Judicial Philosophy

Our personal beliefs come into play every day when we make decisions. The Supreme Court is responsible for making some of the biggest decisions that shape the nation. A Judges judicial philosophy tends to determine how the individual will vote. Judicial philosophy can be broken down into a few groups. I can look at this and compare the philosophies of the justices of the Supreme Court to determine how exactly this philosophy plays into the rulings that the Supreme Court hands down.

Judicial philosophies are most commonly broken down into three categories. Judicial conservatives tend to make their decisions based upon what the constitution states. They believe that the one should follow the letter of the constitution as it currently stands and that any different interpretation should be added with an amendment. Judicial liberals believe that the constitution is a constantly changing document that is open to a more modern interpretation if need be. Judicial moderates are mixed in their beliefs. I have looked at two recent cases to examine how these philosophies come into play.

The first case I looked at was AT & T Mobility vs. Concepcion. The defendant claimed that AT & T used false advertising when stating that their contracts came with free phones. The voting in the case was 5 to 4. Justices Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito consisted of the majority. It appears that In this case the justices voted in accordance with their judicial philosophy. Each of the majority justices with the exception of Kennedy is conservative and Kennedy is known to have a moderate judicial philosophy.

The second case revolved around school vouchers that were distributed to random students in a failing Cleveland school district. The plaintiffs felt that the choice of schools offered with the vouchers consisted of a majority of faith based schools, and this, they said, violated the first amendment. The ruling in this case came down in a 5 to 4 vote.