U.S. Supreme Court
Chief Justice Roberts Depicts a Hard-Boiled Detective in ‘Three-Dollar Steak’ ‘Hood
Posted Oct 14, 2008 2:57 PM CST
By Martha Neil
It reads like a chapter from a hard-boiled detective novel: Narcotics officer Sean Devlin is working undercover in a neighborhood "tough as a three-dollar steak. Devlin knew. Five years on the beat, nine months with the Strike Force. He’d made fifteen, twenty drug busts in the neighborhood."
But it's not. This is how U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. began his dissenting opinion today in Pennsylvania v. Dunlap, which is described by the Blog of Legal Times as a standard-issue drug arrest case in which probable cause was the primary concern.
The rest of the dissent, after the first few paragraphs, "is written in routine opinion-speak," the blog post by Tony Mauro notes.
It offers a possible explanation from attorney and author Paul Levine about the unusual deviation from the Supreme Court's standard scholarly style:
"My guess is that the Chief lost a bet with Scalia on the baseball playoffs," says Levine, referring, of course, to Justice Antonin Scalia. "If Roberts wins the next wager, Scalia will have to write an opinion in iambic pentameter."
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Comments
Al Tidom
Oct 15, 2008 4:04 AM CST
Why do we pay these two oafs to waste ink and space in the U.S. reporters? Because they have a bet for baseball? Two yutzes that can’t even put the baseball mitt on the right hand? Baseball no less? Will they next have a basketball contest where they dunk on a 5 foot rim? For this I have to pay for? If I want to read dime store novels, I will read Steven King. What is this country coming to?
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ken
Oct 15, 2008 10:13 AM CST
Al, relax. I think the reporter was joking about the baseball bet.
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peer gynt
Oct 17, 2008 6:16 AM CST
That’s hilarious.
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Jeff
Oct 17, 2008 10:51 AM CST
I think he’s trying to drive home an important point.
Judges/Justices spend all day in the sanitized environment of the courtroom. Most of them never go into neighborhoods as tough as a three dollar steak unless they take a wrong exit off the highway. His dissent should serve as a reminder that the law enforcement professionals whose work Judges can negate with the stroke of a pen work in the real world, where events are dramatic and dangerous.
The sadder truth is that more Judges and Justices sanitize the story, tell the facts as if they took place in Anytown, USA, and then interpret the officer’s actions in a vacuum.
More Judges and Justices need to recognize that police officers have instincts and “street smarts” that the Judges and Justices don’t, and show respect for the professional opinions of those among us who serve the people in high risk situations.
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peer gynt
Oct 18, 2008 8:56 AM CST
After a lifetime of cop movies and decades of reality television, it is unlikely for a judge, or anybody else, not to be aware of the stressful nature of police work. If you actually have contact with police officers you know even better becuase you can barely have a conversation with one without hearing about how hard his job is. Okay…we get it. Really. In fact, judges probably have a better idea of this than most people. The “sanitized environment” hypothetical is kind of unrealistic. Not only that, but the notions of justice usually survive the departure from Anytown, USA. There isn’t a separate law for people who subject themselves to stressful situations, Especially if they deliberately sought a public service job, submitted themsleves to speical screening and training, and then promised to protect society and to observe a certain standard of conduct. Given that I would say that it is very appropriate to expect peace officers to mentally prepare themselves for the stressful job they have to do. It is not wrong to take into account that special training in order to isolate the issues concerning police conduct.
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Karen Lipney
Oct 21, 2008 11:11 AM CST
I think Al got the “yutz” part just right.
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