Supreme Court Of Florida example essay topic

The fourth principle of the rule of law state, 'all persons must be given due process, that is, a fair chance to defend themselves against formal charges that they have violated the rules. ' The premise for this principle is the example that, the official body that hears and renders judgment on the charges may be biased against the defendant instead of impartial. The decision of the United States Supreme Court to discontinue the counting of 'under votes' in the state of Florida was not only a politically biased decision, it was also a decision that violated the rule of law. My argument is based on not so much the dissenting opinion of the minority, but of the concurring opinion of the majority of the Supreme Court.

A political trial is one in which political considerations, not simply the law and the facts, affect the proceedings and verdict. Every human being has a certain set of morals and beliefs that they hold to be an important part of their character. This is no different for the judges of the Supreme Court. They too have a set of morals and beliefs that they live by. The difference is that their job description says that they have to make decisions not based on their morals and beliefs, but their decisions must be based on the rule of law. It is obvious to me that many of the judges on the Supreme Court, did not follow their job description and instead of basing their decision of Bush vs. Gore on the rule of law, they based it on who they voted for.

Every conservative on that panel voted to stop the recount which in turn helped Bush win, and every liberal on the panel voted to continue the recount which would have given Gore a chance at winning. The concurring opinion of the majority seems to make it evident in some of the arguments they make that their opinion was based on politics and not on law. Much of the evidence they bring up only seems to contradict their decision more than support it. In Rehnquist's opinion, with whom Scalia and Thomas join, concurring, he brings up the case of Anderson vs. Celebrezze, (1983), in which the court said 'In the context of a Presidential election, state-imposed restrictions implicate a uniquely important national interest. For the President and the Vice President of the United States are the only elected officials who represent all the voters in the Nation. ' ' Now this is a very good argument if you are arguing to continue the recount so that all of the voters' votes are counted to ensure that the President and Vice-President do actually represent the will of the nation.

In another part of Rehnquist's opinion, he says that 'in any election but a Presidential election, the Florida Supreme Court can give as little or as much deference to Florida's executives as it chooses, so far as Article II is concerned, and this Court will have no cause to question the court's actions. But, with respect to a Presidential election, the court must be both mindful of the legislature's role under Article II in choosing the manner of appointing electors and deferential to those bodies expressly empowered by the legislature to carry out its constitutional mandate. ' To me this says that the Supreme Court feels like they are better educated to interpret the Florida legislature than the members of the Florida Supreme Court. The problem is that Rehnquist gives no reasons as why this is to be true, he only implies that it is. Rehnquist himself is also a justice who has in the past been known to advocate states rights, but in this case dismisses the state courts interpretation of this case. Also involved in this 'judicial' process is the Florida Secretary of State.

The Florida legislature has designated the Secretary of State as the 'chief election officer,' ' with the responsibility to 'obtain and maintain uniformity in the application, operation, and interpretation of the election laws. ' ' His interpretation does differ than the one held by the Florida Supreme Court, but on what grounds. Let it be known that the Governor of Florida is Jeb Bush, brother of presidential candidate George Bush. The Secretary of State is directly appointed by the governor, so to me this automatically brings his interpretation under scrutiny.

Is he going to be persuaded to uphold the law, or is he going to base his opinion on the fact that the brother of his boss's job is on the line. I think that if Rehnquist was really basing his decision on the rule of law, it would have been smart for him not to use this argument on the basis that there was no way for the Secretary of State in this instance to give an unbiased interpretation of the legislature. Rehnquist also argues the fact that it would have been impossible for the recount to be finished within the six days that it was required to be done. I think that his wording here is interesting because he exaggerates the number of the votes that need to be counted. He says that, 'the Supreme Court of Florida ordered recounts of tens of thousands of so-called 'under votes'... ' Tens of thousands!

I don't think so, in Justice Souter's dissent, he is much more specific and says that around sixty thousand votes need to be recounted. That does not seem to warrant the phrase 'tens of thousands. ' He also goes on to interpret the phrase 'appropriate relief' to mean 'appropriate relief by the cut-off date when the electoral votes were due. ' Even though the Florida Supreme Court stated its confidence that 'the remaining under votes in these counties can be (counted) within the required time frame,' Rehnquist makes the assumption in his argument that they said this not taking into account the inevitable appeals that would be filed during that time. Of course they took that into account, they had been hassling with court cases and appeals for the last thirty-six days, and Rehnquist thinks that all of a sudden they have forgotten the litigation process. One judge I feel did his job, and did not base his opinion of the case solely on his political preference.

Justice David Souter, a republican nominated justice, in his dissent is very straightforward and points out exactly what is at hand with this case. He says that 'there are three issues: whether the State Supreme Court's interpretation of the statute providing for a contest of the state election results somehow violates 3 U.S.C. Section 5; whether that court's construction of the state statutory provisions governing contests im permissibly changes a state law from what the State's legislature has provided, in violation of Article II, Section 1, CL. 2, of the national Constitution; and whether the manner of interpreting markings on disputed ballots failing to cause machines to register votes for President (the under vote ballots) violates the equal protection or due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. ' It is not in what he said that I am in agreement with, it is in the way he presents it. There is nothing vague or political in his dissent, it is purely based on the laws of the constitution of both the state (Fla.) and of the country. The 2000 Presidential Election was not based on the rule of law, and it was not at all a judicial decision made by the courts, it was a political one.

I cannot answer the question of whether the Florida Supreme Court stepped out of its boundaries of judicial interpretation, but I can however see that the majority opinion of the United States Supreme Court, was not based on trying to uphold the rule of law. If that was the case, then it is my opinion that they would have upheld their own arguments made. The argument that 'the President and the Vice President of the United States are the only elected officials who represent all the voters in the Nation,' would be better served if the court made sure that the man in office was without a doubt, the man voted for by the people of the nation. There was no way for Gore to get a fair chance in this trial. Who was in trouble from the outset.

I think the most disheartening aspect about all of this, is that it is my opinion that if the tables were reversed, and Gore was in the lead over Bush in Florida, the Supreme Court's ruling would have been flip-flopped. Most likely a six to three vote to uphold the Florida decision, with Justice Souter the only one staying the course.