Anthony Kennedy
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| Anthony McLeod Kennedy | |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office February 18, 1988 |
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| Nominated by | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Incumbent |
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| Born | July 23, 1936 (age 70) Sacramento, California |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Davis Kennedy |
- This page is about the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. For the Maryland senator, see Anthony Kennedy (Maryland).
Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) has been an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court since 1988. Appointed by conservative President Ronald Reagan, he acts as the Court's swing vote in some cases, and as a result has held special prominence in many politically charged 5-4 decisions.
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[edit] Personal history
Kennedy was born in Sacramento, California. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, married Mary Davis, with whom he has three children. He has no relation to the Kennedy family of American politics.
He received his A.B. in Political Science from Stanford University in 1958. He also spent part of his undergraduate time at the London School of Economics before earning an LL.B from Harvard Law School in 1961.
Kennedy was in private practice in San Francisco, California from 1961-1963, as well as in Sacramento, California from 1963-1975. From 1965 to 1988, he was a Professor of Constitutional Law at McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, and currently continues teaching law students (including legal seminars during McGeorge's European summer sessions).
Kennedy has served in numerous positions during his career, including the California Army National Guard in 1961 and the board of the Federal Judicial Center from 1987-1988. He also served on two committees of the Judicial Conference of the United States: the Advisory Panel on Financial Disclosure Reports and Judicial Activities (subsequently renamed the Advisory Committee on Codes of Conduct) from 1979-1987, and the Committee on Pacific Territories from 1979-1990, which he chaired from 1982-1990. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Gerald Ford in 1975.
[edit] Supreme Court tenure
In 1987, Associate Justice Lewis Powell retired. President Ronald Reagan first nominated Robert Bork to replace him. Bork was viewed as too conservative by members of the Senate, and he was not confirmed. Reagan then nominated Douglas H. Ginsburg, but Ginsburg withdrew his name amid reports of substantial prior marijuana use. Finally, Reagan nominated Kennedy, and after being confirmed 97-0 by the Senate he took his seat February 18, 1988.
[edit] Ideology
Although appointed by a President who was both Republican and conservative, Kennedy’s tenure on the Court has seen him take a somewhat mixed path. Kennedy's philosophy seems to be conservative and libertarian. While Kennedy has joined the conservative wing of the Court in most cases such as Stenberg v. Carhart, Bush v. Gore, United States v. Lopez, McConnell v. FEC, Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, he voted with the liberal bloc in the cases of Romer v. Evans, Lawrence v. Texas, Ashcroft v. ACLU, Roper v. Simmons, Gonzales v. Raich, Kelo v. City of New London, and Gonzales v. Oregon. At the same time, he also frustrates some constitutional law scholars by often forgoing conventional methods of explaining his holding and instead relying on vivid prose and unusual philosophy. Decisions in which Kennedy has mentioned European law have been criticized by many. All these factors considered, Kennedy will probably be remembered historically along with Sandra Day O'Connor as one of two swing voters in many 5-4 decisions during the Rehnquist Court. On issues of religion he holds to a far less seperationist reading of the Establishment Clause than did Sandra Day O'Connor favoring a "Coercion Test" that he detailed in County of Allegheny v. ACLU.
On the Roberts Court, Kennedy is expected to continue to be a pivotal swing vote. Indeed, his swing role may be even more pronounced than it was on the Rehnquist Court if, as many expect, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito join with Justices Scalia and Thomas to form a cohesive four-justice "conservative" voting bloc. On the other hand, either Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Alito could sometimes unite with Kennedy in order to form a conservative opinion with some moderate ground. On a few cases, Chief Justice Roberts was the swing vote while Kennedy sided with the conservatives. Alito has participated in too few cases this past term to label.
Kennedy's views on issues are fairly consistent. He supports a broad reading of the "liberty" protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which means he supports a constitutional right to abortion in principle, though he has voted to uphold several restrictions on that right, including laws to prohibit partial-birth abortions. He is "tough on crime" and opposes creating constitutional restrictions on the police, especially in Fourth Amendment cases involving searches for illegal drugs. He opposes affirmative action as promoting stereotypes of minorities. He also takes a very broad view of constitutional protection for speech under the First Amendment, invalidating a congressional law prohibiting "virtual" child pornography in the 2002 decision, Ashcroft v. ACLU.[1]
[edit] Abortion
In 1992, Kennedy joined O'Connor and David Souter to form the troika who delivered the plurality opinion in the case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which re-affirmed in principle (though not in many details) the Roe v. Wade decision recognizing the right to abortion under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Kennedy voted to uphold the restrictions on abortion at issue and considered going as far as to overturn Roe but reportedly switched that aspect of his vote during the consideration of Casey). The plurality opinion, signed jointly by three justices appointed by the pro-life presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, ignited a firestorm of criticism from conservatives. Kennedy, however, dissented in the 2000 decision of Stenberg v. Carhart, which struck down laws criminalizing partial-birth abortion.
[edit] Gay rights
Kennedy has often taken a libertarian perspective in cases involving gay rights. He wrote the Court's opinion in the controversial 1996 case, Romer v. Evans, invalidating a provision in the Colorado Constitution denying homosexuals the right to bring local discrimination claims. In 2003, he authored the Court's opinion Lawrence v. Texas which invalidated criminal prohibitions against homosexual sodomy under the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution, overturning the Court's previous contrary ruling in 1986's Bowers v. Hardwick. In doing so, however, he was very careful to limit the extent of the opinion, declaring that the case did not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter. In both cases, he sided with the more liberal members of the Court. Lawrence also controversially referenced international law in justifying its result. On the other hand, he voted to uphold the Boy Scouts of America's ban on gay scoutmasters in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale in 2000.
[edit] Capital punishment
Kennedy has generally voted to restrict the use of the death penalty. With the Court's majority in Atkins v. Virginia and Roper v. Simmons he held unconstitutional the execution of the mentally ill and those under 18 at the time of the crime. However in Kansas v. Marsh he declined to join the dissent which questioned the overall "soundness" of the existing capital punishment system. His opinion for the Court in Roper, as in Lawrence, made extensive reference to international law, drawing the ire of then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay who called Kennedy's opinion "incredibly outrageous," but stopped short of calling for his impeachment.
[edit] Other issues
On the other hand, Kennedy has joined with Court majorities in decisions favoring states' rights and capital punishment and invalidating federal and state affirmative action programs. Despite his views on states' right, he ruled with the majority in the controversial 2000 Bush v. Gore case that ceased continuing recounts in the 2000 presidential election and ensured the victory of President George W. Bush, a move that was considered conservative-leaning by some.
In the 2005 Gonzales v. Raich case, he joined the liberal members of the Court (along with conservative Justice Scalia) in permitting the federal government to prohibit the use of medical marijuana, even in states in which it is legal, thus invalidating a California law that made the use of medical marijuana legal. Several weeks later, in the controversial case of Kelo v. City of New London (2005), he joined the four more liberal justices in supporting the local government's power to take private property for economic development through the use of eminent domain.
Kennedy has been active off of the bench as well, calling for reform of overcrowded American prisons in a speech before the American Bar Association. He spends his summers in Salzburg, Austria, where he teaches international and American law at the University of Salzburg for the McGeorge School of Law international program and often attends the large yearly international judges conference held there. Defending his use of international law, Kennedy told the September 12, 2005 issue of The New Yorker, "Why should world opinion care that the American Administration wants to bring freedom to oppressed peoples? Is that not because there’s some underlying common mutual interest, some underlying common shared idea, some underlying common shared aspiration, underlying unified concept of what human dignity means? I think that’s what we’re trying to tell the rest of the world, anyway.”
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- "Unenumerated Rights and the Dictates of Judicial Restraint". Address to the Canadian Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, Stanford University. Palo Alto, California. July 24 - Aug. 1, 1986.
- "Kennedy's Benchmarks" by Mark Trapp, American Spectator (July 14, 2004).
- Transcript of Senate Confirmation Hearing, 1987.
- Supreme Court Research Guide and Bibliography: Anthony M. Kennedy
- Collection of notable statements by Anthony Kennedy.
- Jonah Goldberg, "Justice Kennedy's Mind: Where the Constitution resides", 2005.
- Supreme court official bio (PDF)
- Jeffrey Toobin, "Swing Shift: How Anthony Kennedy’s passion for foreign law could change the Supreme Court", New Yorker (2005).
| Preceded by Charles Merton Merrill |
Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 1975-1988 |
Succeeded by Pamela Ann Rymer |
| Preceded by Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr. |
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States February 18, 1988 – present |
Incumbent |
| Preceded by Antonin Scalia |
United States order of precedence as of 2007 |
Succeeded by David Souter |
| Judicial opinions of Anthony Kennedy | |||||
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| U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (1975 - 1988) | |||||
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| Supreme Court of the United States (February 18, 1988 - present) | |||||
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| The Rehnquist Court |  |
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| William Hubbs Rehnquist (1986–2005) | ||
| 1988–1990: | Wm. J. Brennan | B. White | T. Marshall | H. Blackmun | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy | |
| 1990–1991: | B. White | T. Marshall | H. Blackmun | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy | D. Souter | |
| 1991–1993: | B. White | H. Blackmun | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy | D. Souter | C. Thomas | |
| 1993–1994: | H. Blackmun | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy | D. Souter | C. Thomas | R.B. Ginsburg | |
| 1994–2005: | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy | D. Souter | C. Thomas | R.B. Ginsburg | S. Breyer | |
| The Roberts Court | ||
| John Glover Roberts, Jr. (2005) | ||
| 2005–2006: | J.P. Stevens | S.D. O'Connor | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy | D. Souter | C. Thomas | R.B. Ginsburg | S. Breyer | |
| 2006–present: | J.P. Stevens | A. Scalia | A. Kennedy | D. Souter | C. Thomas | R.B. Ginsburg | S. Breyer | S. Alito | |
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Categories: 1936 births | Alumni of the London School of Economics | American legal academics | California lawyers | Harvard Law School alumni | Irish-Americans | Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit | Living people | Roman Catholic jurists | People from Sacramento, California | Stanford University alumni | University of the Pacific | United States Supreme Court justices | People from McLean, Virginia
