Oral Dissents Give Ginsburg a New Voice on Court

[rodeodance]

Source: nytimes



May 31, 2007
Supreme Court Memo
Oral Dissents Give Ginsburg a New Voice on Court

By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, May 30 — ......


Both in the abortion case the court decided last month and the discrimination ruling it issued on Tuesday, Justice Ginsburg read forceful dissents from the bench. In each case, she spoke not only for herself but also for three other dissenting colleagues, Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer.

But the words were clearly her own, and they were both passionate and pointed. In the abortion case, in which the court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act seven years after having struck down a similar state law, she noted that the court was now “differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation.” In the latest case, she summoned Congress to overturn what she called the majority’s “parsimonious reading” of the federal law against discrimination in the workplace.

To read a dissent aloud is an act of theater that justices use to convey their view that the majority is not only mistaken, but profoundly wrong. It happens just a handful of times a year. Justice Antonin Scalia has used the technique to powerful effect, as has Justice Stevens, in a decidedly more low-key manner.

The oral dissent has not been, until now, Justice Ginsburg’s style. She has gone years without delivering one, and never before in her 15 years on the court has she delivered two in one term. In her past dissents, both oral and written, she has been reluctant to breach the court’s collegial norms. “What she is saying is that this is not law, it’s politics,” Pamela S. Karlan, a Stanford law professor, said of Justice Ginsburg’s comment linking the outcome in the abortion case to the fact of the court’s changed membership. “She is accusing the other side of making political claims, not legal claims.”




Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/washington/31scotus.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

[Demeter]

1. We're Still Screwed

All the political theater in the world won't bring down this illegal regime or erase the coup.

[Captain Hilts]

2. At least she's makin' noise. Good for her! nt

[rodeodance]

3. Ginsberg will be on cspan now--after break

[kimmylavin]

4. Powerful statement:

“What she is saying is that this is not law, it’s politics,”
Very powerful.