Lectures

Threats to judicial independence are most commonly viewed as arising either from politically motivated depredations by other branches of government, or from improper inducements or coercion from individuals or groups in the wider society. Both types of threats are external to the court. What of the internal environment within which judges operate, particularly the immediate environment comprised of their colleagues on the bench? Drawing on a judicial career spanning thirty-seven years, including fifteen as a U.S. District Court judge and the past seven in my present position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, as well as on legal scholarship and the perspectives of other jurists past and present, I will address what one scholar calls the “complicated interdependent decisions” faced by judges on multi-member courts. This Lecture will explore the often complex calculus and subtle intrajudicial considerations that go into a judge’s decision whether—and, if so, how—to dissent in a particular case. I encourage reflection both on the costs that dissent exacts on the individual judge and on the court as a whole, and on the enormous value it can have as an expression of legal conscience and even, on occasion, as a voice of prophecy pointing to future change in the law. Ultimately, I view the right to dissent as precious, and a pillar of judicial independence.

Brennan Lecture

William J. Brennan, Jr. Lecture

In the second annual William J. Brennan, Jr. Lecture New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Stewart G. Pollock explores the relationship between art and adjudication. The separation of powers, the federalist system, and the inherent constraints of the common law confine state courts. Notwithstanding those constraints, state courts have demonstrated creativity when interpreting state statutes and constitutions and when adapting the common law to changing conditions. Thus, Justice Pollock finds artistry in the work of state courts. He begins by exploring creativity in statutory interpretation. Then, Justice Pollock examines two areas of substantive law of great public concern: public-school-finance litigation under state constitutions and the common-law redefinition of the modem family. Justice Pollock demonstrates how state appellate courts, through public-school-finance litigation, have shaped the constitutional right to a public-school education. Justice Pollock then discusses how state courts have reacted to the changing composition of the American family. By recognizing these changes, state courts have redefined the family in areas as diverse as zoning ordinances, surrogacy agreements, and same-sex marriages. Common to all these endeavors is protection of the inherent dignity of the individual. Justice Pollock concludes that an appreciation of the similarities between art and judging may lead to a better understanding of the judicial process.

Brennan Lecture

When I look back on the origins of our nation, I feel both a deep sense of pride and a sense of apprehension for the present and the future. Habeas corpus is being undermined, legislatively and judicially; sentencing is suggesting a newly devised theory of “nothing succeeds like excess”; and there is a constant flow of suggestions for amending the Constitution. One is impelled to ask, as Archibald MacLeish did so plaintively: “Where has all the grandeur gone?”

Madison Lecture

In this Madison Lecture, Chief Judge Richard S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit explores the subject of constitutional interpretation as practiced by the eponymous James Madison. Following Madison’s public arguments and private statements through crucial early American debates over federal powers, Judge Arnold finds that the “Father of the Constitution” refused to take advantage of his own formative contributions to the Constitution. On the contrary, Madison sought constitutional authority in the citizenry, as exercised through state ratifying conventions and through the precedential effect of deliberative legislative action. Arnold reminds us that Madison was a consummate politician at a time when the occupation was not yet a pejorative epithet, but public officeholders were even then subject to harsh personal criticism that rivals if not surpasses the political vitriol of our times. Madison nevertheless developed a consistent, yet flexible, view of constitutional interpretation that can still enlighten he constitutional debates of today.

William J. Brennan, Jr. Lecture

Twenty years ago, Justice William J. Brennan sounded a clarion call to lawyers and judges not to overlook the capacity of state law, especially state constitutional law, to assist in the pursuit of justice for all. Today, the judges and justices of state courts have taken that message to heart by undertaking innovative measures to protect individual rights through state constitutions and through independent interpretations of the Federal Constitution. Despite this emerging trend, litigators, law reviews, and legal scholars have continued to focus on the federal system. In this Brennan Lecture, Senior Judge Ellen A. Peters of the Supreme Court of Connecticut responds to this not-so-benign neglect, observing that state courts determine the totality of rights of the vast majority of litigants, draw on a broad reservoir of common law principles and remedies, and play an integral role in maintaining our federalist system. Developing this last point, Judge Peters examines tie history of state courts in the federal system the extent to which state courts may invoke neutral procedural and jurisdictional rules in the face of arguably different federal mandates, and the implications for the role of the states of recent developments in United States Supreme Court jurisprudence.

Madison Lecture

In this Madison Lecture, Chief Judge Posner advocates a pragmatic approach to constitutional decisionmaking, criticizing constitutional theorists who conceal their normative goals in vague and unworkable principles of interpretation. After discussing specific constitutional theories as well as the legal academy’s increasing reliance on theory in general Posner, demonstrates the ineffectuality of constitutional theory, using the Supreme Court’s decisions in United States v. Virginia and Romer v. Evans as examples. He argues not that these cases were necessarily wrongly decided, but that the opinions lack the empirical support that is crucial to sound constitutional adjudication. Posner urges law professors to focus their scholarship on forms of inquiry that will actually prove useful to judges and concludes by asking that judges themselves recognize and acknowledge the limitations of their empirical knowledge.

Brennan Lecture

As recently as 1962, the United States Supreme Court declined to rule on challenges to legislative apportionment schemes that created grossly disproportionate electoral districts. When, in the seminal decision Baker v. Carr, the Supreme Court held such challenges to be justiciable, the federal courts in this country took on a new and important role. In this Brennan Lecture, Judge Smith explores the context in which this reapportionment “revolution” emerged and developed, in particular highlighting the symbiotic relationship between the reapportionment struggle and the struggle for African American civil rights.

Smith turns his attention to the role state courts have played in these twin revolutions. He begins by noting that the federal reapportionment decisions had important state court antecedents. He then argues that contemporary judges–both state and federal–play two crucial roles in the struggle for inclusive participation in the electoral process. First, judges are required to maintain constant vigilance to ensure that the level playing field promised by Justice Brennan in Baker v. Carr becomes and remains a reality. Second, judges must ensure that the Federal Constitution, state constitutions, and the Voting Rights Act are enforced to prevent discrimination against African Americans and other minorities. As Judge Smith concludes, successful performance of each of these two functions is necessary to ensure that African Americans and other historically oppressed minorities become a meaningful part of American democracy.

Madison Lecture

In this Madison Lecture, Judge Stephen Reinhardt tells the story of the case of Thomas Thompson, a man without a prior criminal record who was executed in California in July of 1998 despite substantial doubt about his guilt of capital murder and an unrefuted decision by the en banc court of the Ninth Circuit that his trial was blatantly unconstitutional. The Ninth Circuit’s decision was based on egregious conduct of the prosecution and ineffective assistance of Thompson’s counsel. The district judge previously had reversed Thompson’s capital sentence on the latter ground.

Judge Reinhardt provides a firsthand account of the unusual events that took place within the Ninth Circuit, including the passing of the deadline within which a judge could request an en banc rehearing; the extraordinary rejection by three judges of a request by colleagues for an extension of time within which to vote on rehearing; a good faith effort, that backfired, by a majority of the Ninth Circuit to comply with the Supreme Court’s arcane procedural rules; and, ultimately, a dramatic en banc rehearing in which the Ninth Circuit ruled in Thompson’s favor. The story then turns to the United States Supreme Court, which, in a wholly unprecedented action, held that the Ninth Circuit’s en banc hearing was invalid because it came too late and offended purported principles of comity and finality, abstract concerns that increasingly predominate over substantive rights in the jurisprudence of the Rehnquist Court.

By telling the story from start to finish, including a report on the factual errors made by the Supreme Court, Judge Reinhardt illustrates the dramatic consequences of the current Court’s elevation of procedural rules over substantive justice and the dictates of the Constitution, particularly in death penalty cases. In Judge Reinhardt’s opinion, the Court’s philosophy in this instance cost Thomas Thompson his life and in its general application seriously tarnishes the integrity and reputation of the American justice system.

Derrick Bell Lecture

Does United States antidiscrimination law embrace a black/white binary paradigm of race in which other, nonblack minority groups must compare their treatment to that of African Americans in order to gain redress? In this Derrick Bell Lecture, Professor Richard Delgado argues that it does, and that other minorities also fall from time to time into the trap of exceptionalism, placing their own experiences at the center of discussion. Taking as his text a recent chronicle by Derrick Bell, Bluebeard’s Castle, Professor Delgado argues that narrow binary thinking—regardless of the group that engages in it—weakens solidarity, reduces opportunities for coalition, deprives one group of the benefits of the others’ experiences, makes one overly dependent on the approval of the white establishment; and sets one up for ultimate disappointment. The black/white binary, in short is bad for blacks, just as her foolish fixation on the gloomy noble of operatic fame finally doomed Judith, the heroine of Bluebeard’s Castle.