There was a time — more and more distant now — when the first Monday in October signaled a new session of the U.S. Supreme Court, and many of us looked upon that as a good thing.  

It meant that through adherence to the rule of law, the nation’s equilibrium was likely to be restored.  It meant that state and federal laws that had veered away from our constitutional safeguards and fundamental rights were about to be realigned, if possible, or sent back to their supporters with guidance about how to temper or eliminate their unlawful impact on other Americans.

So, if you were a public official who didn’t like negative opinions expressed about you and had supported laws or policies that tamped down or prohibited “seditious” opinions, those restraints on free speech would be struck down or refined to apply only to statements that were threatening or were made with “actual malice”.  

Or, if you were a person walking down the street and were stopped and detained, perhaps even searched or arrested, simply because you looked a certain way, there would be limits and restrictions imposed on that process that would prevent any use of improperly obtained information or evidence.

Or, if your state was using prohibited criteria like race or ethnicity to prevent its citizens from casting meaningful votes, those efforts would be invalidated before the next election and ordered not to be attempted again without further oversight.

Or, if artificial entities like corporations claimed they had the right to make unlimited contributions to causes they supported, because of First Amendment free speech rights, it could be explained to them that free speech was a personal right — like a jury trial and no double jeopardy — and it was not intended by the founders to be circumvented by a kind of organization that didn’t even exist when the Bill of Rights was adopted.

Or, if black and brown Americans have endured unimaginable abuse and discrimination for 400 years, and if race has been a disqualifier from every aspect of life for that long — and in violation of the Constitution for 150 years — then enabling that imbalance to be righted to a reasonable extent by educational institutions making admissions decisions was really just societal self-defense.  After all, it can’t be lawful to beat someone nearly to death and then convict them for trying to get up and fight back.  But this court said it was. 

The list could go on for pages; however, I think you get the point.  Our current Supreme Court either has abandoned researching the prior cases that established clear precedents on these and other issues or has completely forgotten its Latin and no longer understands the meaning of stare decisis.  Or perhaps it just wants to advance its personal agendas and will do whatever is necessary to twist and contort the rule of law to achieve the desired results.  Because it can — and because it’s lately given up all pretense of the kind of decision-making our own David Souter brought to bear on these issues.  To Justice Souter it was this simple:  It doesn’t matter which party supported your appointment, because if one position is the most persuasive, based on established and often re-established precedents that fairly applied the rule of law, and if there’s no compelling reason to abandon that position except personal preference, then you make the principled decision and move on to the next case.  

And if that isn’t the approach you plan to take in fulfilling your sworn responsibilities, then let us know instead of blowing a lot of smoke our way, so at least we know exactly what to expect.

L. Phillips Runyon III has practiced law in Peterborough for 50 years and was the presiding justice of the 8th Circuit Court for 27 years.