At the very least, the data I’ve given rebut the presumption that modern-day Justices generally end up more liberal on the bench than they’re initially perceived to be. (Whether public perception at the time of their confirmation is at all reflective of their actual ideology is, of course, a separate question.) Some Justices come on to the bench as perceived liberals and demonstrate a “moderate” judicial philosophy, some come on as perceived moderates and demonstrate a “conservative” judicial philosophy. A small data set, to be sure, but I’d contend in any case that the left/right distinction for Justices only really became useful or relevant with the rise of legal realism. And, as I mention in my original post on the topic (I snipped it from post #11), some Justices have a consistent judicial philosophy that leads them to appear both conservative and liberal at various times as the years go by. Justice Frankfurter, with his emphasis on judicial deference to the legislature, is a great example.
In any event, nobody’s provided any systematic evidence of any stripe indicating that Justices tend to shift left (politically or jurisprudentially) while on the bench.
apparently it was to me, since I cheerfully provided an explanation for a perhaps nonexistent effect…
Let me rephrase:
Judges who honor intellectual honesty (pace,* Nino) will infuse themselves with the spirit of justice by virtue of their frequent passage between her thighs upon entering and exiting the building.
(wtf, it’s just about as tight an explanation as my last one…)
I am particularly irked that I logged in, typed a very cogent post in answer to this, and then the hamsters decided that I wasn’t logged in after all, and ate the post.
In brief summary, what I said was that people tend to evaluate the positions of justices on political criteria, and that’s not what the justices decide cases on as a rule, nor should it be. If a given justice, on the basis of the law and facts and the arguments presented, comes to the conclusion that a given conviction should be overturned because the law or the prosecution of the case was in violation of a right guaranteed in broad language under the Constitution, then they are widely perceived as having given a “liberal” result. But he or she is abiding by his/her oath to judge in accordance with the Constitution, and to do so under the strict construction. Hugo Black was a far stricter constructionist than Sandra Day O’Connor, yet he is regarded as liberal and she as moderately conservative. You need to do a paradigm shift from the political to the jurisprudential to grasp what their standards actualy are.