Conservatism at the High Court

On the surface, it was a placid term of the U.S. Supreme Court that ended on July 2. The Court handed down 125 opinions, but none of them qualified as a landmark. Nothing came along in criminal law to rank with Mirancia, nothing in the field of civil rights approached Brown v. Board of Education. Even in dissent, none of the Justices made waves.

The surface appearances were deceiving. Some critics have complained that the Court under Chief Justice Warren Earl Burger, like Churchill’s famous pudding, has no theme — but the critics are wrong. Beneath the bland surface lie strong, consistent currents of jurisprudence. The activism that marked the days of Earl Warren, when the Court plunged into seas of political and social controversy, has been replaced by a cautious and respectful conservatism.

JJ

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James Jackson Kilpatrick

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On the surface, it was a placid term of the U.S. Supreme Court that ended on July 2. The Court handed down 125 opinions, but none of them qualified as a landmark. Nothing came along in criminal law to rank with Mirancia, nothing in the field of civil rights approached Brown v. Board of Education. Even in dissent, none of the Justices made waves.

The surface appearances were deceiving. Some critics have complained that the Court under Chief Justice Warren Earl Burger, like Churchill’s famous pudding, has no theme — but the critics are wrong. Beneath the bland surface lie strong, consistent currents of jurisprudence. The activism that marked the days of Earl Warren, when the Court plunged into seas of political and social controversy, has been replaced by a cautious and respectful conservatism.