Who are the worst judges on the Supreme Court?

[Alarum]

Of the judges currently on the bench, Clarence Thomas is definitely the most controversial and the one I consider to be farthest to the right.

I guess the Senate felt the same way because he had the most opposition of any of the judges when the Senate affirmed him to the bench.

The Senate vote for Clarence Thomas was 52 to 48.
The Senate vote for Antonin Scalia was 98 to 0.
The Senate vote for David Souter was 90 to 9, and all 9 opponents were Democrats.
The Senate vote for Ruth Bader Ginsburg was 96 to 3.
The Senate vote for Stephen Breyer was 87 to 9.

All good people and quality judges. Scalia is the one I might dislike the most besides Thomas, but as I said already I like having him on the court - I just wouldn't want a court made up of 9 of him. Ginsburg isn't the best, IMO, but she's good. Breyer and Souter are both good judges, though often underrecongnized. Thomas, well, lets just say I wish the numbers in that vote had been reversed. When it came to picking my favorite justices I thought long and hard, and finally chose to showcase two I feel are underappreciated. When it came to chosing the worst it was a matter of finding where the check box was.

 

[Spudgrandma]

Of the judges currently on the bench, Clarence Thomas is definitely the most controversial......

I guess the Senate felt the same way because he had the most opposition of any of the judges when the Senate affirmed him to the bench.

That is true, but it seems to me that most of the opposition to him had nothing to do with his qualifications as a judge.

Nonetheless, a very interesting poll.

 

[Texas Lynn]

Scalia, Scalia, and Scalia.

Thomas is pretty bad, but not Scalia-bad. He does occasionally cast a vote for civil liberties.

 

[Alarum]

Scalia, Scalia, and Scalia.

Thomas is pretty bad, but not Scalia-bad. He does occasionally cast a vote for civil liberties.

I direct your attention to Handi v. Rumsfeld, where Thomas was the only judge who read the constitution and decided that the government had the right to imprison people indefinately with no trial. Scalia had by far and away the broadest, strongest, and most powerful civil rights position (that there were no special powers granted in the constitution, and that the government would have to declare martial law to hold someone without trial), a position shared by merely one other judge (the rest adopted more limited rulings). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld

Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent, joined by Justice John Paul Stevens, went the farthest in restricting the Executive power of detention. Scalia asserted that based on historical precedent, the government had only two options to detain Hamdi: either Congress must suspend the right to habeas corpus (a power provided for under the Constitution only in times of "insurrection" or "rebellion"), which hadn't happened; or Hamdi must be tried under normal criminal law. Scalia wrote that the plurality, though well meaning, had no basis in law for trying to establish new procedures that would be applicable in a challenge to Hamdi's detention—it was only the job of the Court to declare it unconstitutional and order his release or proper arrest, rather than to invent an acceptable process for detention.

In fact I'd be very interested in how you'd support Scalia being worse then Thomas. Thomas is a shill for party politics, Scalia is a principled originalist (even if it's not necessarily principles I agree with).

 

[MaryS]

Thomas is a shill for party politics, Scalia is a principled originalist (even if it's not necessarily principles I agree with).

I agree that Clarence Thomas seems to be the most loyal to the Republican party, though I'm not so sure that the majority of Republicans agree with his position on legalizing marijuana.

The former justice appointed by John F. Kennedy, Byron White, considered himself to be loyal to the Democratic party but there aren't many things the left would agree with him on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_White
(excerpt:
White disliked the politics of Supreme Court appointments. While he agreed with conservatives on many judicial issues, he remained loyal to the Democratic Party and wanted a Democrat to name his successor. So when Bill Clinton became president he retired in 1993. Bill Clinton would appoint Ruth Bader Ginsburg to succeed him.

 

[MaryS]

In light of the Padilla case and discussion of other detainees, I think this is a good time to review the fact that Antonin Scalia was voted the worst judge on the supreme court by members of this forum.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Scalia
(excerpt:
In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, Scalia's dissent was the most restrictive upon the government's power to deal with U.S. citizens alleged to be "unlawful combatants," arguing that legally there was no basis for such a designation and that ordinary criminal prosecution was effectively the only option.

Scalia has proved to be what some call "libertarian" in certain cases; for instance, in a 5-4 ruling, Scalia found that the government could not use a thermal imaging device to scan one's home unless there was a warrant.

In 2004, Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion that the president could not detain enemy combatants; the only other member of the court to share his views was the liberal judge, John Paul Stevens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdi_v._Rumsfeld
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=03-6696
title: HAMDI et al. v. RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, et al.
(excerpt:
O'Connor, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Kennedy and Breyer, JJ., joined. Souter, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, dissenting in part, and concurring in the judgment, in which Ginsburg, J., joined. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, J., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion.