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In a thinly veiled dig at George Bush, Vladimir Putin today suggested that the US President was not in charge of American affairs, saying that it was “the court that makes the king”. Amid heightened tensions with the US in the wake of the war in Georgia, the Russian Prime Minister insisted that the US leader was a man of honour and integrity, but blamed members of the administration for the sharp deterioration of relations with Russia. ”I still hope we will maintain good relations, but it is the court that makes the king,” he told a group of foreign...

Liberals, who hate guns almost as much as they hate cars, got a well-deserved lesson in Second Amendment rights when the Supreme Court spit in their face by ruling that the Constitution really does guarantee the right of Americans to own guns. The ruling, which struck down the District of Columbia’s laws almost totally restricting handgun ownership, affirmed the traditional view that the Second Amendment means exactly what it says when it guarantees “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

As the world has just learned, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 yesterday that “for the first time in our Nation’s history, the Court confers a constitutional right to habeas corpus on alien enemies detained abroad by our military forces in the course of an ongoing war.” So summed up Justice Scalia in a stinging dissent in which he was joined by justices Roberts, Thomas, and Alito. Justices Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, made up the majority Breyer.

The Supreme Court is meeting to issue opinions and announce whether it has accepted any new cases. Major cases still undecided include the rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., and whether people convicted of raping children can be given the death penalty. The court's term ends in late June.

As the primary season nears a merciful end, the Clinton-Obama conflict is giving way to Obama-Clinton conjecture. Many in the Democratic Party support a so-called dream ticket of both, with Barack Obama at the top. They believe Hillary Clinton has earned the No. 2 spot through her feisty, never-say-die campaign, and they worry that her supporters will stay home in November if she isn't part of the ticket. Opponents counter that in terms of the electoral vote, Clinton might not help carry any states that wouldn't already go for Obama. Moreover, the possibility of both Clintons ganging up on a...

WASHINGTON — John McCain and Barack Obama, the two leading presidential candidates, have set out sharply contrasting views on the role of the Supreme Court and the kind of justices they would appoint. Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.), in a speech two weeks ago, echoed the views of conservatives who say "judicial activism" is the central problem facing the judiciary. He called it the "common and systematic abuse . . . by an elite group . . . we entrust with judicial power." On Thursday, he criticized the California Supreme Court for giving gays and lesbians the right to marry, saying he...

The poll is in the middle of the left hand column in the story that it was a tough decision for Ron George.

The fate of the District's 32-year-old ban on handguns — along with the potential validity of other firearm laws across the country — now rests in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court after justices this morning questioned the constitutionality of the city's stringent gun statutes. "The court asked a lot of very insightful and interesting questions," said Alan Gura, a lawyer who argued before the nine justices in favor of upholding a lower-court decision that overturned the ban. "We feel very good about how the argument went and look forward to this case being resolved." The case — District...

The future of the death penalty will be in the hands of the Supreme Court tomorrow when the justices hear arguments in a closely watched case that tests the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection. The case, brought by two death-row inmates in Kentucky who are challenging the three-drug cocktail used to kill prisoners, already has led Texas — the nation's leader in executions — and other states to halt executions until the high court decides the Kentucky case. When Oklahoma first authorized lethal injection in 1977 — a year after the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment was constitutional...

Abstract: "The Irony of Populism: The Republican Shift and the Inevitability of American Aristocracy" analyzes the shift in the role of the Supreme Court following the movement towards a democratic Senate which culminated in the Seventeenth Amendment. The Supreme Court's shift is presented as the inevitable result of the system of mixed government that underlies the constitutional order, which orders American Government into democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical parts. While in the original conception of the constitution the Senate was the aristocratic part, the Senate would become part of the democratic part with the Seventeenth Amendment and prior procedural changes. Into...

WITH THE RELEASE of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' memoir, "My Grandfather's Son," all of the old smears directed against him since his confirmation hearings 16 years ago are once again being trotted out. That he's "incompetent." That he's "not qualified." That the only reason he was appointed is because he's black. In other words, that he's a product of affirmative action or, more precisely, an "affirmative action hire." Last week, for instance, liberal Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote: "I believe in affirmative action, but I have to acknowledge there are arguments against it. One of the more cogent...

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, reversing course, agreed Friday to review whether Guantanamo Bay detainees may go to federal court to challenge their indefinite confinement. The action, announced without comment along with other end-of-term orders, is a setback for the Bush administration. It had argued that a new law strips courts of their jurisdiction to hear detainee cases. In April, the court turned down an identical request, although several justices indicated they could be persuaded otherwise. The move is highly unusual. The court did not indicate what changed the justices' minds about considering the issue. But last week, lawyers for...

WASHINGTON -- Nearly seven months have passed since the Supreme Court heard arguments about public school integration plans. A decision, it seems, is finally at hand. Whether school districts can use race as a factor in assigning students to schools is the biggest unresolved issue among the eight remaining cases. But as the court enters what is expected to be the final week of its term, several other important topics loom. They include disputes over limits on speech, separation of church and state and executing the mentally ill. The court's final days are being watched perhaps even more closely than...

Wilkie v Frank Robbins Case: Right to exclude arguedWyoming Rancher refuses to grant BLM a right-of-way across his private land by Cat Urbigkit, Pinedale Online! February 28, 2007 In late January 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court has received its first briefs in federal appeal filed by Bureau of Land Management officials after an appeals court sided with Worland-area rancher Frank Robbins case. It’s been just over a year since the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that BLM employees cannot retaliate against a ranch owner for refusing to grant the BLM a right-of-way across his private land. The court’s ruling...

Justice Antonin Scalia on Sunday defended some of his Supreme Court opinions, arguing that nothing in the Constitution supports abortion rights and the use of race in school admissions. Scalia, a leading conservative voice on the high court, sparred in a one-hour televised debate with American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen. He said unelected judges have no place deciding politically charged questions when the Constitution is silent on those issues. Arguing that liberal judges in the past improperly established new political rights such as abortion, Scalia warned, "Someday, you're going to get a very conservative Supreme Court and regret...

Since the 1970s, a coalition of international human rights types and romantic supporters of Third World insurgencies has argued that guerillas ought to be covered by the Geneva Conventions even if they themselves are not bound by it. But every US administration since Jimmy Carter's has rejected this point of view. If I read Hamdan aright, the US Supreme Court has just accepted it, or sort of accepted it.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Supreme Court has tipped the balance in patent disputes ever so slightly toward the users of patented technology and away from inventors, owners of intellectual property and the hated "patent trolls"--companies that make money by suing for infringement of patents they own but don't use. In a victory for eBay (nasdaq: EBAY - news - people), the justices ruled unanimously that federal courts must weigh several factors before barring a patent infringer from using a contested technology or business method.The online auction house had petitioned the Supreme Court to review the practice of automatically issuing...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor used a speech at Georgetown University to attack pro-life lawmakers who sided with Terri Schiavo's parents in their efforts to prevent their daughter's euthanasia death. She claimed a Congressional effort to have federal courts review the case was a first step towards a dictatorship. O'Connor, who backs abortion, announced her retirement last year and was recently replaced by federal appeals court judge Samuel Alito, who pro-life advocates hope will be more open to upholding laws that protect the right to life. "We must be ever-vigilant against those who would...

It ought to be a major intellectual event in constitutional law when a Justice of the Supreme Court comes forward publicly to explain his theory of judging. Explanation is needed, for by now nobody familiar with the work of the Court believes it confines its rulings to the principles of the historic Constitution. There have always been instances when the Court voted its sympathies rather than anything resembling the Constitution, but over the last half century the divergence between the document and the decisions has sharply increased. Indeed, the criticism that the Court routinely departs from the Constitution’s principles, as...

WASHINGTON -- Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito won commitments from a majority of senators Tuesday, assuring his eventual confirmation and making a rightward tilt of the court likely. On the same day Alito won a 10-8 party-line approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee, five Republicans announced that they would vote for his confirmation in the full Senate, pushing him over 50 votes in the 100-member chamber. Fifty Senate Republicans, plus one Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, have publicly committed to vote for Alito through their representatives, interviews with The Associated Press or news releases. No Republicans have opposed him and...

By ADAM LIPTAK Published: December 31, 2005 Justice Antonin Scalia's wit is widely admired, and now it has been quantified. He is, a new study concludes, 19 times as funny as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.Transcripts of oral arguments at the United States Supreme Court have long featured the notation "[laughter]" after a successful quip from a justice or lawyer. But until October 2004, justices were not identified by name, making it impossible to construct a reliable index of judicial wit. That has now changed, and Jay D. Wexler, a law professor at Boston University, was quick to exploit the new...

(Note: The following is text of Rove's speech before the Federalist Society on November 10.) For some, it is the Bavarian Illuminati. For others, the Knights Templar. And in recent years, it has been the Trilateralists … the Bilderbergers … or the NeoCons. But for Senators Kennedy, Durbin, Schumer, and Leahy, the most successful conspiracy in the history of mankind is one of the most visible and open, as shown by your willingness to put yourselves on display. Who would have thought powerful members of the World's Most Exclusive Club would be so threatened by a movement of confident, principle-driven,...

BOSTON — Case study one: a pregnant woman wants an abortion. Her husband doesn't. Should he have a say? Case study two: a woman wants to become pregnant with frozen embryos. Her ex-husband opposes the decision. Should he have a say? The answer, legally, is no in the abortion case, and in the case of frozen embryos, almost always yes. It might seem paradoxical, but it is emblematic of the way technology is changing the landscape of human reproduction. And it is the kind of paradox that could get more attention with the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr....

WASHINGTON — Samuel A. Alito has been a strong conservative jurist on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a court with a reputation for being among the nation's most liberal. Dubbed "Scalito" or "Scalia-lite," a play not only on his name but his opinions, Alito, 55, brings a hefty legal resume that belies his age. He has served on the federal appeals court for 15 years since President George H.W. Bush nominated him in 1990. Before that Alito was U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey from 1987 to 1990, where his first assistant was a lawyer...

President Bush appears poised to announce a new Supreme Court nomination today, moving quickly after a weekend of consultations to put forward a replacement for the ill-fated choice of Harriet Miers in hopes of recapturing political momentum, according to Republicans close to the White House. Judging by the names the White House floated by political allies in recent days, Bush seems ready to pick a candidate with a long track record of conservative jurisprudence -- one who would mollify the Republican base, whose opposition to Miers's nomination helped scuttle her chances. Several GOP strategists said the most likely choice seemed...

DALLAS - The Roman Catholic diocese of Dallas is setting the record straight: Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has never been a Catholic. Acquaintances of Miers have said she worshipped as a Catholic and attended Episcopalian and Presbyterian services. For some 25 years, Miers has been a congregant at Valley View Christian Church where in 1979 she was baptized by full immersion, consistent with the evangelical church's beliefs.Recently, she and about 150 of the church's 1,200 active members formed a separate congregation after a disagreement about worship styles.After news media reported that Miers, a longtime Dallas lawyer, had attended Catholic...

WASHINGTON -- It's no secret that I think the Harriet Miers nomination was a mistake. Nonetheless, when asked how she will do in the hearings, my answer is, I hope she does well. I have no desire to see her humiliated. Nor would I take any joy in seeing her rejected, though I continue to believe it would be best for the country that she not be confirmed for the Supreme Court. And while I remain as exercised as anyone by the lack of wisdom of this choice, I part company from those who see the Miers nomination as a...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--An Associated Press headline making the Internet rounds Oct. 3 screamed: "Miers backed gay civil rights." It was enough to make conservatives nationwide panic. In hindsight, though, it may have been much ado about nothing, a legal expert at Focus on the Family says. The focus of the AP story was a questionnaire Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers filled out in 1989 for the Lesbian/Gay Political Coalition of Dallas while running for Dallas City Council. The first question asked, "Do you believe that gay men and lesbians should have the same civil rights as non-gay men and women?"...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Some of President Bush's conservative supporters are unconvinced by his defense of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, creating dissension in a Republican Party that until now has reverently approved Bush's judicial candidates. Conservatives in some cases are expressing outright opposition, some are in wait-and-see mode and some are silent, all bad signs for a Bush administration used to having the full backing of all wings of the GOP when it takes on the Senate's minority Democrats over judicial selection. "I'm getting reports on both sides," said Paul Weyrich, a conservative leader from the Free Congress Foundation. "Some...

In handwritten notes on the last page of Harriet Miers' 1989 "gay rights" candidate questionnaire, one of the homosexual activists who interviewed the candidate ascribes to Miers' opening statement the following comment: "My personal conviction is not consistent with (the) homosexual lifestyle...(or)...to decriminalize (homosexual) behavior."

What Julie Myers is to the Department of Homeland Security, Harriet Miers is to the Supreme Court. (Video of the announcement here via NYT).) It's not just that Miers has zero judicial experience. It's that she's so transparently a crony/"diversity" pick while so many other vastly more qualified and impressive candidates went to waste. If this is President Bush's bright idea to buck up his sagging popularity--among conservatives as well as the nation at large--one wonders whom he would have picked in rosier times. Shudder. Reax around the right side of the blogosphere is mostly negative--and brutally so... John Hinderaker...

WASHINGTON - Among a host of qualities that White House counsel Harriet Ellan Miers shares with new Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is the apparent lack of any personal legal agenda. Known for an exacting, no-nonsense style, Miers — like Roberts — tends to avoid the limelight. Once described by White House chief of staff Andrew Card as “one of the favorite people in the White House,” Miers has been there for President Bush at every turn for more than a decade. She was Bush’s personal lawyer in Texas, took on the thankless job of cleaning up the Texas...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court to tackle gasoline taxes and worker pay cases on the opening day of its 2005-06 term, but members will first witness John Roberts become the nation's 17th chief justice. President Bush was among those invited to the investiture ceremony, his presence a reminder that he stands to broadly shape the court, not only with his selection of Roberts but a second announcement expected soon on a successor for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. A third vacancy on the aging court was possible before Bush's term ends in 2007. Following tradition, Roberts was to don his...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The upcoming nomination of a new US Supreme Court justice to fill a vacancy created by retiring Sandra Day O'Connor could alter a delicate political balance inside the court that plays a key role in US society. O'Connor, one of nine Supreme Court justices who is considered a moderate, announced her retirement in early July. Then, in early September, ultra-conservative US chief justice William Rehnquist died. Rehnquist was formally replaced on Thursday by former federal judge John Roberts, a dapper conservative who largely shares the views of the late chief justice. The change, however, should not alter...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 - The Supreme Court will open its 2005-2006 term on Monday with a new chief justice and amid speculation that President Bush is close to choosing someone to fill a second vacancy on the tribunal. Mr. Bush plans to go to the court on Monday for the ceremony installing of John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice of the United States. Today, the president and the chief justice attended a religious service honoring the legal profession, and Mr. Bush declined afterward to comment on his second Supreme Court nomination, to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But...

Dianne Feinstein's thoughts on the nomination of John Roberts as chief justice of the United States should be read with a soulful violin solo playing, or perhaps accompanied by the theme song of "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Those thoughts are about pinning one's heart on one's sleeve, sharing one's feelings and letting one's inner Oprah come out for a stroll. Feinstein, like many Democrats, has interesting ideas about what Supreme Court justices do, or should do. In her statement explaining to fellow members of the Judiciary Committee why she opposes confirmation of Roberts, she began with a cascade of encomiums,...

WASHINGTON -- John Roberts, hailed by supporters as "the brightest of the bright," cruised Monday toward easy confirmation as chief justice while President Bush hinted that his next pick to the Supreme Court could be a minority or a woman. "Diversity is one of the strengths of the country," the president said. Roberts, a 50-year-old federal appellate judge and the president's first pick for the Supreme Court, is assured of getting an overwhelming confirmation vote by the Senate later this week, making him the nation's 17th chief justice. Roberts is "the brightest of the bright," declared Majority Leader Bill Frist,...

AS WE AWAIT President Bush's nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, all the talk is about precedent. Roe vs. Wade: What does a judge do when a precedent is based on shaky legal ground? The Ginsburg Precedent: How much does a nominee have to answer, and how do you draw the line? Yet the most important precedent hasn't been mentioned: the Clinton Precedent. To refresh our memories, President Clinton had a chance to make two appointments to the Supreme Court. The first came with the retirement of Justice Byron White, a conservative who cast one of the...

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved John Roberts' nomination as the next Supreme Court chief justice, virtually assuring his confirmation by the Senate next week. The official tally of 13-5 was anticlimatic, with the committee's 10 majority Republicans lined up solidly behind the conservative judge's nomination to the full Senate weeks in advance. But the decision by three Democrats to join Republican efforts to make Roberts the nation's 109th Supreme Court justice outlined the division in the minority caucus over whether Democrats can, or should, mount even symbolic opposition to Roberts to send President Bush a message on his...

IT WILL BE A DAMNING INDICTMENT of petty partisanship in Washington if an overwhelming majority of the Senate does not vote to confirm John G. Roberts Jr. to be the next chief justice of the United States. As last week's confirmation hearings made clear, Roberts is an exceptionally qualified nominee, well within the mainstream of American legal thought, who deserves broad bipartisan support. If a majority of Democrats in the Senate vote against Roberts, they will reveal themselves as nothing more than self-defeating obstructionists. Most Democrats have not indicated how they will vote later this week in the Judiciary Committee,...

Specter [ 09/19 02:36 PM] just officially announced his support for Roberts.

He would have thunk it? Generally liberal legal commentator Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard professor, strongly implied Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided! I was watching the Roberts hearing on Court TV, and Dershowitz is appearing as something of a color commentator. In discussing the issues that could come before the court, Dershowitz had this to say [paraphrasing]: "There is a right to privacy when it comes to a married couple's right to use contraception, or to the right of a consenting adult to have sex with another consenting adult of the same sex. "But when it comes to abortion, there...

The author of Unfit for Command was a law clerk for the late Chief Justice and remembers him fondly.The busts of the Chief Justices of the United States stand facing each other two-by-two across the Great Hall of the Supreme Court Building. Hughes and Taft, Vinson and Warren the fifteen statues march slowly to the courtroom doors, marking silently the progression of our nation's history. There is an empty niche immediately outside the doors of the Great Courtroom. Soon that niche will be filled with a marble depiction of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist—the last World War II veteran to...

John Roberts is only 50 years old. That means, should he be confirmed, he could be issuing opinions "when my granddaughter is in her 30s . . . and she was born just a year ago," noted liberal and Harvard University law professor Larry Tribe put it recently.

WASHINGTON — While Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s views on abortion triggered intense debate on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, there is no mistaking where his wife stands: Jane Sullivan Roberts, a lawyer, is ardently against abortion. A Roman Catholic like her husband, Jane Roberts has been deeply involved in the antiabortion movement. She provides her name, money and professional advice to a small Washington organization — Feminists for Life of America — that offers counseling and educational programs. The group has filed legal briefs before the high court challenging the constitutionality of abortion. A spouse's views normally are...

Moving the Supreme Court back toward the center. Within minutes of President Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, the folks at People for the American Way sent out their all-points bulletin: "Sparse Record Raises Serious Concerns." In other words, they don't know how in the world they're going to assault this guy, but they'll try like mad to come up with something. We doubt they'll succeed. While it's always possible that opponents will simply make something up, Judge Roberts is a judicial conservative who is no easy political target. He deserves to be confirmed easily and soon,...

Critical Urgent Community Action Bulletin from the Progressive Action Network For American Progress For Immediate Release The Progressive Action Network For American Progress is extremely concerned by today's news that President Bush has selected ___JOHN ROBERTS___ as his nominee for the vacancy on the United States Supreme Court. Unlike outgoing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the widely respected and admired moderate consensus-building sensible mainstream compromisist, ___JOHN ROBERTS___ has a shocking record of extremely extreme fringe legal positions that fill us with grave concerns about ___HIS___ fitness for this critically crucial office. Make no mistake: no one should be fooled by the...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is a likable fellow and a competent lawyer. He rose from humble Mexican-American origins to join the U.S. Air Force and graduate from Harvard Law School. He has won the trust and friendship of George W. Bush. He wrote 20-some forgettable judicial opinions while on the Texas Supreme Court. And since 2001, he has sat in sphinx-like silence through many high-level meetings on the biggest legal issues facing the nation.

A broad spectrum of nationally recognized conservative leaders is sending a clear message to President Bush: Please, don’t nominate Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales to the U.S. Supreme Court. From former presidential candidate and now American Conservative Editor Pat Buchanan to Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol, the movement seems to be speaking with one voice. “If the President picked Gonzales, it would break the hearts of conservatives,” Buchanan told Human Events. “The appointment would be the deflation of the whole conservative movement, because the activists would feel that the President had surrendered to [liberal Democratic Senators Chuck] Schumer [N.Y.] and [Teddy]...

Howard Phillips, Chairman of The Conservative Caucus, will be joined by Stephen Peroutka (“Face the Truth”), Dr. Alan Keyes (The Declaration Foundation), Michael Peroutka (Founder, Institute on the Constitution), and Jim Clymer (Chairman, Constitution Party National Committee), and others at an 11:30 A.M., Wednesday, July 13 news conference in the President’s Room at the University Club (1135 16th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036), promoting the nomination of “Ten Commandments Judge” Roy Moore to be a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Phillips has been active in previous Supreme Court battles: (a) in opposition to the appointment of...