Thanks for your help.

2. Read the constitution for yourself to identify obvious mistakes. For example the 14th amendment says no state can deny any person equal protection under the law. Yet 8 judges got this wrong in Plessy v Fergusson where they said it was ok for Louisiana to force white people and colored people to ride in different train cars. So little white kids with white mothers could ride in the same train car with their mothers, but if Barry Obama and his mother had taken a train trip in Louisiana [when the law was still in effect] he would have had to ride in a different train car than his mother. So the supreme court denied Barry Obama and any other mixed race child with a white mother equal protection under the law, flagrantly violating the written constitution and establishing the awful doctrine of “separate but equal”.

There are some other cases where the errors are less obvious than in Plessy v Ferguson and some cases where reasonable interpretation could go either way, but whenever judges go the opposite way of the written constitution that is flagrant judicial activism.

1. In the second sentence, are you speaking rhetorically? I mean, the constitution isn’t literally rewritten from the bench, is it? I’m assuming that you mean that rulings from the bench twist the original intent of the constitution to achieve an outcome that is contrary to what the Framers had in mind?

2. This is regarding your first definition. Given that a unanimous SCOTUS decision on any given case is nearly unheard of, doesn’t that suggest that many laws can be interpreted differently by different individuals? And if so, how then can we tell the difference between “interpretation” and “misinterpretation”?

CAVEAT: I’m not a lawyer, so, admittedly, a lot of this legal stuff that’s second nature to Mike and Erick (and others) is a bit taxing for me. I’ve always struggled with this concept of judicial activism.

Thanks for any insight.

Did you read it?

But I’d say that Sotomeyer’s comment specifically compared the performance of two separate race/ethnicities, latino and white. While Alito’s comment does not, he is saying his first hand knowledge of discrimination is useful to him. That’s a huge difference.

“When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/06/15/valerie_jarrett_cites_double_s.html

Doesn’t this undermine the accusations against Sotomayor regarding her Alito-esque comment? If the “two wrongs don’t make a right” argument is to be invoked, have we given Alito a pass by not criticizing his words?

And then Cederbaum showed up and said she supports Sonia.

* Cederbaum and Sessions were both nominated by Ronaldus Magnus but only Cederbaum got voted for the appeals position, since Sessions was a racist.

From a political context, this MUST be the price paid by the Democrats for this particular judicial vetting.

Our Repubs need to make the definitions and context CLEAR, while they have the chance, with wiley Overton overtures wherever amd whenever possible against Sotomayor and what we all know she/they stand for in her heart.

Judge Sotomayor manages to get it wrong on individual second amendment rights, racial equality under the law, Roe is “settled law”, and probably Kelo. I’d be amazed if Obama nominated someone who thought Roe was decided wrong – however, conceivably he would pick a judge who is wrong on Roe but right on kelo, 2nd amendment rights, and racial equality. A judge who pretty much believed in following the written constitution but who felt the Roe precedent was important enough not to overturn.

Sandra Day O’Connor supported Roe, but at least she got kelo right.

My best answer to your frustration is one of my classics:

Its all been damage control since Eve bit the apple and will be until Jesus returns and

Our system is the worst except for all the others that have been tried east of Eden.

Otherwise, I’m not sure what you are asking. It has nothing to do with circuit splits. My problem is that the Supreme Court is in 99.99 percent of cases saying, “we don’t know if the lower court was right or wrong, and we don’t care.” I don’t believe that to be compatible with equal justice under the law.

see Estrada et al

But I would need to know of specific cases where there is a split in the circuits on particular issues that are having actual effects on liberty to evaluate your claim.

Regardless, it’s always been too few, and the whole certiorari process ought to be abolished and the court restructured accordingly.

I am a speed reader, so have at it.

Since the early 90′s, the Supreme Court has become a figurehead having deny certed itself out of relevance. It now grants cert mostly to cases that, in practice, impact very few people in very limited ways. I predict this trend will not only continue but also grow, especially once Obama and Congress do all the activism for the judges.

For that reason, we should be glad that SoSo will have a far more limited impact in “making policy” and worry more about who will replace her (and decide many more cases over the same time).

In any case, the Constitution is a lost cause. Almost no elected or appointed official has followed it for well over a generation, and 80+ percent of voters would not elect or support the nomination of anyone who did. Unconstitutional measures pass routinely with unanimous support from both parties.