I'm not sure what to make of the claim that the dissent by Justice Stevens was one of his most "idiosyncratic" opinions ever written.
It's Todd Zywicki of the Volokh Conspiracy who makes this stupefying claim, and I trust he's read more Steven's opinions than I. However, I think that if you read a good sampling of Justice Stevens opinion you'll see that he often leaves his ideology for idiosyncratic reasons.
If you want a much better example of this you need to look no further than Nguyen v. INS where Stevens essentially gives up all of his constitutional beliefs for the belief that male soldiers ought to be able to bang whatever women they want when they're abroad without worrying about the consequences.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Todd, really?
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2 Comments:
Isn't Nguyen vs INS a Kennedy opinion? In the link you have, it looks like a Kennedy opinion, a Scalia concurrence, and an O'Connor dissent.
By 
, at
7:21 PM, May 18, 2005
It is a Kennedy opinion that is a great one to cite to the people who wrongheadedly believe Kennedy is a liberal justice.
However, the dissent is O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer. Who is missing in the dissent? Stevens signs onto Kennedy's ridiculous opinion. Why? I'm not exactly sure, but if you listen to the oral arguments it seems that he's really concerned about soldiers fighting abroad.
I know that Martha Davis, who argued this before the Supreme Court on Nguyen's side didn't even address much of her argument to Steven's because he was already considered a lost cause. If that isn't idiosyncricacy then I don't know what is...
By , at
7:55 PM, May 18, 2005
