Concurring Opinion Writing on the U.S. Supreme Court


Book Description

Analysis of concurrent opinion writing by Supreme Court justices.




Opinion Writing


Book Description

This book is based on real life experiences where the possibility of the living being able to communicate with the deceased is investigated. The belief in reincarnation and life after death raises a tantalising question: Can the living communicate with the dead? Most churchmen and scientists are sceptical, but many people, including churchmen and scientists, believe such a thing is possible. The belief in the immortal soul is a dogma of Christianity (resurrection), Hinduism (reincarnation or samsara), Islam (Day of Judgement), Judaism (sheol), and the Shona (NyikaDzimu). Moreover, man has been familiar with the concept of life after death since time immemorial. Immortality has been rejected by those who feel its only basis is wishful thinking that when the body dies, the personality dies with it because it is part of the physical body. Believers can cite the resurrection of Jesus, and maintain that since life on earth is not completely fulfilled an afterlife is necessary for completion. Another argument in favour of an afterlife is that since matter and energy may be transformed but not destroyed, neither can personality, which exists just as do the elements in nature, be destroyed. In many of the ancient societies, including Egypt and Greece, dreaming was considered a supernatural communication or a means of divine intervention, whose message could be unravelled by those with certain powers. In modern times, various schools of psychology have offered theories about the meaning of dreams. In Communication with the Deceased is meant to serve only as a basis for reflection in order for the reader to examine all the clues and then derive further meaning from specific circumstances of his/her own dreams. To be able to interpret a dream, one does not need to have an academic degree in psychology. What is important is to use one's instinct and common sense. Try to develop your own personal insights into what the common symbols in your dreams mean. When it comes to dream symbols, there are no equivocally universal rules or meanings. Dreams dictionaries help by providing hints at the meaning of symbols that appear in one's dreams. This book is of value to those studying psychology and those participating







Motivations for the Use of Concurring Opinions on the U.S. Supreme Court


Book Description

Abstract: While some behavior on the United States Supreme Court is formally required, other choices are wholly up to the discretion of each individual justice. One such discretional choice is the choice to author a concurring opinion, which agrees with the outcome of a case but add to, subtract from, or emphasize a point within the legal doctrine provided by the majority opinion. Thus, choices about concurring opinions provide a valuable opportunity for examining judicial motivations. This dissertation examines justices' motives for both whether and when they circulate a concurrence to their colleagues, as well as whether they choose to publish it along with the Court's opinion. The hypotheses are derived from two types of motivations - individual and collective. Tests of these hypotheses were conducted using data from the 1970 through 1979 Court terms, collected primarily from the personal papers of Justices Harry Blackmun and William Brennan. I use a split population event history model to test hypotheses about whether and when a justice first circulates a concurring opinion. I then use a logistic regression model to test hypotheses about whether a justice chooses to withdraw a written concurrence; this analysis is, of course, dependent upon the justice already having written a concurring opinion. In both sets of analyses I find that Supreme Court justices are motivated not only by their individual preferences about legal policy, but also by individual non-policy preferences, such as workload, and collective preferences about the institutional status of the Court, such as maintaining the Court's legitimacy.







Understanding Supreme Court Opinions


Book Description

In a supplemental textbook for an undergraduate course in constitutional law, Van Geel (political science, U.of Rochester) introduces the legal reasoning and the modes of persuasion and justification used by US Supreme Court justices and others engaged in constitutional adjudication. He expects it t




Understanding Supreme Court Opinions


Book Description

This book provides an introduction to the legal reasoning and the modes of persuasion and justification used by Supreme Court justices in the United States, as well as others engaged in constitutional adjudication. It is designed to be used as a supplement to a constitutional law casebook.




Judicial Rhapsodies


Book Description

All judges legitimize their decisions in writing, but US Supreme Court justices depend on public acceptance to a unique degree. Previous studies of judicial opinions have explored rhetorical strategies that produce legitimacy, but none have examined the laudatory, even operatic, forms of writing Supreme Court justices have used to justify fundamental rights decisions. Doug Coulson demonstrates that such “judicial rhapsodies” are not an aberration but a central feature of judicial discourse. First examining the classical origins of divisions between law and rhetoric, Coulson tracks what he calls an epideictic register—highly affective forms of expression that utilize hyperbole, amplification, and vocabularies of praise—through a surprising number of landmark Supreme Court opinions. Judicial Rhapsodies recovers and revalues these instances as significant to establishing and maintaining shared perspectives that form the basis for common experience and cooperation. “Judicial Rhapsodies is both compelling and important. Coulson brings his well-developed knowledge of rhetoric to bear on one of the most central (and most democratically fraught) means of governance in the United States: the Supreme Court opinion. He demonstrates that the epideictic, far from being a dispensable or detestable element of judicial rhetoric, is an essential feature of how the Court operates and seeks to persuade.” —Keith Bybee, Syracuse University




Scalia Dissents


Book Description

Brilliant. Colorful. Visionary. Tenacious. Witty. Since his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1986, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia has been described as all of these things and for good reason. He is perhaps the best-known justice on the Supreme Court today and certainly the most controversial. Yet most Americans have probably not read even one of his several hundred Supreme Court opinions. In Scalia Dissents, Kevin Ring, former counsel to the U.S. Senate's Constitution Subcommittee, lets Justice Scalia speak for himself. This volume—the first of its kind— showcases the quotable justice's take on many of today's most contentious constitutional debates. Scalia Dissentscontains over a dozen of the justice's most compelling and controversial opinions. Ring also provides helpful background on the opinions and a primer on Justice Scalia's judicial philosophy. Scalia Dissents is the perfect book for readers who love scintillating prose and penetrating insight on the most important constitutional issues of our time.




Dissent and the Supreme Court


Book Description

“Highly illuminating ... for anyone interested in the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the American democracy, lawyer and layperson alike." —The Los Angeles Review of Books In his major work, acclaimed historian and judicial authority Melvin Urofsky examines the great dissents throughout the Court’s long history. Constitutional dialogue is one of the ways in which we as a people reinvent and reinvigorate our democratic society. The Supreme Court has interpreted the meaning of the Constitution, acknowledged that the Court’s majority opinions have not always been right, and initiated a critical discourse about what a particular decision should mean before fashioning subsequent decisions—largely through the power of dissent. Urofsky shows how the practice grew slowly but steadily, beginning with the infamous and now overturned case of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) during which Chief Justice Roger Taney’s opinion upheld slavery and ending with the present age of incivility, in which reasoned dialogue seems less and less possible. Dissent on the court and off, Urofsky argues in this major work, has been a crucial ingredient in keeping the Constitution alive and must continue to be so.