Quantifying the Contours of Power: Chief Justice Roberts & Justice Kennedy in Criminal Justice Cases

This Article seeks to contribute to the debate with an empirical analysis of voting behavior in criminal justice cases decided during the first ten Terms of the Roberts Court era. The following section presents the study’s case selection and introduces the types of measures used to illuminate influence on the High Court (Part II). Court- and individual-level tendencies (Part III) identify potential spheres of influence occupied by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy. These bases of judicial power are examined separately in Part IV (Chief Justice Roberts) and Part V (Justice Kennedy). Some possible implications of Justice Scalia’s death on these power bases are addressed in Part VI

Justice Roberts’ America

Less than a week after the Roberts Court issued its decision in National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius, Jeffrey Toobin, writing in The New Yorker, compared the first part of Chief Justice John Roberts\u27s opinion, in which he found that the Commerce Clause did not authorize Congress to enact the individual mandate section of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that requires all individuals to buy health insurance, with an Ayn Rand screed, noting that the pivotal sections of the argument were long on libertarian rhetoric but short on citations of authority. Roberts held (although held might be stating it too strongly) that the Commerce Clause does not authorize Congress to regulate the inactivity of individuals—the act of not buying health insurance—even if that inactivity impacts interstate commerce. Rather, the Clause only authorizes congressional regulation where there is some activity of a commercial nature there to be regulated. Injecting a dose of libertarian and individualist thinking more typically associated with the Lochner-era\u27s substantive due process jurisprudence into Commerce Clause reasoning, Roberts argued that the inactivity of not buying insurance is tantamount to doing nothing, and doing nothing cannot be characterized as commercial activity even if it has a commercial impact

The Influence of Canadian Investment on U.S. Residential Property Values

This study is an examination of the impact of foreign investors on an American residential real estate market. Point Roberts, Washington, a real estate market that is dominated by Canadians, is the focus of the analysis. Utilizing a ten-year database of home sales, the empirical analysis suggests that the Canadian/U.S. dollar exchange rate and market conditions in nearby Vancouver, British Columbia, strongly influence Point Roberts residential property price levels. A rising Canadian dollar seems to motivate increased demand for Point Roberts property by Canadian investors, for example. The sensitivity of real estate prices to exchange-rate changes appears to be a three-to-six-month lagged function. In general, it appears that a higher Canadian dollar will increase the Canadian demand for Point Roberts real estate which, in turn, leads to higher transaction prices. In addition, transaction prices in Point Roberts are slightly more volatile than are prices in the Vancouver market.

Memories of inauthenticity: Stiegler and the lost spirit of capitalism

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Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Tax Opinions

Judge Sonia Sotomayor has written three published opinions on federal taxation, one as a District Court judge and two as a Court of Appeals judge. Two of the opinions deal with routine matters and are unremarkable in the sense that it is difficult to imagine the cases coming out any other way. Her third opinion, however, in William L. Rudkin Testamentary Trust v. Commissioner, 467 F.3d 149 (2d Cir. 2006), aff\u27d sub nom. Knight v. Commissioner, 552 U.S. 181, 128 S. Ct. 782 (2008), generated a sharp difference of opinion with Chief Justice Roberts. Although Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the Supreme Court, affirmed the result in this third opinion, he criticized Judge Sotomayor’s reasoning (despite the fact that both the Solicitor General and the Department of the Treasury had endorsed it) and offered instead a different rationale. After a careful reading, I find the rationale of Judge Sotomayor’s opinion as least as valid as, and probably preferable to, that of Chief Justice Roberts. I also find Chief Justice Roberts’ criticism of Judge Sotomayor’s rationale logically flawed and therefore unwarranted

Auguries by Clea Roberts

Review of Clea Roberts\u27 Auguries