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October 7, 2008, 04:09 PM | #1 | |
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Joyce Foundation Uses Law Reviews to Influence SCOTUS Decisions
Here is a post I made over at APS where it caught little attention. Its not a sexy story but it is important in my view.
Seems Obama and his cohorts have figured a way to influence the judiciary when it comes to the second amendment without having to do the court thingy. Law reviews are evidently well research and thoughtfully written all while being done on a shoe string budget. Enter stage left a well-funded leftist organization set on destroying the second amendment. The recent Heller decision whereby the pro-second amendment forces chalked up a W is instructive. We won by a skinny vote. Yet, anti-second arguments were cited 4 times in the court's dissenting opinion. I never knew the court could be influenced by what is in essence students of law. It also sheds new light on Obama's resume where as light as it is, he emphasizes his experience as editor of Harvard law review. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obama-a...ond-amendment/ Quote:
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October 7, 2008, 05:42 PM | #2 | |
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From the article:
Quote:
The author spends the rest of the article showing without a doubt that many law review articles are not impartial. In a similar vein, it is disheartening to see SCOTUS justices turning to foreign law and jurist reviews when they can't find domestic decisions that support their opinions. Although I suppose the citing of Blackstone would fall into this category, somehow it seems different considering how much our own law today is based upon English Common Law.
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October 7, 2008, 08:44 PM | #3 |
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Wow. Just.... wow!
It's not bad enough that the anti-gun side lies to Congress and the public. Now they have to fund an effort to write hit pieces against the meaning of the Constitution. Plus trample on dissenting views on college campuses. Just.. wow! Except it would take a huge amount of time and money, it would be interesting to have many of the articles peer reviewed (or reviewed by university interns) with cite/fact checking for errors, misinterpretations, misleading out of context use and omissions of contrary decisions or dicta. Funding might be difficult though. Anyone have Ross Perot's phone number?
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October 7, 2008, 11:25 PM | #4 |
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Anyone remember Michael Bellesiles?
Anyone remember what it took and how long it took to get him dismissed from Emory? Bill, that's the kind of task you are suggesting. Ross Perot, indeed. |
October 8, 2008, 02:32 AM | #5 |
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I don't remember what it took, exactly...
But I do remember it took years. And certain "sources" are still quoting his "data" as if it were verified fact, instead of the discredited information is actually is.
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October 8, 2008, 07:31 AM | #6 |
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This isn't really that new. The gun banners bought articles that supported a collective interpretation years before Obama got involved.
As for Bellesiles, he was only booted when his denials and refusal to supply supporting documentation became embarassing to Emory. If he'd handled the cover up better, Emory would have kept him on staff. One option is to begin writing Chicago-Kent, the ABA, the newspapers, etc asking about the lower of academic standards that allowed this to happen. Attacking them based on the fraudulent interpretation of the 2nd Amendment (which they likely agree with) won't have any effect, but doing so based on the fraud itself might. If we have any prospective law students who are willing to tell the school that it's off their lists because of academic fraud, that would help. |
October 9, 2008, 06:27 AM | #7 |
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Using law reviews to change or influence the development of the law is a very old practice and goes way, way back. The primary difference now is instead of this being a scholarly discussion, it is now a profession. There are institutes and funding out there where you can make a living advocating for a particular change in the law - and there are certainly institutes that are money hungry enough, sympathetic administratively, or a combination of both that they will lend their name to it.
For that matter, take a look at Sanford Levinson out of University of Texas law school. Many of you may recognize the name as his "The Embarassing Second Amendment" article was one of the key starting points on the road to Heller back in the early 1990s. Professor Levinson was also fairly liberal which gave his argument more credibility. His latest effort comes around remaking the Supreme Court and the Constitution to suit modern times. Right now it is just the occasional law symposium on the subject; but the ABA has picked up the push to modify the Supreme Court and their most recent ABA Journal has an article discussing all the ways it might be modified to make it more "modern" (i.e. subject to popular will - which I kind of thought was the whole antithesis of what the Court was about). The really disturbing thing about rewriting the rules of the game in the middle of the game, is that political realities are such that it would be almost impossible to do this as a bipartisan effort. In reality, it would take an overwhelming dominance of the legislative system by one party to accomplish it; but once they had it, they could rewrite the rules in a systemic fashion. Personally, I don't see a lot of good coming out of a set of rules written by one particular party - they are going to inevitably reflect that party's ideology and protect their power base rather than reflect a good balance of power. |
October 9, 2008, 11:26 AM | #8 |
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I think that one of the reasons we are so surprised by this is that we wouldn't stoop to it.
Wake up. This is not a revolutionary war battlefield. We're going to be shot at from the flanks, and from the rear. We must adapt our tactics.
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October 9, 2008, 01:14 PM | #9 |
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No offense, Antipitas - but knowing academia - Bellesiles was rather quickly and decisively eliminated by our standards. The time scale may not have given immediate gratification but there are procedures and they worked. From a prize winner with cover stories on the Chronicle of Higher Education and NY Times to an individual with no tenured job and cover stories on the Chronicle and Times documenting his fraud - that's quite a fall and disgrace.
Mills of the gods , etc.
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October 9, 2008, 04:04 PM | #10 |
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No offense taken, Glenn. You would know better than I.
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