Marbury (was: grading Justices and Opinions)

[David Cruz]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2001, shubha ghosh wrote:

> Extracted from Prof. Cruz's comments:
>
> > showing little
> > craftsmanship but perhaps craftiness, and his claims
> > about the necessity
> > of his interpretation of Article III are
> > melodramatically overstated,
> > indeed, bordering on patently false.
>
>
> Not sure what truth or falseness has to do with it.
> Falseness of what? I am a big believer in judicial
> review so that view colors my comments.  [snip]

To claim that Article III Section 2 would be meaningless if not given
Marshall's favored interpretation is false; there are obvious alternative
interpretations that would not treat that part of the Constitution as a
useless bauble.

As for Bush v. Bore, I haven't made any comparative claims about them, so
I'm not sure why you're asking me about whether Marbury's worse than it.

Maybe Sandy Levinson could better articulate than I the reasons why
Marbury, though tremendously significant, is a poorly crafted opinion.

-David B. Cruz, USC Law (Cal.)