Free Republic

You can't burn a Koran in a crowded theater, and Supreme CourtJustice Stephen Breyer suggests that to placate foreign extremists, Koran burning might be banned everywhere else in America too. In an interview aired Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America,"Justice Breyer, who is on tour promoting his new book, averred that in the Internet age, speech traditionally protected by the First Amendment may have to be weighed against its global impact. George Stephanopoulos asked the justice about the canceled Sept. 11 Koran burning proposed by Pastor Terry Jones, and whether the fact that people riot in Afghanistan over what happens...

On May 10, 2010, President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy from the impending retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens at the end of the Supreme Court's 2009–2010 term. A significant entry in the catalog of Ms. Kagan’s remarkable achievements is her deanship of the über-prestigious Harvard Law School. In 2003, she was named, as the school’s first female dean, to succeed Robert C. Clark, who had held that post for over a decade. While manning the helm at Harvard Law, she attracted attention of alumni and observers for steering the ship away from...

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM)  On Monday, President Barack Obama announced the nomination of Elena Kagan to the position of Associate Justice on the United States (US) Supreme Court.  Based on a review of the rather meager writings and public statements by Kagan, a picture still emerges of a liberal activist whose sympathies for foreign law raise serious questions about how she would follow the US Constitution if she is confirmed.      During her Senate confirmation hearings last year to become US Solicitor General (the attorney that represents the US government before the Supreme Court), Kagan was asked about her...

This afternoon, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will have an opportunity to demonstrate why the Framers gave the Senate the constitutional power to confirm presidential appointees. If they fail to exercise that power vigorously with respect to the nomination of Harold Koh to be the top State Department lawyer, they will not only have been derelict. They will be accomplices to an assault on our Constitution that ultimately will result in an unprecedented, and likely permanent, derogation of the Senate's vital role and responsibilities. After all, Mr. Koh is one of the nation's most prominent - and aggressive...

JUDGES should interpret the Constitution according to other nations' legal "norms." Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts. The United States constitutes an "axis of disobedience" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq. Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government's top lawyers: Harold Koh.

By DAVID STOUT WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 - Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, sat through another day of high praise from Republicans and sharp skepticism from Democrats today as he cautiously laid out his judicial philosophy - too cautiously in the view of Democrats, who pressed him for his stance on abortion law.

John Stormer is an amazing author. He has sold over 11 million books. One, None Dare Call It Treason, sold 7 million. That was in 1964 when there was no internet, no faxes, no talk shows for conservatives. Stormer may have been the first to put a coupon in the back of the book for additional orders. So, a new book by John Stormer means we can assume that he has something else to say. Indeed he does. In Betrayed by the Bench, Stormer traces the lawlessness of so many of today's rulings to the revolt against the common law...

Throughout our history, the United States has been a unique nation. We are the only modern nation founded not on a common heritage, ethnicity, outside intervention or mandated religion, but rather a shared set of ideals. These powerful beliefs were outlined in the Declaration of Independence and codified in the U.S. Constitution. From the minutemen at Lexington and Concord to the Marines currently in Afghanistan and Iraq, our armed forces have fought, bled and all too often died to protect these foundational documents and the ideals they contain. The unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Free...

Using Foreign Law Is The Real Supreme Court Test By Kevin Fobbs The Supreme Court may not continue to be the supreme court of the land if the judicial philosophy of Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer of using foreign law rulings in adjudicating American cases is permitted to become standard practice by the justices. Even as the confirmation battle rages over the US Senate hearing for D.C. Federal Appeals Court Judge John Robert's bid to become the next chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, there is another more pressing battle in our nation's capitol. Unfortunately...

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."...

One of the ironies of our time is that economists have been discovering the importance of law, as such — as distinguished from the specific merits of particular laws — while judges seem increasingly to be losing sight of the rule of law. "I can hardly imagine any laws so bad, to which I would not rather be subject than to the caprice of a man," John Stuart Mill said more than a century and a half ago. Modern economists usually have in mind the economic advantages to a society of having a framework of known, enduring, and dependable rules...

Foreign Law and the U.S. Constitution By Kenneth Anderson Kenneth Anderson is professor of law at the Washington College of Law, American University, and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Email: kanders@wcl.american.edu. Website: http://kennethandersonlawofwar.blogspot.com. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Roper v. Simmons,1 which endorsed the use of foreign and international law in U.S. constitutional adjudication, has at least the virtue of putting everyone’s cards on the table. Until that decision was handed down (on March 1, 2005), it remained possible to view the appearance of foreign law in constitutional decisions as nothing more than a minor...

The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com Justices argue international lawBy Guy TaylorTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished April 25, 2005 Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen G. Breyer clashed last week over the role of international law and foreign judges at a rare group discussion in Washington.     At the forum, broadcast on C-SPAN television last week, Justice Breyer appeared the most sympathetic to justices citing international law and foreign court decisions, saying the high court is faced with "more and more cases" in which the laws of other countries are relevant.     "Where there is disagreement is how to use the law...

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay intensified his criticism of the federal courts on Tuesday, singling out Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's work from the bench as "incredibly outrageous" because he has relied on international law and done research on the Internet. DeLay said he thought there were a "lot of Republican-appointed judges that are judicial activists." The No. 2 Republican in the House has openly criticized the federal courts since they refused to order the reinsertion of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. And he pointed to Kennedy as an example of Republican members of the Supreme Court who...

The Constitution is not a "living" document that changes with the times U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says, but is to be interpreted on what the Founding Fathers meant at the time they drafted the Constitution. That's how he determines the meaning of the document he told an audience Monday at Nashville's Vanderbilt University according the Vanderbilt Hustler.com. Story Continues Below "The Constitution is not a living organism," Scalia insisted. Taking a position at odds with current opinion that holds that the Constitution changes in order to meet the needs of a changing society and thus acts as a...

According to the new interpretation of the Bill of Rights approved by five Supreme Court justices this week, if an al Qaeda terrorist who was 17-years-and-364-days old detonated a dirty bomb in a U.S. city, murdering hundreds of thousands of Americans, no state could execute him. That is because executing any killer under 18--no matter how cold-blooded his crime--would violate America's "evolving standards of decency" and thus is prohibited by the 8th Amendment, which bars "cruel and unusual punishment." So said Justice Anthony Kennedy in Roper v. Simmons, an opinion that Justices John Paul Stevens and David Souter joined, and...

Five Justices Shred Constitution To Protect Cold-Blooded KillersThe Supreme Court's decision barring execution of murderers who commit their crime before age 18 as cruel and unusual punishment is not only fundamentally flawed, but also deeply troubling -- for more than just a few reasons. In its 5-4 decision on March 1, the Court decreed that "Juveniles are less mature than adults and, no matter how heinous their crimes, they are not among 'the worst offenders' who deserve to die." While I certainly respect that opinion, I strongly object to the United States Supreme Court presuming to impose it on our...

"Nothing in the Constitution has given them (the federal judges) a right to decide for the Executive, more than the Executive to decide for them…The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch." -- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Abigail Adams, September 11, 1804) Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan must be tossing and turning a bit. Jefferson, anticipating, with trepidation, activism in the judicial...

Here's my question to you: Should we be governed by good ideas? You say, "Williams, what do you mean?" Here's an example: I regularly bike for fun, cardiovascular fitness and, hopefully, for a longer, healthier life. In my opinion, that's a good idea. That being the case, would you deem it proper for Congress to enact legislation requiring Americans to bike regularly or perform some other cardiovascular fitness exercise? What if Congress didn't act on this good idea? Would you deem it proper and acceptable if five out of nine U.S. Supreme Court justices, in the name of "evolving standards"...

When you want something changed in our country -- when you want a law passed or overturned -- you call Congress. Soon, however, there may be no point. Instead, calls may need to be directed to the most powerful branch of government, the law-making body known as the Supreme Court. Earlier this month in Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court reached out and gave America a good old-fashioned smack-upside-the-head when it abolished capital punishment for juvenile offenders. Ruling 5 to 4, the Court declared that it is unconstitutional to sentence anyone to death for a crime he or she committed...