![]() ![]() Taney was atrocious coming from anyone-let alone a member of the Supreme Court. The worst decision the Supreme Court ever made was Dred Scott in 1857, upholding the obnoxious Fugitive Slave Act. The Supreme Court has had 112 justices and chief justices in its history, about 15 of them liberal to progressive. In the 2010-2011 term, the Roberts Court cut down an exemplary Arizona statute that leveled the financial playing field, rejected a suit by 1.6 million women against a woefully discriminatory Wal-Mart, shielded the makers of drugs from lawsuits by patients who had been harmed, smothered lawsuits against mutual fund cheaters and liars, and disallowed a suit by a death row inmate even though the prosecution failed to turn over exculpating evidence. Paraphrasing Merchant of Venice, a lawyer pleads before the justices: “If you prick a corporation, does it not bleed? If you tickle it, does it not laugh? If you poison it, does it not die?”) (The New Yorker had a wonderful cartoon about Citizen United. Chamber of Commerce in 13 out of 16 cases, including the infamous Citizens United decision which declared money speech and corporations people. In the 2009-2010 term, it took the side of the U.S. So it was natural the Roberts Court became a Corporate Court. Lawyers go where the money is.Ĭhief Justice John Roberts is a former corporate lawyer in Washington who made $1 million a year. The corporations have the money working people do not. They retarded progress rather than stretched the legal frontiers. The Supreme Court’s best justice, Louis Brandeis, was called the “people’s lawyer” before joining the top court in 1916 where he became the “people’s justice.”īut most justices have been retrograde. As the great socialist leader Eugene Debs pointed out, a member of the working class has never been on the federal bench let alone on the august Supreme Court. The justices were still “nine old men” even after Justice Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman on the court in 1981. Hughes knew so well: “The Constitution is what the judges say it is.” Often what the justices “say it is” has been bad. Yet such people decide the law of the land. Many court members had just one qualification: They were corporate power attorneys. President Kennedy, a so-called liberal, appointed a conservative to the court because he was his Colorado campaign manager. President Truman named three former Senate buddies who were out of their depth on the court. President Washington named 10 justices, “a thoroughly undistinguished lot,” Peter Irons writes in A People’s History of the Supreme Court. Such judges are unlikely to see things from the perspective of ordinary folks. The majority each had a net worth of $400,000. In two terms, President Reagan appointed 279 U.S. You don’t get ahead in the legal fraternity by being a radical. They tend to be conservative personally and pragmatically. They favor corporations rather than consumers and the working class. They “follow the law” of yesteryear rather than meet the problems of today. They are narrow-minded rather than broad-minded. Lawyers are legalistic rather than humanistic. No, that is not a joke from a late night TV show. The problem with the Supreme Court is that the justices are lawyers. ![]()
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