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Law: President Obama's nominee for State Department legal adviser could be a future Supreme Court pick. He believes U.S. law should be based on foreign precedent, and even Shariah law could find a home here.We have commented many times on the opinion of a number of U.S. Supreme Court justices that American jurists should include foreign law and precedent in their decisions. In several prominent cases, this has already happened. In a speech in South Africa, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the March 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision, in which a 5-4 majority ruled against executing murderers who were 17...

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer are "moderate" liberals. And Republican opposition to Obama Supreme Court nominees would constitute a "fake fight" demonstrating that the GOP remains mired in the culture wars. Such was the collective wisdom of two of the roundtable members on ABC's "This Week" today. Before moving to the substance, a word about the roundtable's lopsided composition, which resembled nothing more than Homecoming for public radio types. To "balance" David Brody of CBN, ABC chose Kurt Andersen of Public Radio International, Alison Stewart of NPR, and John Dickerson of Slate and . . . NPR. Andersen kicked...

“One must question whether Justice Breyer has violated the Code of Judicial Conduct by seeking congressional intervention to stop his colleagues from expressing their reasoned legal opinions with which he disagrees.”

A century and a half after the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that no black — slave or free — could ever become a U.S. citizen, the case's legacy is still being debated. The fallout from the 1857 decision, which helped spark the Civil War, was the subject of a mock re-hearing of the case before a 10-member court led by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer at Harvard Law School on Saturday. While the decision, issued by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, is almost universally seen as the moral low point of the court's history, participants in...

Justice Stephen G. Breyer says the Supreme Court must promote the political rights of minorities and look beyond the Constitution's text when necessary to ensure that "no one gets too powerful." Breyer, a Clinton appointee who has brokered many of the high court's 5-4 rulings, spoke in a televised interview that aired one day before justices hear a key case on race in schools. He said judges must consider the practical impact of a decision to ensure democratic participation. "We're the boundary patrol," Breyer said, reiterating themes in his 2005 book that argue in favor of race preferences in university...

Just this week, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer paid a visit to his high school alma mater, Lowell High School in San Francisco. He took a tour of the school’s campus, which moved in 1962 from downtown San Francisco to its present Sunset District location, and then spent an hour taking questions from the school’s junior and senior classes. According to AP, Justice Breyer (Class of 1955) was treated like a “rock star” during his visit to the highly-selective school’s campus. Besides the change in location, Lowell High School has in recent years undergone an immense transformation of its student...

CHICAGO - Stressing that "the role of a judge is to interpret the law and not legislate it," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer told University of Chicago Law School students yesterday that they need not fear judicial activism by the current members of the Supreme Court. "There’s no reason to believe that judges are now more ready to overturn prior precedent," Breyer said while addressing several hundred students inside the university’s Glen A. Lloyd Auditorium. "All of the present judges basically agree that Congress, not judges, should decide policy," he said. The 67-year-old Breyer, an alumnus of Harvard Law...

SAN FRANCISCO - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer received a welcome befitting a rock star Monday at his old high school. While Breyer, 67, who graduated from Lowell High School in 1955, sidestepped questions from students about thorny subjects like religion in public schools, he spent about an hour explaining how laws are made in the nation's highest court. Surrounded by throngs of enthusiastic students seeking autographs and a private word with the justice, Breyer had a hard time making his way back to his seat following his address. "It was really good to be around one of the...

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court's tilt to the right, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer remained optimistic about the court's role in applying the Constitution to today's society.The U.S. Supreme Court is turning to the right -- or so it would seem with the Senate confirmation Tuesday of President Bush's latest conservative nominee, Samuel Alito. But liberal Justice Stephen Breyer says he remains upbeat about the court's future -- despite Alito's replacement of moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and the recent confirmation of John Roberts as chief justice. ''Justice Byron White often said to me that with each new appointment, it's a...

Give Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer his due. With the publication of his new book "Active Liberty," he enthusiastically embraces a mea culpa approach to allegations that Supreme Court justices invent, recreate, and expand constitutional principles as they please. Viewed as a response to Justice Antonin Scalia's "A Matter of Interpretation," Breyer’s book, openly advocates for the notion that U.S. constitutional law is whatever a majority of Supreme Court justices wishes...

Give Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer his due. With the publication of his new book Active Liberty, he enthusiastically embraces a mea culpa approach to allegations that Supreme Court justices invent, recreate, and expand constitutional principles as they please. Viewed as a response to Justice Antonin Scalia's A Matter of Interpretation, Breyer’s book, openly advocates for the notion that U.S. constitutional law is whatever a majority of Supreme Court justices wishes based upon their own notions of what "democracy" and fairness should produce. In other words, I and thousands of other attorneys wasted our time taking constitutional law since that...

A curious e-mail is making the rounds from Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy's communications director, Stephanie Cutter, attacking Judge Alito's response last week to the Senate Judiciary Committee's request for more information about Judge Alito's involvement in a case in Vanguard mutual funds was a party in name only. In Monga v. Ottenberg, a bankruptcy receiver sought to have a party's IRA assets (which included funds in a Vanguard account) made available to pay the bankrupt party's creditors. Vanguard was a party to the case because the bankrupt party sued it to prevent it from releasing his IRA funds to his...

In the weeks after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Bush v. Gore, on December 12, 2000, the mood was despondent in the chambers of the Justices on the losing side. The five-to-four ruling ended the recount of the Presidential vote in Florida and assured George W. Bush’s victory in the election. “The clerks were tremendously alienated,” one recalled recently. “A lot of them thought that the Court was a fraud, that the place had sacrificed its legitimacy, and that there really wasn’t much point in taking the whole institution seriously anymore.” Stephen G. Breyer was among the dissenting...

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Thank you for joining us today, Justice Breyer. Tell us why you decided to write this book. JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER: I wanted to write it because I've learned from really Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice O'Connor, my predecessor Harry Blackmun that there's a tremendous desire for knowledge about the court and how do we actually decide cases? People want to know. It's not the CIA; there's not really a secret. And I wanted to try to help people understand that. And also, I think there's a misconception. I think that many people believe that we're deciding what's good...

RUSH: Good old Justice Stephen Breyer is continuing to speak. We have some sound bites from him. He was speaking Monday in Washington at a symposium on public service and international law. Now, Breyer is a known commodity. He was a liberal when he was nominated; he was a liberal when he was confirmed, and he's a liberal on the court, and the liberals didn't have to be stealth about him, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg? She was a liberal when she's nominated, and she is a liberal on the court, and they didn't have to be stealth about her and...

LAW OF THE LAND Justice: Can Constitution make it in global age? On TV, Breyer wonders whether it will 'fit into governing documents of other nations' Posted: July 7, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com In a rare appearance on a television news show, Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer questioned whether the U.S. Constitution, the oldest governing document in use in the world today, will continue to be relevant in an age of globalism. Speaking with ABC News' "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos and his colleague Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Breyer took issue with Justice Antonin Scalia, who,...

GEORG HEGEL was a German philosopher of the early 19th century. Hegel believed that history unfolds through a "dialectical" process, in which each stage is the product of the contradictions inherent in the ideas that defined the preceding one. Within these tensions and contradictions, Hegel believed, the philosopher can discern a comprehensive, evolving, rational unity. He called that unity "the absolute idea." History consists of an inevitable and progressive march to that idea.Until recently it appeared that Marxism (which borrowed Hegel's dialectic but replaced "ideas" with economic systems and classes--hence "dialectical materialism") would represent Hegel's most enduring contribution to the...

What it is, is; "jurisprudential mysticism" and "more liberal BS"... "Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution" explains Justice Breyer's approach and applies it to some of the most divisive topics that come before the court. These include everything from freedom of speech and privacy rights to affirmative action and last June's Ten Commandments cases, which addressed the constitutionality of religious symbols on government property.

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Libertarian Party chief wants public to decide in March The effort to seize the vacation home of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is moving ahead toward the goal of a public vote in March. That according to John Babiarz, chairman of the New Hampshire's Libertarian Party, who appeared tonight on the Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" program. We have every intention of doing the proper petitioning and have the people of Plainfield make the decision," Babiarz said. "We're in the petition-gathering stage right now." Babiarz, a 2002 candidate for governor in the Granite State, stressed the...

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer says not all rulings from America's highest court are correct, admitting judges don't have "some great special insight," and he defends the practice of studying courts in foreign countries to help decide cases in the United States. Breyer made the remarks during a panel discussion this week in Chicago at the annual conference of the American Bar Association.

What's wrong with citing rulings by judges in other countries, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer asked attendees at the American Bar Association Convention in Chicago on Tuesday. Conservatives led by justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have criticized Breyer for backing up opinions with references to rulings from abroad, such as a 2002 Death Row case in which Breyer cited decisions by British and Canadian courts and the European Court of Human Rights. The Supreme Court ". . . should not impose foreign moods, fads or fashions on Americans," Justice Thomas wrote in response. But Breyer said Tuesday, "We're not...

CHICAGO - Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said Tuesday that rulings on difficult subjects like gay rights and the death penalty have left courts vulnerable to political attacks that are threatening judicial independence. ADVERTISEMENT Breyer urged lawyers to help educate people about court responsibility to be an independent decision-maker."If you say seven or eight or nine members of the Supreme Court feel there's a problem ... you're right," he told the American Bar Association. "It's this edge on a lot of issues."Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., who was speaking with Breyer, said: "The politics of judges is...

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said Tuesday that rulings on difficult subjects like gay rights and the death penalty have left courts vulnerable to political attacks that are threatening judicial independence. Breyer urged lawyers to help educate people about court responsibility to be an independent decision-maker. "If you say seven or eight or nine members of the Supreme Court feel there's a problem ... you're right," he told the American Bar Association. "It's this edge on a lot of issues." Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was speaking with Breyer, said: "The politics of judges is getting to be red hot."...

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said Tuesday that rulings on difficult subjects like gay rights and the death penalty have left courts vulnerable to political attacks that are threatening judicial independence. Breyer urged lawyers to help educate people about court responsibility to be an independent decision-maker. "If you say seven or eight or nine members of the Supreme Court feel there's a problem ... you're right," he told the American Bar Association. "It's this edge on a lot of issues." Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who was speaking with Breyer, said: "The politics of judges is getting to be red hot."...

Justice Breyer's Plainfield Home Eyed for ‘Constitution Park' By David Corriveau Valley News Staff Writer Plainfield -- If the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire and its allies have their way, someday two stone monuments will stand on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer's Plainfield property. Short of that, the Libertarians hope to cause Breyer some discomfort for his vote last month on a controversial court decision freeing cities and towns to take land and turn it over to private developers. They are planning a petition drive asking Plainfield voters to take Breyer's 167-acre vacation retreat by eminent domain at...

PLAINFIELD, N.H. — Libertarians upset about a Supreme Court ruling on taking land have proposed seizing a justice's vacation home and turning it into a park. Signatures are being collected for a petition to ask the town to use Justice Stephen Breyer's 167-acre Plainfield, N.H., property to create a "Constitution Park" with stone monuments to commemorate the U.S. and New Hampshire constitutions, said party Vice Chairman Mike Lorrey. ...........Lorrey told the Valley News. "This is a way of saying, 'You're going to be held to your own standard.' " Lorrey said the Libertarian petition would place the land-taking request before...

PLAINFIELD, N.H. - Libertarians upset about a Supreme Court ruling on land taking have proposed seizing a justice's vacation home and turning it into a park, echoing efforts aimed at another justice who lives in the state. Organizers are trying to collect enough signatures to go before the town next spring to ask to use Justice Stephen G. Breyer's 167-acre Plainfield property for a "Constitution Park" with stone monuments to commemorate the U.S. and New Hampshire constitutions. "In the spirit of the ruling, we're recreating the same use of eminent domain," said John Babiarz, the Libertarian Party's state chairman. The...

Picture this: Ruth Bader Ginsberg wearing a snug, green outfit, complete with tights. Then picture four of her high-court compatriots, John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer doing the same. It's a tough visual, I admit, but given their property-rights ruling, we now know what those members of the U.S. Supreme Court must be wearing under their black robes. Think "jolly, old England" and the fellow in the green outfit who stole from the rich to give to the poor. He didn't do it alone. Robin Hood had his band of merry men to help. It wasn't...

Earlier this year, U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer faced off for a friendly debate at American University's Washington College of Law. Both justices evinced a warm admiration for each other as individuals, but there was no question about their strong disagreement over the topic at hand: the Constitutional relevance of foreign court decisions. Their discussion provided a rare glimpse into the dueling philosophies brought to the fore by the recent Roper vs. Simmons case, which ruled that minors cannot face the death penalty. "You talk about [how] it's nice to know that we're on the right...

U.S. ASSOCIATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW DISCUSSION SUBJECT: CONSTITUTIONAL RELEVANCE OF FOREIGN COURT DECISIONS MODERATOR: NORMAN DORSEN, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, U.S. ASSOCIATION OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PARTICIPANTS: ANTONIN SCALIA, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, U.S. SUPREME COURT; STEPHEN BREYER, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, U.S. SUPREME COURT LOCATION: AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON COLLEGE OF LAW, WASHINGTON, D.C. TIME: 4:10 P.M. EST DATE: THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2005 Transcript by:Federal News ServiceWashington, D.C. MR. CLAUDIO GROSSMAN (DEAN, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY WASHINGTON COLLEGE OF LAW): (Off mike) -- it's my pleasure and honor to see all of you here participating in this historic event, a conversation on the relevance of foreign law for...

A few weeks ago I was watching a program on C-Span pertaining to the impact of foreign court opinions upon the U.S. justice system. The primary participants in the discussion were Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer, and the event took place at the American University Law School in Washington D.C. rtsp://video.c-span.org/archive/sc/sc011305_scalia.rm The debate revolved around questions asked by a moderator named Professor Norman Dorsen, and the first multi-part question asked was, "When we talk about the use of foreign court decisions in U.S. Constitutional cases, what body of foreign law are we talking about? Are we limiting...

'Gay' marriage justice tied to N.Y. TimesWed to Anthony Lewis, paper's affiliate pushed for her appointment Posted: November 19, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com The Massachusetts chief justice who voted with the majority yesterday in a 4-3 ruling that could establish homosexual marriage in the state is married to a former prominent columnist for the New York Times. Margaret Marshall, a native of South Africa, is married to recently retired columnist Anthony Lewis. One of Marshall's chief nemeses, J. Edward Pawlick, attorney for Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage, sees the marriage as a politically beneficial alliance with the Sulzberger family, who consider...

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/6757099.htmBreyer Says U.S. Could Learn From Israel ANNE GEARAN Associated Press NEW YORK - The United States could learn from compromises Israeli courts have struck to balance terrorism and human rights concerns, Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer said Friday. Israeli judges have adopted what Breyer called "intermediate solutions" that acknowledge the security risks the country faces, the justice told an audience at Columbia Law School. "There are many solutions that ... solve nothing to everyone's satisfaction but are not quite as restrictive of human rights as an extreme solution, nor as dangerous as some other extremes," Breyer said. He...