Courts

Who Is The Worst Supreme Court Justice Of All Time?

In my book, they're all terrible!

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While the correct legally themed NCAA rip-off is the ATL Epic Zoom Fail bracket, SCOTUSBlog decided to get into ATL’s turf with a “Best Supreme Court Justice” bracket that was busted from the moment it launched. They’re currently running a Final Four matchup between a slave trader and a justice whose impact on jurisprudence was — remarkably — even worse. Which, in a sense, is the most telling statement about the Supreme Court ever.

A more apropos competition is unfolding over at the Five Four Pod, where they’re inviting votes on The Worst Supreme Court Justice Of All Time. As The Appeal’s Jay Willis — who created this competition — describes it…

The overwhelming majority of this country’s 115 justices, however, have been absolutely awful people—a lily-white constellation of unapologetic racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, anti-Semites, or some combination thereof. The history of the Supreme Court is a history of its justices cheerfully infusing their work with the prevailing forms of bigotry of their eras, propping up institutions ranging from slavery to Jim Crow to forced sterilization to internment camps, penning dense opinions that launder all kinds of abhorrent policy choices using incomprehensible, bone-dry legalese.

Indeed. I’ve captured the opening round matchups for you. The whole bracket is here and you can vote here. Here are the Korematsu and Dred Scott regions.

And here are the Bush v. Gore and Shelby County regions.

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Am I counting this right? There are four justices in this field that SCOTUSBlog nonsensically also placed in the Best Of field? Sometimes people get nominated for Oscars and Razzies, I guess.

The first round of voting will conclude at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, so get voting.

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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