Bench Memos

Re: Moving the Court Further Left

Like Ed, I agree with Robert Alt that we could do worse than David Souter on the Supreme Court, and it would not be surprising if we did.  But unlike Robert, I cannot applaud the view of Justice Souter (and the Court’s majority in recent years) that incantations over the due process clause can legitimately produce judicially-imposed outer limits on the award of punitive damages.  Here I would agree with Justices Scalia and Thomas, whose view may be less friendly to business interests but is kinder to the poor, beleaguered text of the Constitution.

UPDATE: Please see Mea Maxima Culpa.

Matthew J. Franck is retired from Princeton University, where he was a lecturer in Politics and associate director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He is also a senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, a contributing editor of Public Discourse, and professor emeritus of political science at Radford University.
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