# What Rules the Supreme Court? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 13, 2000, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349 "2000-12-13T14:12:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349/21 "2000-12-13T20:59:11Z")
From my handy “Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage”: > [@](#): > > by the court; per curiam. … Contrary to the notion that some lawyers have, per curiam opinions usually deal with routine matters that are seen by the judges as having little precedential value; they often dispose of such cases summarily. Per curiam opinions should not be construed as exhibiting greater unanimity among members of the court than a signed opinion without a dissent. That last sentence tends to confirm my observation that per curiams are not handed down with dissenting opinions, which is what makes this one so strange to me. Ah well, bad facts make bad law. ---
**Author:** ![starfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@starfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starfish)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349/22 "2000-12-13T21:27:15Z")
CNN’s reports show a 7-2 split on ruling the re-count was unconstitutional, but a 5-4 split on whether a constitutional recount could be done in the election time frame. This would make for the strange looking final ruling. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349/23 "2000-12-13T21:45:03Z")
It wouldn’t be that strange. Justices concur in part and dissent in part all the time. If all you wanted to do was show where everybody stood on the 7-2 and 5-4 issues (call 'em A and B), it would look like this: O’Connor, J., expressed the opinion of the court, in which Rehnquist, C.J., and Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas, JJ., joined, and in which Breyer and Ginsburg, JJ., joined with respect to Part A. Stevens, J., issued a dissenting opinion, in which Souter, J., joined, and in which in which Breyer and Ginsburg, JJ., joined with respect to Part B. Then just throw in your concurring opinions for everybody who wanted to throw in their extra $.02, and voila, you got yourself … yeah, it’s pretty much a mess. But so are most other close, important cases. ---
**Author:** ![Needs2know](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5e925/32.png) [@Needs2know](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Needs2know)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2000, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349/24 "2000-12-13T21:57:13Z")
NPR addressed the mystique of the Supreme Court last week in one of it’s reports. It had been bandied about in the media as to whether or not it would cause a problem with the public perception of the Supremes in making a ruling on this issue. The report talked about how public opinion of the Supremes and their “supreme-like power” have gone in and out of favor over the years. There was a time when some had called for an impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren. In more recent years the Supremes have enjoyed a period of great respect and a sense of non-partisanship. This ruling may change all of that. Needs2know ---
**Author:** ![starfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@starfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starfish)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2000, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349/25 "2000-12-14T05:15:24Z")
CNN discussed the Florida supreme court [may not apply the the US SC]. They mentioned that if several justices wrote the court’s opinion, it was not signed since they can not take credit for another’s work. The opinion is only signed when it is only when one justice writes an opinion, that is so good that others will “join” it, rather than write their own opinion. For this 7-2 & 5-4 case, there is no way the one person could write the court’s opinion. Instead it would be several justices writing it, so none could sign it as author. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2000, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349/26 "2000-12-15T02:29:20Z")
CNN is misinformed, starfish. Judges collaborate on opinions all the time. True, one judge takes primary responsibility for the opinion in most cases, but the process of getting everybody on board requires all kinds of compromises and cooperation. In fact, there’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 case that reaffirmed (but somewhat limited) the constitutional right to abortion: [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case=us=505=833](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case=us=505=833) In that one, O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter took the unprecedented step of issuing a joint opinion under all three of their names. Judges semi-regularly pass along opinions that they’ve written to other judges, who then issue them under their own names. Judges have even been known to write dissents or concurrences for their own majority opinions. Naturally, the new judge will touch things up, but just because an opinion goes out under one name does not mean that’s the person who actually wrote it. ---
**Author:** ![RainbowDragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6a8cbe/32.png) [@RainbowDragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RainbowDragon)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2000, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349/27 "2000-12-15T13:23:05Z")
Looks like my question #3 was answered by Justice Thomas when he did an INTERVIEW: [http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/12/13/thomas.supreme.court/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/12/13/thomas.supreme.court/index.html) Next step Justice Ginsburg on Oprah! ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2000, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349/28 "2000-12-15T17:04:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by minty green \* > \*\*CNN is misinformed \*\* Ha! Who else here would pay big coin to get a .WAV file of James Earl Jones saying this? ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2000, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349/29 "2000-12-15T18:01:31Z")
1. The issuance of a _per curiam_ opinion here is not surprising. The Court issued its decision in the case of _Harris v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board_ _per curiam_ as well, though admittedly that was a 9-0 ruling. Further, you will notice that the opinion of the Supreme Court of Florida issued in _Gore v. Harris_ on Dec. 8 was also _per curiam_, with only four justices out of seven in agreement. By the way, don’t get confused here. The first case that the Supreme Court of Florida ruled on was titled _Palm Beach County Canvassing Board v. Harris_, but the name changed to _Harris v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board_ when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on it; similarly the second case was titled _Gore, et al. v. Harris, et al._ before the Florida court, but became the now already infamous decision _Bush, et al. v. Gore, et al._ when it went before the national court. In each case, this is because the Supreme Court of the United States hears such cases on petition, rather than on appeal (the petition has to be granted, rather than the court automatically reviewing the case), and the petitioners are listed first in the title. Mr. Bush was one of the ‘_et al._’ mentioned in the title of the Florida case. The Florida opinion was _per curiam_, in my opinion, because it was not primarily the work of any one author, but instead the cobbled together pieces of proposals from the four justices who agreed with the position taken. I think this reflected the haste with which the opinion was issued. Reading that opinion, one is left with the feeling that there were many authors from the lack of uniformity in outlining schemes for points made in the decision, as well as the multiple writing styles. As to the opinion of our Supreme Court of the United States, there are two possibilities. One is that the Chief Justice authored an opinion that included both the analysis of the equal protection argument in the _per curiam_ opinion and the analysis in his own concurring opinion, but Justices Kennedy and O’Connor would not go along with the attempt to discuss the constitutionality of what the Florida court did in interpreting Florida law. They could have taken C.J. Rhenquist’s equal protection analysis and grafted to it language about why the case was being reversed (the analysis of the ‘remedy’ given the ‘mandate’ of 3 U.S.C. §5). Another possibility is that the _per curiam_ opinion was authored not by one justice, but taken from the suggestions of all five in the ‘majority’ on the issue of ‘remedy’. Finally, it could be supposed that the “Court’s” opinion is left as a _per curiam_ opinion in an attempt to minimize the impact of the decision, and deflect criticism of the opinion as being generated by any specific member of the Court. This, of course, would only protect Justices O’Connor and Kennedy, since the opinions of the C.J. and his sidekicks, the Scalia/Thomas ‘monster’ (a reference to another famous two-headed hydra of the Court’s not-too-distant past history) were made abundently clear in the concurring opinion. For those of you who think this set of opinions was complicated to understand, I refer you to the opinions in [_University of California Regents v. Bakke_](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=438&invol=265), 438 U.S. 265 (1978). I quote the official description of who wrote what: > [@](#): > > POWELL, J., announced the Court’s judgment and filed an opinion expressing his views of the case, in Parts I, III-A, and V-C of which WHITE, J., joined; and in Parts I and V-C of which BRENNAN, MARSHALL, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, WHITE, MARSHALL, and BLACKMUN, [438 U.S. 265, 268] JJ., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 324. WHITE, J., post, p. 379, MARSHALL, J., post, p. 387, and BLACKMUN, J., post, p. 402, filed separate opinions. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which BURGER, C. J., and STEWART and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined, post, p. 408. There are some even more famous cases where there never was a majority, only a disposition agreed to by at least 5 of 9 justices, with no majority conclusion of law. One final note: in the beginning of the Supreme Court, each justice always wrote an opinion with his conclusion of law and determination of remedy. One had to read them all to understand what the court had actually done. This gave way shortly thereafter to the current system, where a justice only authors an opinion when he or she either feels that a legal point not addressed by the official opinion of the court has not been adequately discussed, or wishes to record the reason for dissenting from the opinion of the Court. ---
**Author:** ![Ol\_io](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/65b543/32.png) [@Ol\_io](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ol_io)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2000, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349/30 "2000-12-23T00:03:49Z")
What seems to be wrong is not the selection process, but the acrimonious confirmations. They require partisan affirmations, or the majority party will not trust them. They can not hope to get any votes at all from the opposition unless or until it looks like a done deal. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-rules-the-supreme-court/45349.md?page=1)