October 15, 2010
Americans are divided in their beliefs about whether our courts operate on unbiased legal principle or political interest. Many wonder whether judicial appeals to law are anything more than a fig leaf deployed to obscure partisan purposes.
Comparing law to the practice of common courtesy, Professor Bybee’s new book argues that our courts not only survive under such suspicions of hypocrisy, but actually depend on these conditions.
Keith Bybee spoke with Brian Lehrer about his newly published book, All Judges Are Political: Except When They Are Not. The interview was broadcast on WCNY and can be accessed by clicking here.
Keith Bybee’s new book, All Judges Are Political – Except When They Are Not was recently featured on by the Stanford University Press, the book is also available for purchase on the site.
September 13, 2010
SCOTUS blogger and Supreme Court litigator, Amy Howe, will be at the College of Law to discuss her insight and perspectives about the current Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Roberts. This event is free and open to the public.
In “Justice by the Numbers,” Amy Bach discusses the inequities and injustices faced by thousands of individuals in America’s courts. Bach argues that creating a “justice index” to show how the key aspects of America’s courts are or are not working.
IJPM Director Keith Bybee discusses the effect of the one-week delay in the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, and how it will continue to allow the competing notions of judicial impartiality and commitment to particular political views to battle it out for priority in the confirmation process.
In the midst of the ongoing confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, Bybee’s piece is a timely commentary on the conflicting demands for judicial impartiality and political ideology.
We live in an age where one person’s judicial “activist” legislating from the bench is another’s impartial arbiter fairly interpreting the law. After the Supreme Court ended the 2000 Presidential election with its decision in Bush v. Gore, many critics claimed that the justices had simply voted their political preferences. But Justice Clarence Thomas, among many others, disagreed and insisted that the Court had acted according to legal principle, stating: “I plead with you, that, whatever you do, don’t try to apply the rules of the political world to this institution; they do not apply.” The legitimacy of our courts rests on their capacity to give broadly acceptable answers to controversial questions. Yet Americans are divided in their beliefs about whether our courts operate on unbiased legal principle or political interest. Comparing law to the practice of common courtesy, Keith Bybee explains how our courts not only survive under these suspicions of hypocrisy, but actually depend on them. Coming in September 2010, All Judges Are Political–Except When They Are Not: Acceptable Hypocrisies and the Rule of Law, will be available from Stanford University Press.
February 15, 2010 – April 26, 2010
The American judicial system today operates in a complex environment of legal principle, political pressure, and media coverage. The separate elements of this complex environment are typically studied by different groups of individuals working from different perspectives. Law faculty tend to focus on legal principle; political scientists examine the influence of politics; and scholars of public communications assess the media.The goal of this lecture series was to serve as an introduction to the court system and its environment as a single, integrated subject of study. The lecture series featured sitting judges, practicing lawyers, and working journalists. Each of the lectures was held in Room 204 at the Syracuse University College of Law from 3:50 p.m. to 5:10 p.m.
February 15, 2010
A conversation with the Honorable Sidney H. Stein, United States District Court Judge, Southern District of New York, about the changing degree of discretion given to federal trial judges in sentencing criminal defendants and the accompanying institutional tensions between the three branches of government.