15 Supreme Court Decisions that Shredded the Constitution

[Bigun]

15 Supreme Court Decisions that Shredded the Constitution

When the Court traded law and liberty for political expediency

Monday, April 20, 2015

What makes a Supreme Court decision bad? And what are the worst precedents handed down by our highest court?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, and here are my nominees for the worst SCOTUS opinions to date.

The standard I'm using for “worst” is three-fold:

First, the holding of the case is unambiguously still guiding precedent.

Second, the holding of the case is inconsistent with the Constitution.

Third, the case either A) has egregious consequences for individual liberty or B) is clearly ideological- or policy-driven rubbish as a matter of constitutional law (whether or not I happen to like the consequences).

Under the first prong, I will exclude from consideration a number of infamously horrific decisions: Dred Scott (ruling black people aren't citizens), Plessy v. Ferguson (allowing separate-but-equal), Buck v. Bell (permitting compulsory sterilization), and Korematsu v. United States (upholding Japanese internment camps)...

https://fee.org/articles/15-supreme-court-decisions-that-shredded-the-constitution/

[Bigun]

Found this yesterday and found myself largely in agreement.

[Sanguine]

Good article, @Bigun.  Very informative.

...I think the case that wins the “honor” for the worst active Supreme Court decision in American history is Helvering v. Davis (1937). Helvering upheld the constitutionality of Social Security on the basis that Congress has a general power to spend on whatever it deems to be in the general welfare.

This ruling completely upended the system of enumerated powers, in which Congress only had the powers delegated to it by the Constitution, and eviscerated the Tenth Amendment that restricted the federal government to its defined roles...

And, shows the error of Stare Decisis.