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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (83170)	11/21/2000 9:22:25 AM
From: SecularBull	Respond to of 769670

This is a widely acclaimed and respected bench. That is a widely claimed and reiterated perspective. LoF

To: TigerPaw who wrote (83170)	11/21/2000 11:19:54 AM
From: Carl R.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

What I mean is that they aren't going to follow precedent or pay much attention to the way the statutes are written. Instead they are going to focus on what they think is "fair". A story from the 60's about noted liberal US Supreme Court Justice Douglass is that someone told him to do "justice", to which he responded that it wasn't his job to do "justice", but only to interpret the constitution. There are two approaches that the Florida SC could take here, and it will be interesting to see which one they choose. The first approach would be to simply issue no reason for their decision. One of the problems with dealing with making things up as you go is that you create precedents that can cause problems in the future, after all, bad law is bad law. If you give no reason for a decision you limit this effect because the decision is limited to the specific facts and is easy to distinguish from other factual circumstances that may arise. Alternatively the courts may use some tortured logic to explain why the clear language of the statute should not apply. This approach though has two risks. First of all, as mentioned above it can lead to some precedents that are uncomfortable in the future. The other problem is that if they explain their reasons, it makes it easier for the US Supreme Court to overrule them, should they choose to do so. (Note that I hope that the US Supreme Court does not get involved, regardless of what action the Florida Supreme Court takes.) Normally I would expect that to avoid future problems the Florida SC would choose the first alternative and that they would issue a very short decision with little or no explanation of their logic. Because of the fact that they will have to reverse a decision and impose a permanent injunction on Harris I think they will have to issue a bit more of an order than they would like, so we shall see. As to whether or not the Florida Supreme Court is "widely acclaimed and respected", I guess that depends on who you ask. I'm sure plaintiffs' attorneys love them. Carl