Liberal law professors used to love the US Supreme Court. For half a century, they applauded activist decisions, proposed new theories of “noninterpretive” jurisprudence, and blew kisses to the Justices most responsible for steering the Court to the left—e.g., Earl Warren, William Brennan, William O. Douglas, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In books such as Gideon’s Trumpet (1964), the Warren Court’s novel decisions extending unprecedented procedural rights to criminal defendants were hailed as exemplars of wisdom and enlightenment. In a prior era, the job of “Supreme Court correspondent” for newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post consisted...
