Tag archives: Supreme Court Justices

Politics and Morality Supreme Court Style
By Montecito Journal   |   July 5, 2022

One of the most disturbing aspects of the Dobbs opinion by the majority of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices is the certainty that further assaults on our basic freedoms are coming. Not only on women’s reproductive rights, protected since 1973 under Roe v. Wade, but privileges and liberties Americans have long enjoyed, and encompassed in […]

A Lifeboat to Roe
By Gwyn Lurie   |   July 5, 2022

Humor is often born of pain. So last month, when Justice Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was leaked, sounding the death knell for the constitutional right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade, it was no surprise when Stephen Colbert joked of the irony that this decision was written by […]

Abortion is Not the Issue: The Way to St. Helena
By Rinaldo Brutoco   |   May 17, 2022

Hard to believe though it is, the leaked draft opinion of Justice Samuel Alito is one of the most radical decisions in Supreme Court history. The proposed majority opinion striking down Roe v. Wade is not going to be remembered for its doctrinaire, misogynistic, didactic, and insensitive tone, nor for its incredulous conclusions. No, it […]

Pack the Court?
By Rinaldo Brutoco   |   November 12, 2020

What does it mean to “pack the court”? Despite popular misconceptions, the first “court packing” occurred in 1801 when Federalist John Adams stayed up all night signing dozens of judicial appointments in order to pack the entire Federal judiciary so that his successor, Thomas Jefferson, couldn’t appoint any. Many significant “court packing” incidents occurred from […]

A Judicial Fork in The Road
By Jerold Oshinsky   |   July 2, 2020

The great Yankee baseball catcher Yogi Berra allegedly said: “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” This article will attempt to decipher the recent Supreme Court decisions which decisively protected the rights and interests of gay and transgender citizens and Dreamers (DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and struck down as […]

The Verdict is in
By Richard Mineards   |   March 14, 2019

Montecito author Jane De Hart, who spent 15 years researching and writing a hefty tome on Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is reaping the rewards for her Herculean project. Jane, a professor of women’s history at UCSB, tells me her mammoth 752-page work, Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life, is now in its seventh printing […]