The Legal Speaker and Writer at the New Millennium, with an Application to Justice Souter

Weisberg, Richard

doi:10.2139/ssrn.413620

Abstract

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The Legal Speaker and Writer at the New Millennium, with an Application to Justice Souter

Richard Weisberg

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Cardozo Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 67

Abstract:
In "Hurley" (the Boston Parade case), Justice Souter writes for a unanimous Supreme Court to strike down on First Amendment grounds the application of a Massachusetts anti-discrimination law, which protects (inter alia) gays and lesbians, to organizers of the parade. Certain prose oddities, together with the striking form of the opinion, signal Justice Souter's stress in rising to the occasion of permitting private prejudice to win the day on Boston's public thoroughfares. This essay analyzes closely the verbal and structural choices that evoke a distance or space between the adjudicator's detectable sense of justice in the case and his complex mustering of doctrine to parade towards the opposite outcome.

Key words: Souter, parade, expression, GLIB, law and literature

Number of Pages in PDF File: 41

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Date posted: June 3, 2003

Suggested Citation

Weisberg, Richard H., The Legal Speaker and Writer at the New Millennium, with an Application to Justice Souter. Cardozo Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 67. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=413620 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.413620

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Richard H. Weisberg (Contact Author)

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law ( email )

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