Free Republic

THE Supreme Court, having decided only four cases since the term began in October, has not exactly been living in the fast lane. But the pace is about to pick up. The coming months will be a testing time for the young Roberts court, including decisions due by early summer on abortion, school integration and environmental policy, with an unusually large emphasis on cases of significance to the business community.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has spoken often of the virtues of a court that speaks modestly and unanimously. Those goals may well prove elusive. The court’s conservative bloc reached...

The chief justice of the California Supreme Court said the state's death penalty has become "dysfunctional" and blamed lawmakers for looking the other way as 650 condemned inmates idle on death row. Ronald George said in an interview with The Associated Press that the Legislature's inability to adequately fund capital punishment has led to a de facto moratorium on executions in California. "I think that there are many, many things in the eyes of legislators that have greater priority," said George, who marks his 10th anniversary as chief justice on Monday. "That's the problem. People want to have the death...

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts delivered a warm homage Wednesday to Ronald Reagan, describing the former president he worked for in the 1980s as an influence on his life as well as history. "He was a great communicator because he communicated great ideas," Roberts told a standing-room only audience at the Reagan Presidential Library. In a 30-minute speech laced with personal anecdotes from his days as a White House lawyer, Roberts credited Reagan for his vision, his optimism, his determination and his human touch. He quoted from a letter he wrote to Reagan two decades ago, as he was...

Twenty-seventh President of the United States and its tenth Chief Justice, William Howard Taft was the only man in the history of the country to become the head of both the Executive and Judicial Departments of the Federal Government. Elected to the Presidency to succeed Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 by a tremendous majority, both popular and electoral, he met overwhelming defeat four years later in the political catastrophe which wrecked temporarily the Republican Party, ruptured his long friendship with Roosevelt, who had brought about his first nomination for the Presidency, and resulted in the election of Woodrow Wilson. The worst...

<p>WASHINGTON -- The institutional vanity and intellectual slovenliness of America's campus-based intelligentsia have made academia more peripheral to civic life than at any time since the 19th century. On Monday, its place at the periphery was underscored as the Supreme Court unanimously gave short shrift to some law professors who insisted that their First Amendment rights to free speech and association were violated by the law requiring that military recruiters be allowed to speak to the professors' students if the professors' schools receive federal money.</p>

Ann Coulter...was definitely Friday’s biggest draw at CPAC 2006. From the get-go the conservative columnist had the crowd cheering and was frequently interrupted by applause. Many of Coulter’s talking points came from recent news events -- such as “the great Danish cartoon caper” and President Bush’s Supreme Court nominees. “Muslims are the only group who kill because people call them violent,” she said of Islam’s rage over the printing of Muhammad cartoons. Speaking about the nation's highest court, Coulter not only expressed elation at Justice Samuel Alito’s confirmation, she also shared her feelings on Chief Justice John Roberts ... She...

So, Mr. Chief Justice, will it be us or them? Given his first case, we'll know soon enough if new Chief Justice John Roberts is with us or them. It's a control case, a who's-in-charge case. Us or them. The people of Oregon -- me and you, 'cept they live there and we live here -- have twice affirmed through referenda that if a mentally-with-it dying person wants to skip the last part, it's OK for the doctor to prescribe and the pharmacist to fill a fatal prescription. The Oregon Legislature, being the servant of the people that it is,...

Ever since President George W. Bush nominated John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court, legal analysts have said that the 50-year-old jurist is an exceptional lawyer, and clearly he is. Only the most skilled of attorneys could so deftly say so little in such a great expanse of time. But don't fault Roberts for the evasions in his confirmation hearings. He's merely playing by the established rules of America's dysfunctional, overly politicized judicial confirmation process. It's a process for which Roe v. Wade bears much of the blame. On the question of that 1973 Supreme Court ruling, which came up...

<p>NEW YORK -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday that he had not expected President Bush to nominate him to replace the late William Rehnquist as chief justice. "I'm not even sure I wanted it, to tell you the truth," Scalia told reporters at a media briefing before a gala dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan Bush, who had in the past mentioned Scalia as one role model for an ideal chief justice, passed on Scalia and nominated John Roberts after Rehnquist's death. Scalia said the time he would have had to devote to administering the court as chief justice would have taken away from his thinking and writing.</p>

The President spent part of the weekend at Camp David but was back in Washington on Sunday morning to attend the 52nd Annual Red Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral. The Red Mass, a historical tradition within the Catholic Church, is held on the Sunday before the opening session of the Supreme Court. Today at just after 8.00am in the Oval Office the President President Nominated Harriet Miers as Supreme Court Justice Later the President met with Dr. Lawrence Gonzi, Prime Minister of Malta in the Oval Office John Roberts investiture as the 17th Chief Justice of the United States took...

Today, with the president who appointed him in attendance, the 17th chief justice of the United States will robe and take his high seat as the first among nine equals. John G. Roberts Jr. is expected to preserve the whimsical stripes on his robe introduced by his mentor, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He will honor traditions new and old. But yesterday, he and President Bush, along with other justices, judges and dignitaries, participated in a tradition older still.

Today The Senete Confirmed The President's pick for Chief Justice of the United States Judge John Roberts. The Senate voted 78-22 to confirm Roberts. Later in the day he was sworn in by Justice Stevens in the East Room of the White House. John Roberts watched the vote with the President and had luncheon with the President at the White House prior to the swearing in ceromonies. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld attended a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill Yesterday Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke at a dinner of the Global Business Coalition on HIV-AIDS in...

Live from the White House at 3:00 P.M. EDT!

Final count 78 - Yeas, 22 - Nays http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9503382/

WASHINGTON - John Glover Roberts Jr. won confirmation as the 17th chief justice of the United States Thursday, overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate to lead the Supreme Court through turbulent social issues for generations to come. The Senate voted 78-22 to confirm Roberts — a 50-year-old U.S. Appeals judge from the Washington suburb of Chevy Chase, Md. — as the successor to the late William H. Rehnquist, who died earlier this month. All of the Senate's majority Republicans, and about half of the Democrats, voted for Roberts. Underscoring the rarity of a chief justice's confirmation, senators answered the roll by...

Based on news releases from the websites of U.S. Senators and official statements in the press (found via news.google.com), Judge John Roberts will be confirmed as the next Chief Justice of the United States with the affirming vote of -- at minimum -- 55 U.S. Senators. No, these aren't the 55 GOP Senators, although no Republicans are on record in opposition to Roberts' nomination. The tally includes 43 Republicans who are on record with their intention to vote yes, and 12 Democrats who have broken ranks with party leadership to put their support behind Judge Roberts. Those Democrats who have...

A mock Supreme Court argument in a gay-rights case reminds us that liberals sometimes agree with the next chief justice WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- You won't see John Roberts among the head shots of Supreme Court justices posted at the William & Mary Law School, site of the 2005-06 Supreme Court Preview. Instead of Roberts' face in the space reserved for the chief justice there is a question mark, a reflection of Roberts-like caution on the part of the organizers of this annual conference on the new court term. After all, Roberts hasn't been confirmed yet. But if Roberts is missing...

From Wikipedia: John Marshall (September 24, 1755 – July 6, 1835), Chief Justice of the United States and principal founder of American constitutional law and the Supreme Court of the United States' power of judicial review.Legacy Marshall wrote several important Supreme Court opinions, including: Marbury v. Madison (1803) Fletcher v. Peck (1816) McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) Cohens v. Virginia (1821) Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) Worcester v. Georgia (1832)