stevens would require that virtually any law not offend the (presumably in his view) superior wisdom of judges. Of course, whether the benefit to the public 'outweighs' the harm to the group in question depends on your personal sympathies.

Stevens has also been a vigorous supporter of the Roe-line of abortion cases, to the extreme of dissenting when the Court upheld the Hyde Amendment in Harris v. McRae. And in Bowers v. Hardwick, he advanced the almost outlandish proposition that laws based on morality alone are unconstitutional, a position the Court later adopted in Lawrence v. Texas. Needless to say, I don't expect to see this standard applied consistently, if ever again.

Stevens is, I think, easily one of the most results-based justices. He notably dissented in Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman, striking down state prohibitions on flag burning, despite his staunch civil libertarian reading of the Free Speech Clause in other areas of the law.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

A sane Republican relic.

[TomC]

Def. freedom fighter

[Dr. Cynic]

Freedom Fighter.

[Sam Spade]

Ack.