Date: November 12th, 2015 8:55 AM
Author: abnormal voyeur meetinghouse
What do you make of these conclusions:
The judicial statistics suggest that Chief Justice Roberts has the
same proclivity toward institutional messaging through opinion assignments.
Not just in closely divided cases,216 but more broadly, the
Chief regularly assigns opinions to “liberal” Justices in cases in which
the public might consider the outcome “conservative” and to “conservative”
Justices in cases in which the public might consider the outcome
“liberal.” For example, Justice Stevens wrote the Court opinions
upholding voter identification laws217 and rejecting altogether a claim
for damages against Shell for hazardous waste contamination;
Justice Ginsburg
wrote the opinion overturning a lower court ruling in favor of environmentalists
suing power plants for contributing to climate change;220
and Justice Breyer authored the opinion limiting a tobacco company’s
liability for punitive damages to a smoker who died of lung cancer.221
On the other side of the ledger, the Chief Justice assigned himself
the opinions upholding state campaign finance limitations on judicial
candidates,222 rejecting prosecutors’ claim that police may search the
digital information on a cell phone without a warrant,223 and, of
course, preserving the viability of President Obama’s Affordable Care
Act by allowing federal subsidies to extend to states with federal insurance
exchanges;224 Justice Scalia wrote the opinions for the Court
overturning a conviction based on the admission of evidence obtained
from a GPS device without a warrant,225 and in favor of an employee’s
claim of discrimination based on disparate treatment;226 and Justice
Alito wrote the Court’s opinion in favor of a Muslim inmate’s right to
grow a beard in accordance with his religious beliefs.227
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3042701&forum_id=2#29165697)