Scalia and Thomas disagree! Is the apocalypse upon us?

[Northern_Piper]

Getting back to Nava’s question, the Court uses the names on the pleadings as filed by the parties themselves. A simple way to keep both names would be if counsel for Mr Prado Navarette hyphenated the name on the pleadings: Prado-Navarette. I appreciate that’s not the standard Hispanic convention, but it works in an English-speaking context.

[YogSothoth]

@Bricker

Sotomayor has essentially said that this is her judicial philosophy – that judges should, in fact, make law, be responsible for substantive creation of law as opposed to simply apply text as written.

Here’s a good example:

I don’t think that quote means what you think it means. Or rather, I think your interpretation differs from mine. I could just as easily say that she takes a big picture look at the law, that her statement of the “ramifications” of decisions isn’t her trying to foster a liberal viewpoint, but a macro analysis of how laws impact the real world. I think I’ve argued on the SDMB that its annoying when people are purposefully blind and myopic and follow technicalities instead of seeing how that affects the real world. If I were making the law, I would never let anyone get off on a “technicality”, whatever that may be, its as stupid to me as those “sovereign citizens” making a big deal about their name not being capitalized.

So with Sotomayor, I’m glad and proud she takes a long view of how laws develop. What may work in one case may not in most others. How many people think that the whole corporate personhood thign was a mistake? If I were a judge back at that time, I would never try to solve some short term problem by creating a long term issue.

Plus, nothing about what she says can be pointed to as liberal. Maybe she’s just as strict about the law as Scalia pretends to be. Maybe her position is that there is a right interpretation of the law and she analyzes the big picture to adhere to that. It just so happens to be liberal
Another example: a speech given to Suffolk University Law School by Sotomayor served as the basis for a law review article which she co-authored. In it, she praises “Law and the Modern Mind,” a work by Jerome Frank, a strong advocate for the “law as a tool of social change,” crowd:

@Bricker

Quoting "Returning Majesty to the Law and Politics: A Modern Approach,” 30 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 35,37 (1996-1997).

I don’t find anything specifically supporting using the law as a tool of social change in that quote, though I won’t claim that the book itself as a whole doesn’t hold those views. It seems to simply describe what has actually happened, rather than promote it

[Northern_Piper]

@Lakai

If this case was cited in another court opinion, I think they would use “Lorenzo Prado Navarette v. California” because the Bluebook (a style guide to legal citation) says to write out foreign names in full,

What is Bluebook’s definition of “foreign names”? is there any indication that the fellow is a foreigner?

[Lakai]

@Northern_Piper

What is Bluebook’s definition of “foreign names”? is there any indication that the fellow is a foreigner?

That’s actually my phrase. In the Bluebook it says that if a party’s name is “of Spanish or Portuguese derivation, cite the surname and all names following.” Rule 10.2.1 (g).

[Hari_Seldon]

@Bricker

Yes, you do. There are a number of famous instances where they came down on opposite sides.

But this is one of the most irritating facts, because no one remembers it. Here’s a case in which Scalia sided with the “liberal” wing, against the “conservatives.” Everyone is amazed.

And the next time it happens, everyone is amazed anew, seemingly retaining no memory of the prior events.

Scalia follows the text of the law. He does this even if it mandates a “liberal” result.

Ginsburg or Sotomayor, in contrast, follow the desire to get a liberal result, and then fashion a rationale to allow them to sustain the result.

This is not an accusation of dishonesty: Sotomayor in particular was quite open about her view that judges, especially justices of the Supreme Court, should be responsible for shaping and growing the law in socially conscious ways. So she’s doing what she said she’d do.

Scalia, in contrast, feels that changes to the law of a substantive nature should come from Congress. He does not feel it’s a judges job to wisely shape and grow the law, but simply to apply it as written.

There is no “right” or “wrong” in those two views: each are defensible as an approach to government.

That’s BS. For 100 years, Congress had tried to control money in elections. The so-called conservative wing decided that corporations are people and that money=speech. If that is not shaping the law to fit their preconceptions, I don’t know what is. My feeling is that both sides decide controversial cases on ideological grounds and then try to justify the decisions. This was pretty clear in Roe v. Wade (even though I agree with the decision). Then the women’s libbers thought they had won and dropped the ball. They would have done much better by getting new state representatives who would repeal the abortion laws. Incidentally, I said so at the time.

[Gleena]

@AK84

No. The names of the parties are used. The parties can be inidviduals, companies, the State etc. Typically the party which brings the case is listed first and the respondent/defendant accused second.

For example if Nava sues me then the title will be

Nava v Ak84

If there are more than one respondents (say Northern Piper and Bricker have been added) then the title will be

Nava v Ak84 and others
In the same way where a Company is a party it will sue in its own name.
So a famous English case (Caparo Indsutries V Dickman).

A criminal case usually has the name of the sovereign body as the first one. So in a criminal case the title (in England) is R v <Accused> (like R v Brown) where R is Regina.

The reason the last names are used in everyday usage is that stating the full names is a bit of a mouthful.

I love that you pulled up R v Brown. Classic.