Supreme Court Wrap-Up: 2008

The Year in Review -

The Roberts Court's second full term brought many predictable outcomes – and a few surprises. Once again, the big cases revealed a stark ideological rift between the justices and demonstrated the precarious balance on the Court – a balance that the next President will likely have the opportunity to shift dramatically. Like last term, the conservative wing of the Court railed against judicial activism in one breath and unabashedly exercised it in the next. Yet, for the first time, the 2007 term brought unexpected reactions by the other justices to the ultra-conservative wing's newfound dominance.

In a significant number of cases this term, it seemed that the moderate justices – Justice Stevens in particular – joined with the conservatives in an attempt to temper their decisions. By creating a 6-3 or 7-2 vote split, rather than the usual 5-4, the moderate justices managed to salvage precedent and narrow harmful decisions by siding with the conservative bloc. This behavior was a significant change from last term, when the number of 5-4 decisions was at an all-time high, with the liberal justices often reading their impassioned dissents from the bench.  

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