More End of Life Discussions by the Supreme Court.

Thaddeus Pope from Medical Futility Blog leaves us with this note:

Yesterday, Melvin I. Urofsky, Professor of Law & Public Policy; Professor Emeritus of History, Virginia Commonwealth University; and Supreme Court Expert, Holds a News Briefing at the Washington Foreign Press Center on the Kagan confirmation hearings. The following is a brief excerpt from Roll Call:

"We should be asking about end-of-life options. . . . America is an aging nation in a sense. There's a lot of young people, but the -- one of the largest growing cohorts are people in their 80s. And I know that just from some medical issues I've had in the last few years, it is very expensive to have a hip replacement or to have retinal surgery or to have other things. And people in their 80s have more medical issues than do people in their 20s. And he said these are the issues we ought to be asking, because the Court's docket for the next 10, 20, or 30 years is going to be much different than it was for the last 30 years.”

My feminist friends aren't buying it; the "pro-life" groups aren't buying it: and yet I think that Pope and Urofsky are onto something when they ascribe elder/terminal care as the new discussion in coming years. What do you think?

Commonweal Magazine on Baxter v. Montana.

The latest issue of Commonweal features an article by Cathleen Kaveny on what she calls "the other pro-life issue," assisted suicide. Citing the oversight of the New Year's Eve decision on Baxter v. Montana - which states that the state constitution does not prevent assisted suicide - as a result not only of the holiday and the health care debate but an assumption that the decision is not as bad as "pro-life" advocates had feared it would be. She uses the rest of the article - and the usual "judicial activism" complaints - to explain why it is:

But like most states, Montana treats the consent of the victim as a defense to some crimes—unless doing so violates public policy as reflected in state law. Thus the question the Montana Supreme Court set itself in Baxter was whether the physician’s assistance in a patient’s suicide violated the state’s public policy. It answered no, for two reasons, both of which are highly flawed.

First, the majority recognized that in Montana (as elsewhere) public policy does not allow the victim to give legally valid consent to crimes destructive of the person, such as assault. The majority attempted to distinguish this situation from PAS by saying that the public-policy exception applied centrally to “violent, public altercations [that] breach public peace and endanger others in the vicin- ity.” In contrast, it argued, death by PAS is “peaceful and private.”

This line of reasoning fundamentally misconstrues what counts as “private.” Our legal tradition has always recognized that when one member of the commu- nity seriously injures or takes the life of another, it is always an issue of public concern—no matter where it might take place or how serene the action itself might appear. The opinion’s requirement that the consensual attack be “private” and “peaceful” doesn’t hold up under examination. An assault consisting of a consensual strangling in a hotel room won’t spark a riot, nor will the consen- sual smothering of one sleeping spouse by the other. But these are still matters of public concern.

Second, the majority opinion points to Montana law as requiring doctors to withdraw life-sustaining treatment at the request of the patient or surrogate decision-maker. It asks how PAS can be against public policy when withdrawal of treatment isn’t.

There is a significant distinction be- tween a doctor’s respecting the wishes of a patient or surrogate to withhold or withdraw treatment, on the one hand, and assisted suicide and euthanasia on the other, as the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized. Doctors cannot force compe- tent patients to receive treatment they don’t want, no matter what the reason. But that is a far cry from saying they can help patients kill themselves with legal impunity.

Kaveny's conclusion? That "pro-lifers" should be worried. Because the decision now puts the onus to make assisted suicide illegal on the legislature, she fears that a public unwilling to vote for legalized AS might also be unwilling to make it a crime, as any bill would require. She claims that citizens may want to keep the possibility around "just in case." And she tells us that the decision is portable because the same construct of laws in other state constitutions like Montana's could allow aid in dying activists to make the same case elsewhere.

She's right. It wasn't as bad a decision as it could have been. Yet, the "pro-life" machine is incredibly powerful. The types of grassroots work, aided and abetted by powerful Legal Right and Medical Right organizations, has proven effective with initiatives like Proposition 8, for instance.

But I also find the bit in Kaveny's article about privacy to be interesting. Of course Roe v. Wade was decided on the grounds of privacy: that a woman had a right in consultation with her doctor to make the decision about her reproductive future in private. Kaveny then pulls out all the typical "pro-life" arguments against assisted suicide like coercion and financial concerns to scare us into thinking that assisted suicide is not a right, appealing to the state as keeper of laws surrounding murder and other life-ending crimes.

She makes no note of the fact that those who request aid in dying must self-administer the lethal drugs, instead it seems, arguing that doctors who abide by their patients wishes by prescribing the drugs should be liable for prosecution - and that giving such a prescription is very different from those doctors consenting with a patient's wish to not receive artificial treatments or to be removed from such treatments.

There is a firestorm coming to Montana as "pro-life" groups work to pressure state legislators to introduce bills that will render assisted suicide illegal. Abortion may be the primary "pro-life" issue but the battle to prevent legalization of aid in dying will soon focus resources and emotions on the other issue on the platform.

That Judicial Activism.

EJ Dionne takes on judicial activism in his column today at Washington Post.

What is judicial activism? The answer is akin to the one I just posed to a friend on twitter who asked what religion doesn't have superstition built into it: mine. In other words, court opinions (or faiths) that support my viewpoint aren't activist, or at least that's how the ranting goes. Dionne says Alito's mouthing dissent during the State of the Union speech is good; it shows that the court opposes dissenting views, even from the president.

That our judicial branch is established to interpret the constitution means they are to serve a non-biased role, a balance to the executive and legislative branches of government. Yet judges are members of society and are appointed for their politics. We've got a dangerous right-leaning court at the moment, there's no doubt. How to counter their biased decisions with public sentiment is the real issue.

As I said elsewhere recently, laws are only constitutional because they have not been proven unconstitutional. The courts are the keepers of that standard and we're fools to think that the SCOTUS is an objective branch of government.

Alito's inability to restrain himself during the State of the Union address brought to wide attention a truth that too many have tried to ignore: The Supreme Court is now dominated by a highly politicized conservative majority intent on working its will, even if that means ignoring precedents and the wishes of the elected branches of government.

Obama called the court on this, and Alito shook his head and apparently mouthed "not true." His was the honest reaction of a judicial activist who believes he has the obligation to impose his version of right reason on the rest of us.

The controversy also exposed the impressive capacity of the conservative judicial revolutionaries to live by double standards without apology.

The movement's legal theorists and politicians have spent more than four decades attacking alleged judicial abuses by liberals, cheering on the presidents who joined them in their assaults. But now, they are terribly offended that Obama has straightforwardly challenged the handiwork of their judicial comrades.

Implications of Citizens United Ruling for Roe.

A scary report from Politico that asks whether the current Supreme Court, so ready to throw decades-old precedent out the window for corporations, will toss Roe v Wade next:

The Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday overturning a ban on corporate political spending that had been in place for more than a century has left abortion-rights supporters jittery that the justices could be similarly prepared to upend the landmark Roe v. Wade decision the court handed down 37 years ago this week.

“Yesterday’s Roberts court decision, which exhibited a stunning disregard for settled law of decades’ standing, is terrifying to those of us who care deeply about the Constitutional protections the court put in place for women’s access to abortion,” said Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “We are deeply concerned….Yesterday’s decision shows the court will reach out to take an opportunity to wholesale reverse a precedent the hard right has never liked.”

“It is worrisome beyond the direct impact of yesterday’s ruling on election law,” said, Jessica Arons, the director of the Women’s Health and Rights Program at the Center for American Progress. “It’s certainly cause for concern.”

The court’s 5-4 ruling in the Citizens United case Thursday declared unconstitutional a law which has been in place since 1907 barring corporations from involvement in federal elections. Just six years ago, the Supreme Court called the longstanding ban “firmly embedded in our law.” Now, it’s gone.

Primer on the Establishment Clause.

Thanks to Christian News Online, here's a nice, clean primer on the Establishment clause and the Supreme Courts undulating approach to it's interpretation. An excerpt:

Outside the realm of case law, much has been made of President George W. Bush's faith based initiative in 2001 that opened the door to government funding for pervasively Christian and other religious organizations. What gave him the opportunity was a provision of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act passed by President Bill Clinton called charitable choice.

Before charitable choice, the only Christian and other religious organizations to receive government funds disbursed social services via a separate nonprofit organization that they set up solely for that purpose. Since charitable choice, pervasively Christian and other religious organizations have had equal access to federal bids and grants that allow them to provide social services.

Some wondered if charitable choice was constitutional. A Court decision in 1997, Agostini v. Felton, cleared the air even though the case was not about charitable choice. Here Justice O'Connor partially rewrote the Lemon test so that the third prong supplements the second. She added two other qualifiers. Recipients of government funding still must ensure it serves a valid secular purpose and does not advance religion.

But to satisfy the "does not advance religion" prong, they must only ensure that the aid:

• is not being used for religious indoctrination
• defines the eligibility of participating organizations without regard to religion
• does not create excessive government entanglement

From the time of Everson, the Court had demanded that government funding for Christian and other religious organizations be indirect. Agostini, however, suggested that direct aid could be okay.

When Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed into law the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, the executive and legislative branches approved charitable choice and direct aid to Christian and other religious organizations.

President Barack Obama shows no signs of disapproval. The accomadationist tendencies in our government will continue into the foreseeable future -- at least until separationist justices replace accomadationist justices on the High Court. The period since Charitable Choice and the faith Based Initiative has now ingrained the accomadationist perspective into government grant funding programs.

New Supreme Court Ruling on Campaign Finance.

Don't miss Jeff Zeleny's blog post at the NYTimes on today's disastrous ruling on campaign finance. With this decision, the corporate buying of candidates has gone from terrible to worse. Zeleny writes:

Today’s ruling upends the nation’s campaign finance laws, allowing corporations and labor unions to spend freely on behalf of political candidates. With less than 11 months before the fall elections, the floodgates for political contributions will open wide, adding another element of intrigue to the fight for control of Congress.

At first blush, Republican candidates would seem to benefit from this seismic change in how political campaigns are conducted in America. The political environment – an angry, frustrated electorate seeking change in Washington – was already favoring Republicans. Now corporations, labor unions and a host of other organizations can weigh in like never before.

But the populist showdown that was already brewing – President Obama on Thursday sought to limit the size of the nation’s banks – will surely only intensify by the Supreme Court’s ruling. The development means that both sides will have even louder megaphones to make their voices and viewpoints heard.

Mr. Obama issued a statement – a rare instance of a president immediately weighing in on a ruling from the high court – and said his administration would work with Congressional leaders “to develop a forceful response to this decision.”

“With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics,” Mr. Obama said. “It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

Republicans, of course, hailed the ruling as a victory for the First Amendment.

The Courts and Patients' Rights.

All morning, in my admittedly naive way, I've been thinking about the courts' approach to the Establishment clause. This train starts in my formation - nee, dream - of a patients' rights coalition that encompasses disability, elder, women's and LGBT rights and fellow-travelers, all focused on ridding medical delivery of the ideologically-motivated discrimination that now exists in our care delivery culture.

From contrived "ethical," pseudoscience, "secular" arguments against abortion to discrimination of "others" like the poor, the gay, the disabled, I see the legislature entertaining the powerful "pro-life" lobby with laws that blatantly discriminate against minority groups.

The recent court decision in Montana to legalize aid in dying only went half way toward guaranteeing patients' a choice in how they die - all but inviting the legislature to step in and create the laws the court found to not exist.

And yet, the third branch of government has at times stepped up to it's challenge of interpreting the constitution without pressure from religious groups, the legislature, media bias, the executive branch, or "traditional" mores.

I've got google alerts set on a host of topics. Each morning my inbox is loaded down with news items that pertain to "euthanasia," "separation of church and state," "Establishment clause," and other key phrases. I just received a heartening link to a story on "terri schiavo," the Florida woman who was removed from artificial nutrition and hydration according to her husband's wishes and the ruling of one Florida judge - despite massive, exhausting, distorting pressure from the Bush administration, the media, "pro-life" groups, the Catholic Church, and state legislature.

David Hancock wrote for CBS News on March 31, 2005, the day Terri Schiavo died:

Forget Michael Schiavo and Bob Schindler. Forget the earnest protestors and the solemn hospice workers. Forget the dopey politicians and the greasy media consultants. Forget the angry preachers and the smug doctors. In the end, in my opinion, the only true unvarnished hero in the recent "legal" phase of the Terri Schiavo saga is 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stanley F. Birch, Jr. He is truly a profile in courage.

After his "special concurrence" in the Schiavo case Wednesday, Judge Birch is a hero to all of us who believe that the courts can rise and stay above cheap politics - and that the hypocrisy and demagoguery and self-interest that fuels the other two branches of government still can be neutralized when it comes into our courts of law.

He is a hero to all of us who hoped during the past fortnight of argument and appeals that the federal courts would determine this case in a nonpartisan, non-ideological way. He is a hero to all of us who wanted the courts to beat back this brazen power-grab by the other two branches.

I'm not naive enough to think that court judges are outside society; of course their appointments and efficacy are dependent on their political affiliation, their religious stance, public opinion, who appoints them, and the direct pressures of the "other two branches." As a society, we often fool ourselves into thinking that judges and justices have more objectivity than they really do - as if we need to believe in an uninfluenced, higher authority that can mediate the differing demands of various segments of society.

Hancock calls Judge Birch a hero, but really, he was doing his job: applying existing laws, legal precedent, and the strictures of the constitution to an emotional case that often got lost in the fabrications and exaggerations of various groups in society. Hancock reminds us of how uncommon it is that judges are unhampered in their decisions by outside forces:

"In resolving the Schiavo controversy," Judge Birch wrote, "it is my judgment that, despite sincere and altruistic motivation, the legislative and executive branches of our government have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for the governance of a free people - our Constitution."

Because the special legislation passed by Congress and signed by President Bush "constitutes legislative dictation of how a federal court should exercise its judicial functions (known as a 'rule of decision') the Act invades the province of the judiciary and violates the seperation of powers principle." To hold otherwise, Judge Birch concluded, would be to act in a manner consistent with the label "activist judge." Touché.

Judge Birch was appointed in 1990 by the first President Bush. Because he is a Republican appointee, and a judge who is generally viewed as a solid conservative jurist, his voice carries with greater force in this debate. It carries the word that what happened here in this case was so beyond the pale, so extralegal, that even political and jurisprudential opposites on the bench could agree that it was terribly wrong and had to be blocked.

A Clinton appointee could not have spoken with such legal and political and moral force in this case. It would have come off as too obvious; too predictable. It took a brave judge appointed by the current president's father to call the current president to task for trying to pull a fast one on the overarching concept we have in this country known as the separation of governmental power.

So Judge Birch is a hero and he is now a symbol. Of all of the federal judges who were forced - literally forced - by Congress and President Bush to give special treatment to the Schindlers, only Judge Birch spoke up and called it like he saw it.

Without overwhelming public support for his decision (CBS and ABC polls at the time showed that a majority of Americans - from 70 to 82% - opposed executive and legislative "meddling" in the case, 8 in 10 said they would not want to be kept alive), I wonder if Birch would have had the heroism to stand up to these outside forces.

Which brings me back to my coalition for patients' rights: if the case for non-demoninational, non-discriminatory, un-biased health care were made by such a broad coalition, would the public be motivated to support judges who stood up to "pro-life," Catholic, executive branch, legislative branch, and media forces?

Would the medical industry be forced to drop it's staunch opposition to government regulation? Would "pro-life" groups be forced to end their "mission" of ideological health care for all? Would the powerful Catholic health care behemoth, the second largest provider of health care in the country, relinquish it's overzealous use of federal funds to discriminate against marginalized patients?

Hyde, Church, Coats, Weldon, the Bush "conscience clause" all exist not because they are constitutional but because they have not yet been proven unconstitutional, despite their discriminatory favoring of ideology in medicine. As our health care system continues to implode, one can only hope the public and more judges like Birch start to take notice.

The Fight for Patients' Rights.

Why does the US still not have a bill of patients' rights that guarantees equal, affordable access to scientifically-proven, effective medical services?

Because patients' rights advocates fall into a number of devoted, diligent but uncoordinated and underfunded groups:

Disability rights

LGBT rights

Medical Marijuana rights

Women's reproductive rights

End of life/Elder rights

Minority rights

And because they are fighting resource-rich, organized, powerful opponents which, despite their disparagement of "elitists" or "intellectuals," inhabit and influence the halls of government in an unprecedented way:

The medical industry has strongly fought any patients' rights bill introduced in legislation. Over the past dozen years, more than 5 bills have been defeated. They have spent vast amounts of money to prevent government protection of individual and group rights; they oppose regulation at all levels.

The church, both the Catholic and Fundamentalist/Evangelical Right has spent the years since Roe v. Wade (when they allied around the common goal of imposing "traditional values" on our pluralistic society) building their unified "pro-life" effort. Pro-life means everything the ideological right is against, from women's reproductive services to aid in dying, from marijuana rights to gay equality. These organizations enjoy tax-exempt status, have been brought into government to provide social services, and are not required to register as lobbyists when they work to influence legislation.

The state has refused to look at patients' rights as an Establishment Clause issue, preferring to, when it does protect rights, use the rights to privacy. Even the Supreme Courts rulings on Establishment clause grounds (predominantly in the area of schools and public property) have been unpredictable.

Until opposition to patients' rights by industry and the church are recognized for what they are - unregulated capitalism and discrimination - corporations, medical associations and religious ideology will continue to shape how medicine is delivered.

Proposition 8, The Mormon Church, and the Constitution.

From First Amendment Coalition, this story over the legal battle to prove that the campaign to vote yes on 8 was discriminatory. Call me cynical but it seems that the law should be declared discriminatory, not just the campaign.

The proof of discrimination seems obvious (Uh, funded by the Mormon church to the tune of millions of dollars so that gays can't, you know, have the right to marriage), but not to the federal appeals court in SF which is asked, on First Amendment grounds, to decide whether documents by proponents of the law can be viewed or not. It seems a strange route to declaring a law unconstitutional. But it might set precedent on how churches (now allowed to lobby without registering as lobbyists) engage in politics. I'd love to see their tax-exempt status go away. Bring on the IRS!

I've been talking about discrimination and religion a lot this week with regard to patients' rights, looking at how clauses like Coats, Wheldon, Church and others are allowed to stand when the backers of them are clearly religiously motivated, when what the laws impose is clearly religiously motivated.

The problem, as I understand it, is that access to abortion under Roe v. Wade was determined on the grounds of patient privacy, not religious discrimination, as have been subsequent challenges to restrictions on sterilizations, contraception, emergency contraception, etc. The court has since repeatedly shied away from looking at access-reducing clauses (such as the provider refusal (conscience clause) the Bush Administration thrust on us last December (now suspended by the Obama Administration, to be reconsidered or, hopefully rescinded, god knows when) in light of religious discrimination.

I can see the courts being unwilling to ascribe a legal definition to when life begins. What I can't see is ignoring the clearly religious discrimination forced on women every time a new avenue of reproductive services access is denied. Free speech or privacy have had to carry the water in these suits. Few justices at any level wants to touch them.

The case on Proposition 8 is the same, only the reason for opposition to gay marriage - discrimination - is being skirted in a suit for documents which the court considers a violation of the First Amendment. How obtuse?!

While it may not be politically popular to address the encroachment of religion on patients' rights (or gay, elder, disability or others' rights) it will have to be done. And soon. I'm hoping for a big fat loud challenge to the new Ethical and Religious Directive established by the Catholic Church at all of their 600 hospitals that patients can neither deny nor request removal from artificial nutrition and hydration. I want some tough old lady to stand up and say - do not force feed me bishops!

Already courts are addressing separation of church and state issues at schools where strong anti-discriminatory policies are preventing student groups from demanding certain beliefs of members. How about a little equality!?

A federal appeals court in San Francisco has reversed a judge’s order that backers of Proposition 8, the state initiative that banned same-sex marriage, give their campaign strategy documents to opponents trying to overturn the measure.

In a unanimous ruling Friday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals tossed out the order that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker issued in October against backers of Prop. 8, which state voters approved in November 2008.

Walker had said lawyers for two same-sex couples and a gay-rights group were entitled to see internal memos and e-mails between Yes on 8 strategists to look for evidence that the campaign had exploited prejudice against gays and lesbians.

The plaintiffs are trying to show that the measure was discriminatory and thus unconstitutional.

Prop. 8 sponsors argued that their discussions were constitutionally protected and that Walker’s order would discourage candid communications in political campaigns. The three-judge appeals court panel unanimously agreed.

“The freedom to associate with others for the common advancement of political beliefs and ideas lies at the heart of the First Amendment,” Judge Raymond Fisher wrote for the court. Prop. 8 proponents, he said, had shown that turning over the documents “would likely have a chilling effect on political association and the formulation of political expression.”

The court had suspended Walker’s order last week and signaled that it intended to reverse it.

The trial over the lawsuit is still scheduled to begin Jan. 11 in San Francisco.

Discrimination and the Establishment Clause.

This week the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that challenges public funding at a university for student groups that discriminate against gays.

Now if only the Supreme Court would consider patients' rights as an Establishment Clause issue.

I digress. It should prove to be an interesting case. You can read more about it here (at FindLaw, my new favorite site) and here's a clip:

The University of California, Hastings College of the Law ("Hastings"), like other American law schools, has anon-discrimination policy that forbids discrimination on the basis of "race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex, or sexual orientation." Hastings applies this policy to its own admissions decisions and programs, as well as to student groups. As a condition of receiving official recognition--a prerequisite for access to certain law school facilities, and for eligibility for funding--student organizations must themselves adhere to the Hastings non-discrimination policy. As the policy is implemented, that means that student groups must admit as a member any student who wishes to join.

The anti-discrimination policy came into conflict with a policy of the Hastings branch of the Christian Legal Society ("CLS"), a student group that requires all of its members to pledge to uphold, among other things, "biblical principles of sexual morality." As interpreted by CLS, those principles forbid "unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle." Although CLS contended in its successful petition for review to the Supreme Court that this policy forbids a variety of practices, including, for example, adultery, the controversy at Hastings, as at other law schools where the CLS has clashed with student-group recognition rules, concerns sexual orientation.

After Hastings withdrew funding for CLS based on its failure to abide by the non-discrimination policy, CLS sued. The law school prevailed in both the district court and the appeals court. Who wins in the Supreme Court will likely depend on how the Justices read two lines of First Amendment cases.

Supreme Court Asks, "When Is The Best Time To Kill Someone?"

Oh that Clarence Thomas! Working hard every day to ensure that the state's right to impose suffering on subjects is not impeded by silly, liberal, humane Stevens.

What's that I hear? Crickets? No church standing up for the sanctity of life? No doctors protesting the mental and physical abuse? Or the method of torture used? Oh, that's right. INNOCENT life is sacred. Glad God's allowed to be the judge of that one.

Stevens said he remained “steadfast” in his view that execution after such delay is unacceptably cruel because it subjects death row inmates to decades of severe, dehumanizing conditions of confinement. Delaying an execution, he added, also does not further the public purposes of retribution and deterrence.

Justice Clarence Thomas, in a spirited response, said Johnson spent 29 years challenging his conviction and sentence and “now contends that the very proceedings he used to contest his sentence should prohibit the state from carrying it out.”

Thomas said Stevens first proposed his “novel” Eighth Amendment argument 14 years ago. There was no support for the argument then and there is no support now, wrote Thomas.

Noting Stevens’ dissent and his criticism last week of states executing inmates before their appeals process has concluded, Thomas added, “In Justice Stevens’ view, it seems the state can never get the timing just right.” The reason, he said, is that Stevens believes the death penalty is wrong.

“But that is where he deviates from the Constitution and where proponents of his view are forced to find their support in precedent from the `European Court of Human Rights, the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe, the Supreme Court of India, or the Privy Council.’”

There are alternatives to current procedural safeguards, added Thomas. As Blackstone observed, he said, the principle that punishment should follow the crime as early as possible was expressed in an English statute decreeing that “in case of murder, the judge shall in his sentence direct execution to be performed, on the next day but one after sentence passed.”

Thomas wrote, “I have no doubt that such a system would avoid the diminishing justification problem Justice Stevens identifies, but I am equally confident that such a system would find little support from this Court.”

via HarryAllen on twitter.

Toobin on O'Connor and the Supreme Court.

The Brown Daily Herald reports on a speech given by Jeffrey Toobin, author of 2007 book The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.

On issues ranging from the death penalty to gay rights to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the Court in the first part of the decade narrowly sided with the liberals, due in part to O’Connor’s new voting patterns, Toobin said.

O’Connor was alienated by many of the policies instituted by President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft, Toobin said, but one case had a particular impact on her: Terri Schiavo.

O’Connor was unhappy in 2003 when Congress suddenly became involved in the issue of who determined the rights regarding the woman, who was in a persistent vegetative state. O’Connor thought Congress’ move challenged judicial independence, and was also affected personally because her husband was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, Toobin said.

In 2005, O’Connor retired because of her husband’s failing health and Chief Justice William Rehnquist died, leaving two seats for Bush to fill with justices “in the mold of” Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — Roberts and Alito.

This week, O'Connor publicly commented that some of the decisions made by the court while she was on the bench "are now being dismantled." Liberals found this as proof that even the conservative O'Connor disapproved of the direction the court was heading in. Yet her quote was less than an indictment: "What would you feel? I'd be a little bit disappointed. If you think you've been helpful, and then it's dismantled, you think, 'Oh, dear.' But life goes on. It's not always positive."

Other's have said this elsewhere: If she were so concerned about the conservative direction of the Supreme Court, she wouldn't have retired in 2005 during George Bush's term.

An Overview of the Supreme Court This Session.

The conservative majority in the Supreme Court is expected to have their way with a number of high-impact cases this session. Write reporters at ThinkProgress:

This term, several cases will show whether the justices still believe that unyielding rigidity is a substitute for justice.

via AlterNet.