Live, from New York, it's the Supreme Court meme.

[e_juliana]

As evidenced by Katie Couric, Sarah Palin is unable to name any Supreme Court case other than Roe v. Wade.

The Rules: Post info about ONE Supreme Court decision, modern or historic to your lj. (Any decision, as long as it's not Roe v. Wade.) For those who see this on your f-list, take the meme to your OWN lj to spread the fun. (If you wish, of course.)

Go forth, and edumacate!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just one? Okay, let's try Marbury vs. Madison.

(from Wikipedia) Marbury vs. Madison resulted from a petition to the Supreme Court by William Marbury, who had been appointed as Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia by President John Adams shortly before leaving office, but whose commission was not delivered as required by John Marshall, Adams' Secretary of State. When Thomas Jefferson assumed office, he ordered the new Secretary of State, James Madison, to withhold Marbury's and several other men's commissions. Being unable to assume the appointed offices without the commission documents, Marbury and three others petitioned the Court to force Madison to deliver the commission to Marbury. The Supreme Court denied Marbury's petition, holding that the statute upon which he based his claim was unconstitutional.

M vs. M is generally thought to be the foundation of the modern interpretation of judicial review. The decision is below:

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department [the judicial branch] to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. So if a law [e.g., a statute or treaty] be in opposition to the constitution: if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law: the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

If then the courts are to regard the constitution; and the constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature; the constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.

Those then who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law [e.g., the statute or treaty].

This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions.

(EDIT: Palin is unable to name any SCOTUS decision she disagrees with. Okay, that still leaves a lot of cases, most notably the Exxon Valdez case that was decided this past year. Hell, she might still disagree with M v. M. I know a few libertarians who do.)

Comments

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

Hey, that sounds familiar from history class. Oh, yeah, I think we were supposed to, like, repeat "Marbury vs. Madison, judicial review" over and over. What about Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka? Everyone knows that one! And Scopes vs. Monkeys...or whatever the real name was. There are lots of famous trials!

Oops, the Scopes Monkey Trial was a state court.

[e-juliana.livejournal.com]

I thought about Brown v. Board, but Marbury v. Madison has become more... important? Not that B v. B isn't, but the current resident of the white house has sort of tried to toss out judicial review among other things.