"The Greatest Justices" List

[Robert Ackerman]

I think staying power has to be given considerable weight.  That's why Bob
Gibson was a better pitcher than Koufax:  Gibson was almost as good as
Koufax at his best, but pitched well for far more years than Koufax.  (He
also scared the bejeezus against any righty who dared to dig in against
him, an attribute I'd like to see on the Court today.)

Applying the Gibson standard, Brennan has to rank up there.  He was a
leader of the "Warren" Court during its liberal heyday, but stuck around to
hold the high ground and forge what consensus he could when liberalism was
otherwise in retreat on the Court.  Some of his best opinions were dissents
and concurrences in his later years.  To use another analogy, he was like a
mutual fund that performed well in both bull and bear markets.  Whatever
your ideology, you have to respect this.  As Rich knows, I am not a
Cardinal fan, but I nevertheless admire Bob Gibson.

Bob Ackerman

At 09:45 AM 3/8/01 -0500, Richard D. Friedman wrote:
>Oh, I may not disagree with Sandy that Cardozo doesn't belong in the top
>15, whatever the top 15 is supposed to mean, because the brevity of his
>term certainly did limit his aggregate impact.  I was really responding to
>the substance of Sandy's comment on Cardozo, which seemed to reflect a
>common perception of his time on the Court.  I think Cardozo's Supreme
>Court career was brilliant though short.  How you put that in historical
>rankings seems to me as imponderable as how to rate the equally brilliant,
>also short (at least in its brilliant phase) career of another New York
>Jew, Sandy Koufax.  (I don't know whether Cardozo was a lefty.)
>
>Rich
>
>
>At 06:15 PM 3/7/2001 -0600, you wrote:
>>Rich Friedman writes:
>>
>> >People always say that, and I don't think it's really true.  He had a
great
>> >-- though very short -- tenure on the US S Ct.  Panama Refining dissent,
>> >Schechter concurrence (which I think had impact on the Jones & Laughlin
>> >majority opinion), Carter Coal dissent, major behind-the-scenes impact on
>> >the majority opinion in Blaisdell.  C. 1991, Cardozo L. Rev., I wrote a
>> >review (of Posner's book on him) titled "Legendary Judge, Underrate
>> Justice".
>> >
>>Surely Rich is right, but whom would he bounce from the list to make space
>>for C. among the top 15.
>>
>>sandy
>
Professor Robert M. Ackerman
Penn State - Dickinson School of Law
150 South College Street
Carlisle, PA 17013

Phone:     717-241-3535
Fax:          717-240-5126
e-mail:      bxa9 at psu.edu