Bush v. Gore,531 U.S. 98 (2000),was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court on December 12,2000,that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. On December 8,the Florida Supreme Court had ordered a statewide recount of all undervotes,over 61,000 ballots that the vote tabulation machines had missed. The Bush campaign immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the decision and halt the recount. Justice Antonin Scalia,convinced that all the manual recounts being performed in Florida's counties were illegitimate,urged his colleagues to grant the stay immediately. On December 9,the five conservative justices on the Court granted the stay,with Scalia citing "irreparable harm" that could befall Bush,as the recounts would cast "a needless and unjustified cloud" over Bush's legitimacy. In dissent,Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that "counting every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable harm." Oral arguments were scheduled for December 11.
Antonin Gregory Scalia was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual anchor for the originalist and textualist position in the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative wing. For catalyzing an originalist and textualist movement in American law,he has been described as one of the most influential jurists of the twentieth century,and one of the most important justices in the history of the Supreme Court. Scalia was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018,and the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University was named in his honor.
Stephen Gerald Breyer is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was nominated by President Bill Clinton,and replaced retiring justice Harry Blackmun. Breyer was generally associated with the liberal wing of the Court. He is now the Byrne Professor of Administrative Law and Process at Harvard Law School.
Rex Edwin Lee was an American lawyer and academic who served as the 37th solicitor general of the United States from 1981 to 1985. He was responsible for bringing the solicitor general's office to the center of U.S. legal policymaking. During his tenure,Lee argued 59 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Dallin Harris Oaks is an American religious leader and former jurist and academic who since 2018 has been the first counselor in the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was called as a member of the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1984. Currently,he is the second most senior apostle by years of service and is the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld,542 U.S. 507 (2004),is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court recognized the power of the U.S. government to detain enemy combatants,including U.S. citizens,but ruled that detainees who are U.S. citizens must have the rights of due process,and the ability to challenge their enemy combatant status before an impartial authority.
Pierce Butler was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1923 until his death in 1939. He was a staunch conservative and was regarded as a part of the Four Horsemen,the conservative bloc that dominated the Supreme Court during the 1930s. A devout Catholic,he was also the sole dissenter in the later case Buck v. Bell,though he did not write an opinion.
The J. Reuben Clark Law School is the law school of Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo,Utah. Founded in 1973,the school is named after J. Reuben Clark,a former U.S. Ambassador,Undersecretary of State,and general authority of the institution's sponsoring organization,The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
John Glover Roberts Jr. is an American jurist who has served as the 17th chief justice of the United States since 2005. He has been described as having a moderate conservative judicial philosophy,though he is primarily an institutionalist. For his willingness to work with the Supreme Court's liberal bloc,Roberts has been regarded as a swing vote on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judicial disqualification,also referred to as recusal,is the act of abstaining from participation in an official action such as a legal proceeding due to a conflict of interest of the presiding court official or administrative officer. Applicable statutes or canons of ethics may provide standards for recusal in a given proceeding or matter. Providing that the judge or presiding officer must be free from disabling conflicts of interest makes the fairness of the proceedings less likely to be questioned.
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld,548 U.S. 557 (2006),is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and the Geneva Conventions ratified by the U.S.
Textualism is a formalist theory in which the interpretation of the law is based exclusively on the ordinary meaning of the legal text,where no consideration is given to non-textual sources,such as intention of the law when passed,the problem it was intended to remedy,or significant questions regarding the justice or rectitude of the law.
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. The procedures of the Court are governed by the U.S. Constitution,various federal statutes,and its own internal rules. Since 1869,the Court has consisted of one chief justice and eight associate justices. Justices are nominated by the president,and with the advice and consent (confirmation) of the U.S. Senate,appointed to the Court by the president. Once appointed,justices have lifetime tenure unless they resign,retire,or are removed from office.
Kevin J Worthen is an American professor who served as the 13th president of Brigham Young University (BYU) from 2014 to 2023. From 2010 to 2021,he also served as an area seventy in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Worthen served previously at BYU as the Advancement Vice President and as dean of the J. Reuben Clark Law School (JRCL).
Paul George Cassell is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah,who is currently the Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and University Distinguished Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. He is best known as an expert in,and proponent of,victims' rights.
Thomas Beall Griffith is an American lawyer and jurist who served as a U.S. circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 2005 to 2020. Currently,he is a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School,a fellow at the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University (BYU),and special counsel in the Washington,D.C. office of the law firm of Hunton Andrews Kurth.
Clarence Thomas is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1991. After Marshall,Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Supreme Court and has been its longest-serving member since Anthony Kennedy's retirement in 2018. Since Stephen Breyer's retirement in 2022,he is also the Court's oldest member.
Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn,563 U.S. 125 (2011),is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving taxpayer standing under Article Three of the United States Constitution.
Connick v. Thompson,563 U.S. 51 (2011),is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court considered whether a prosecutor's office can be held liable for a single Brady violation by one of its members on the theory that the office provided inadequate training.
Law and corpus linguistics (LCL) is an academic sub-discipline that uses large databases of examples of language usage equipped with tools designed by linguists called corpora to better get at the meaning of words and phrases in legal texts. Thus,LCL is the application of corpus linguistic tools,theories,and methodologies to issues of legal interpretation in much the same way law and economics is the application of economic tools,theories,and methodologies to various legal issues.
