Judicial Personality: Rhetoric and Emotion in Supreme Court Opinions
42 Pages Posted: 3 Dec 2011 Last revised: 15 Apr 2015
Date Written: 2002
Abstract
The Roosevelt and Rehnquist Courts, separated by half a century, nonetheless share a reputation for splintered decisions with strong concurrences and dissents by individualistic Justices. Four members of the Roosevelt Court - Justices Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, and Jackson - were trailblazers in rejecting consensus in favor of separate opinions written in distinctive voices that express strong judicial personalities without suggesting the abandonment of judicial neutrality. Members of the Rehnquist Court - Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Kennedy, Scalia, and Blackmun - also favor separate opinions, although only Scalia has developed an immediately recognizable style. His colleagues have found other methods of personalizing their opinions, occasionally by speaking directly to the reader about themselves in emotionally powerful prose that at times threatens to overwhelm traditional judicial norms. The challenge for the Rehnquist Court Justices remains to link strong personal responses to a consistent judicial personality that reflects a coherent jurisprudential attitude.
Keywords: Supreme Court, justices, court opinions, legal writing, Rehnquist court
JEL Classification: K1
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation