On Mon, 10 May 2010, Steven L. Robinson wrote:
> What EXACTLY does that mean? The Supreme Court is arguably more of a
> political institution than a judicial one. In the past, most - if not
> all - Supreme Court Justices were political,not legal figures.
Yes but that was then -- things couldn't have changed more completely. Every current justice except Stevens attended law school at Harvard or Yale. And if Kagan replace Stevens, it will be all 9.
Interesting trivia note: Stevens was also the only Protestant. Religious affiliation used to matter in the old days too.
If anyone's interested, this is a pretty interesting short article on how many ways the calculus has changed without anyone seeming to notice:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/weekinreview/11liptak.html
Michael