jmatonak

When you see this, post a little weensy excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.

I wanted to write The Rani drunk.

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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.

I have something of a reputation as a "Supreme Court geek" amongst (some of) my friends, so I felt obligated to do this meme. :)

I'm having real trouble deciding amongst three cases. Two of them (Ex parte Milligan and West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, affirm the propositions (respectively) that no one person, even a president, is above the law; but some fundamental freedoms are not subject to majority vote. I've quoted from those opinions in this LJ before. Therefore, for today, the winner is...

Griswold v. Connecticut, a case from the 60s which marks the only time I am aware of that any justice has held that the Ninth Amendment is more than a "mere truism". Justices are usually loathe to admit the Ninth Amendment- "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people"- means anything, presumably because no one likes the idea of every criminal defendant asserting some screwy "right" to rob liquor stores or something. The case was about contraception and Justice Goldberg found a right to family planning among the rights "retained by the people." (Earl Warren joined in Goldberg's opinion.)

Goldberg's opinion is just a concurrence. The opinion of the Court marks the origin of the "right to privacy" found in the "emanations and penumbras" of the various amendments. The idea of "penumbras" is kind of cheesy- it means that the amendments are held to say things they don't actually say- but also unavoidable in some ways. For example, the First Amendment freedom of speech necessarily implies a freedom of conscience- if I am free to assert a political proposition, I must be free to believe it. In Douglas' majority opinion, the amendments combine, like a constitutional Voltron, to produce effects together that none of them produces alone.

So Griswold itself isn't actually held, as a matter of precedent, to say that the Ninth Amendment means anything. I really like that idea, though. The Ninth Amendment should mean something.

When you see this in your LJ, quote the Doctor.

The Doctor: It's either Romana... or Fred!
-- The Ribos Operation (1978)

It's a tough choice.