Justice Anthony Kennedy is retiring a villain to the left.
The editors of National Review and the editors of the Washington Examiner have already taken Kennedy to task for this constitutionally and morally incoherent decision.
It's worth taking an additional minute to think not just about why the reasoning in Casey was so bad but also about how Justice Kennedy came to his decision.
As Jan Crawford reported in her excellent book Supreme Conflict, Kennedy initially sided in conference in 1992 with Justices Rehnquist, Thomas, Scalia, and White to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Casey decision and allow state governments to regulate abortion.
Kennedy wrote to Blackmun: "I need to see you as soon as you have a few free moments. I want to tell you about some developments in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and at least part of what I say should come as welcome news."
The Casey decision revealed that Kennedy wasn't only an imperial justice, he was a capricious one too.
"Sometimes you don't know if you're Caesar crossing the Rubicon or Captain Queeg cutting your own tow line," Kennedy said in an interview with California Lawyer magazine the morning before the Casey decision was announced.
Back in 2012, I tried to gain some insight into how Justice Kennedy changed his mind in that case.
When I asked him about Jan Crawford's book recounting his change of heart in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, all Justice Kennedy would say was: "A, I didn't read it, and B, I wouldn't comment on it if I did."
https://www.weeklystandard.com/john-mccormack/how-anthony-kennedy-changed-his-mind-on-casey-v-planned-parenthood
The editors of National Review and the editors of the Washington Examiner have already taken Kennedy to task for this constitutionally and morally incoherent decision.
It's worth taking an additional minute to think not just about why the reasoning in Casey was so bad but also about how Justice Kennedy came to his decision.
As Jan Crawford reported in her excellent book Supreme Conflict, Kennedy initially sided in conference in 1992 with Justices Rehnquist, Thomas, Scalia, and White to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Casey decision and allow state governments to regulate abortion.
Kennedy wrote to Blackmun: "I need to see you as soon as you have a few free moments. I want to tell you about some developments in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and at least part of what I say should come as welcome news."
The Casey decision revealed that Kennedy wasn't only an imperial justice, he was a capricious one too.
"Sometimes you don't know if you're Caesar crossing the Rubicon or Captain Queeg cutting your own tow line," Kennedy said in an interview with California Lawyer magazine the morning before the Casey decision was announced.
Back in 2012, I tried to gain some insight into how Justice Kennedy changed his mind in that case.
When I asked him about Jan Crawford's book recounting his change of heart in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, all Justice Kennedy would say was: "A, I didn't read it, and B, I wouldn't comment on it if I did."
https://www.weeklystandard.com/john-mccormack/how-anthony-kennedy-changed-his-mind-on-casey-v-planned-parenthood
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