In his joint article with Oleg Smirnov, "Drift, Draft, or Drag: How the Supremes React to New Members," Smith takes an even closer look at the Supreme Court and the history of its political (or interpretive) makeup. Specifically, these authors find that the Court counter-balances changes to its ideological makeup through the addition of new members by changes in the overall interpretative stances of opposing justices -- the addition of more liberal justices results in conservative justices becoming more conservative, and the addition of conservative justices leads to more liberal thinking on the part of liberal justices. This view sees the Supreme Court and courts in general as an essentially political body, just like any other political body at work in the federal government or at other levels of government within any given society, whether past or present.
A Mediation of Theories and Practice
Though the three theories briefly described above approach the issue of court function and behavior from very different angles, they are also quite heavily interrelated, commenting on and informing each other as well as raising some points of disagreement. Smith and Smirnov's assertion that the Supreme Court is essentially a political body can be seen as a direct modern example of Shapiro's assertion that the replacement of direct consent with laws leads to destabilization and politicization of the judicial process. Considering that Justices are appointed by an individual elected by what is usually a fairly slim proportion of voters (and is almost never a majority of voting-eligible citizens), it is hardly surprising that some might feel as though...
Court Service Management How does a court system cope with a changing of the guard when a new administration is elected and key executives and managers are replaced, and/or when policy changes direction as a new political party assumes power? The court deals with transitions of power by maintaining the established traditions and principles from the Constitution. This is used to ensure that case precedent is respected and to provide stability for
Court Management Policy Proposal The retributive and rehabilitative approaches of justice are dominant, and research suggests that they have disappointed the juvenile legal system. The rise in youth crime and critiques of the juvenile legal approaches has led to demands for reforms in the way of charging youth offenders. The retributive approach of justice suggests that juvenile offenses are violations against the state and holds the state accountable for sentencing youth
Court Systems The structure and platform on which the legal system is based upon is very important in understanding the total landscape of how justice is carried out within the confines of the government. The purpose of this essay is to explore the inner workings of both the federal and state court systems and highlight their similarities and differences. Also, this essay will investigate the roles of court administrators in the
Court System The basic structure of the United States legal system comes from the Constitution. Constitutions are living documents that lay down principles and rules, as well as overall functions of how law should be used within society. Constitutions tend to be macro in scope, in that they define responsibilities between the three organs of U.S. Government (Judicial, Legislature and Executive). Laws are individual (micro) edicts that are made to define
But if Houston insisted that Plessy be enforced that is, if the NAACP sued a state to make its schools for black children equal to those for whites which Plessy did require then he could undermine segregation. (Jomills Henry Braddock. A Long-Term View of School Desegregation: Some Recent Studies of Graduates as Adults. Phi Delta Kappan. 259-61. 1984) He reasoned that states would either have to build new schools for
Systems Theory makes several assumptions that are useful for understanding the 14-year-old's behavior: The state or condition of a system, at any one point in time, is a function of the interaction between it and the environment in which it operates." (Longres, 1999, p. 19) Change and conflict are always evident in a system. Individuals both influence their environments and are influenced by them. Processes of mutual influence generate change and development."
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