“The last Supreme Court term, which ended in June, was the stormiest in recent memory, with more 5-to-4 decisions split along ideological lines than at any time in the court’s history. In a series of controversial cases about abortion, racial integration in schools, faith-based programs and the death penalty, the court’s four more conservative justices prevailed, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy providing the crucial fifth vote. The four more liberal justices were often moved to dissent in unusually personal and vehement terms. ‘It is my firm conviction,’ Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the case striking down race-based enrollment policies in public schools, ‘that no Member of the Court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s decision.’ According to the gossip among Supreme Court law clerks, the level of tension among the justices is higher than at any point since Bush v. Gore in 2000…”
A Fascinating profile of Justice John Paul Stevens from the New York Times magazine a couple of weeks ago.
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