Posts Tagged ‘Robert Jackson’
This Day in History: West Virginia v. Barnette
The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization. To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.
Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)
The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America.
The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous. He can have citizens investigated and, if he is that kind of person, he can have this done to the tune of public statements and veiled or unveiled intimations. Or the prosecutor may choose a more subtle course and simply have a citizen’s friends interviewed…. He may dismiss the case before trial, in which case the defense never has a chance to be heard…. If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants….[A] prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone….It is in this realm—in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal….
Attorney General (later Justice)Robert Jackson (1940), quoted in Kenneth Culp Davis, Discretionary Justice
The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon
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Written by David Kaib
January 30, 2014 at 11:03 pm
Posted in Submitted without comment
Tagged with Legitimation, Robert Jackson, Supreme Court, Toyosaburo Korematsu