The Supreme Court’s overturning of the death sentence in Smith v. Texas is an apt example of how activist judges subvert popular will (see my previous post on this subject). The point here is not that the majority opinion is incorrect on the merits, although it is for the reasons ably stated by the four dissenters. The point is to illustrate how, little by little, and under the pretense of restraint, major issues of public policy are being decided by the courts instead of by the elected branches.

No fair reading of the record in Smith v. Texas leaves any doubt that the defendant […]

John Armor performs a crucial service with his three recent blog entries about liberals’ use of the courts to counteract democratic self-rule (see John’s article today about the Supreme Court opinion in Smith v. Texas, and his two articles about the “ACLU Against Wisconsin”). Ostensibly, the articles have different subjects: The article about the Texas case discusses adjudicating capital punishment, and the articles about Wisconsin discuss efforts by allies of the losing candidate (and of the ACLU) effectively to reverse the outcome of a judicial election. In fact, the articles bring great insight to the same pernicious development, i.e., the role of liberals in […]