CELEBRATION OF JUSTICE STEVENS “AS SIMPLE AS CAN BE” | Kagan Honors Stevens In Remarks At The Court | What A Lack Of Diversity Does To Our Justice System
July 23, 2019
SIMPLE AS CAN BE
|That’s how Brian Naylor and Nina Totenberg with NPR describe yesterday’s ceremony at the Supreme Court celebrating the life of JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS. “Justice Stevens, always a modest man, wanted no grand memorial service. So the understated event was televised on C-SPAN, but only the court, Stevens’ former law clerks, his family, and the court press corps were invited to attend. There were just two speakers at the event: Navy chaplain Judy Malana, who spoke of Stevens’ World War II service, service for which he won the Bronze star; and JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN.” They note that Kagan was chosen to speak for the court because she was appointed to succeed Stevens in 2010.
A LIFE WELL-LIVED
|“If ever there were a case where a funeral should become a celebration of a life well-lived, this is that case. JUSTICE STEVENS lived a long life. He lived a great and important and influential life, and he lived a life of integrity and kindness and decency and service.” Those were the words of JUSTICE KAGAN yesterday in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court. Jess Bravin with The Wall Street Journal reports, “Whatever colleagues or critics thought of his jurisprudence, however, they were all but unanimous in celebrating the late justice as embodying a traditional Midwestern decency. That was evident by the visit of PRESIDENT TRUMP and first lady MELANIA TRUMP to pay their respects, despite Justice Stevens having voiced concerns over the administration’s refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas.”
A CRISIS OF LEGITIMACY
|Alicia Bannon and Laila Robbins with the Brennan Center for Justice argue in The New York Times that a lack of diversity among the nation’s top state courts “creates a legitimacy crisis for the justice system.” These courts continue to be overwhelmingly white and male, and they hear 95% of all cases filed in the United States. They write, “Those courts decide some of the most pressing issues affecting our lives. In recent years, state supreme courts have reversed billion-dollar verdicts in consumer protection cases, authorized executions using experimental drugs, barred localities from regulating fracking and struck down restrictive abortion laws. But seldom do these courts look anything like an increasingly diverse America.”
GAME CHANGER
|For New York Magazine, Ed Kilgore explains how the political map of America will shift after the 2020 Census now that the Supreme Court has weighed in on partisan gerrymandering and the citizenship question. He notes, “While the redistricting process is incredibly complex, and its trajectory will depend on election results in 2019 and in 2020, we now have some clarity in the congressional reapportionment part of the decennial adjustment, which is conducted by the House itself.”