I don't really like the decision either, but one thing that does get lost in discussions of Supreme Court cases is that they can only decide on the specific cases placed before them, and they have to consider precedent.
(This is one of the reasons that I was so frustrated at the heated discussions of Bush v. Gore, on both sides of the case, that acted as if the justices were actually deliberating over who deserved to win the election. While the winner might functionally have been determined by the decision (and I'm not even sure about that, though some of them probably believed it at the time), it wasn't the issue they were deciding. The most suspicious and obnoxious things that happened in Florida weren't even being considered as part of the case and could not have been held relevant.)
They can overturn precedent, on the grounds that the law was interpreted badly before, but the feeling typically seems to be that there has to be a pretty convincingly argued case and some contrary law or precedent invoked. My feeling is that a lot of the precedent in Kelo is probably dumb and bad, but I am pretty much a legal ignoramus.
I think it's interesting that this particular case so quickly led to widely distributed petitions to impeach all the justices involved... who just happen to be all the traditionally liberal justices on the court.
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syntheid
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Date: 2005-06-27 11:05 pm (UTC)(This is one of the reasons that I was so frustrated at the heated discussions of Bush v. Gore, on both sides of the case, that acted as if the justices were actually deliberating over who deserved to win the election. While the winner might functionally have been determined by the decision (and I'm not even sure about that, though some of them probably believed it at the time), it wasn't the issue they were deciding. The most suspicious and obnoxious things that happened in Florida weren't even being considered as part of the case and could not have been held relevant.)
They can overturn precedent, on the grounds that the law was interpreted badly before, but the feeling typically seems to be that there has to be a pretty convincingly argued case and some contrary law or precedent invoked. My feeling is that a lot of the precedent in Kelo is probably dumb and bad, but I am pretty much a legal ignoramus.
I think it's interesting that this particular case so quickly led to widely distributed petitions to impeach all the justices involved... who just happen to be all the traditionally liberal justices on the court.