The appropriate remedy would have been to do a recount in all of Florida's sixty seven counties instead of invoking the Equal Protection Clause because the counting was in only three counties and not the other sixty four.

when you consider how much the majority justices mostly hate that clause when it's invoked for the benefit of regular people. For Bush, though, they trotted it out and tarted it up like they thought it meant something, and turned it completely inside-out. It was truly the most convoluted, logically unsupportable and all-around dumbest Supreme Court decision I've ever read.

Eight years of hell.

Shelby County is based on and relies on the same legal principle as Dred Scott.

Dred Scott was just one in a series of decisions, by SCOTUS and by other political bodies, validating and enshrining slavery. All perpetuated that evil. What Dred Scott decided went on to be validated by legislation (Fugitive Slave Act) that probably would have been passed, regardless of how that one case turned.

A reverse decision in Korematsu would have eliminated a unique act of villainy that was sullying an important principle that America was fighting for in that very same war. A ruling for the plaintiff in Korematsu could have laid groundwork for ending Jim Crowism a generation earlier than what historry provided for.

Based on relative impact, Korematsu is the more important case and thus the bigger fuckup.

election. Nothing comparable in the history of the Republic.

IMO. Not only worst, but criminal since Thomas and Scalia should have excused themselves from voting due to conflict of interest. The country has never been the same.

To me, Dred Scott is far worse. I obviously disagree with many on DU, which is fine with me.

To be fair, I will say both are equally horrible in how they damaged the country.

... the wrong thing anyway

Plessy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson

Fortunately Parrish did away with that terrible decision.

established corporate personhood. And I go right past the courthouse where the case was first heard every morning.

... that was horrible. A corrupt court clerk that wrote the head note that summarized this case was the one that established corporate personhood precedent with HIS OWN WORDS, and not words that reflected the actual decision of the supremes then, whose on words in that case DID NOT establish precedent of corporate personhood. Thom Hartmann notes this in his book and in other articles/publications.

That would be one way for a future non-corrupt supreme court that would overturn that notion of corporate personhood and the cases that used this faulty head note as "stare decisis" to justify other rulings such as Citizen's United. A future court could show that using that faulty head note as "stare decisis" was faulty and that all subsequent cases trying to do so should be invalidated, and that overturning all of these cases should be done in the REAL implementation of stare decisis, where there IS NO legitimate base decision on corporate personhood that other court cases can use to justify their decisions, without their own making the case of why corporate personhood is legitimate based on real court justice rulings, not a head note written by an ex-railroad exec corrupt court clerk for Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad Co.

Read more here from Jim Hightower on this topic...

http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/664#.VQMRtmTF9Q0

have is the ACLU, I know their position, I wish I could read a brief summary of it as it concerns me.


I am referring to CU and ACLU taking the position that it is the correct decision

There have been some other bad ones, but this is the one that keeps on giving back to the right wing.

Thanks

Winner. Nothing has done more long-term damage to the country. Dred Scott was overruled by force of arms and the Civil War amendments within 20 years. Santa Clara County lingers on and on and on.

... it can also be argued that the notion of corporate personhood that lead to so many legal decisions like Citizen's United has enabled the military industrial complex to be that much more powerful and corrupt our government and causing more wars and death in its wake as well. Hard to measure the direct effects here, but it can be argued that without that corporate power over our government, this world would be a lot more peaceful, and we'd have already been fare more on the path of things like fighting climate change than we are now.

Supreme Court OK'd cities taking private property via eminent domain for another private party -- such as WalMart or Keystone XL. And this decision came from the Liberals on the court.

A travesty.

Not shocked since I know where I am.

Upholding Jim Crow seems to be worth about 10 "how to count ballots" decisions.

so when you start from that abhorrent premise as a foundation for the argument, it makes sense in a very sick way.

But, after the civil war, after the 14th and 15th amendments, to have that kind of rank dishonesty to uphold white supremacy, that's unfathomable

Maybe I should write more, but jeez. I can name like 10 think worse than bush vs Gore. Most having to do with black people. I put citizens united ahead of Bush Gore.

I find Dred Scott to be the most contemptible and the rest to be 'gentlemen's disagreements'over which white guy rules. I've posted the decision before and it negated in the most destructive way possible the term, 'We believe that all men are created equal.'

Despite all the failures of any of the Founders, that ideal has been the most sought after, liberating and respected expectation in the world. It defined what America was meant to be, which generations here and abroad seek to make a reality.

At times that ideal has held sway but the naked racism of today shows that evolution and the fabled revolution don't always lead to positive results. 'We' have been returning to the hateful past and acting like it is something new. It's not an it needs to be utterly stamped out before we end up killing each other.

I have the headache.
I have a list of my all time least favorite cases. plessy was one that I hated nearly the most. But I understand why you went for a case from modern times.

because they are just as capable of doing bad and stupid things as the other two branches of government. We have to do everything we can to be sure that the Republicans don't get a chance to appoint any more justices. Dred Scott is a shameful part of our often-ugly history, but with a majority of conservative justices like Scalia there could be more very bad and damaging decisions in our future.

The main reason i never miss a vote even if i hate the party at the time is the supreme court. Cannot let them have it forever. I know this is wrong but I'm waiting for clarence thomas' term to expire. Him and scalia both.

to legally oppress everybody who isn't a rich white straight Christian male. Fat Tony, Thomas, Alito and Roberts are just plain awful, and there are more like them out there, just waiting for some future wingnut president to give them their chance.

looking for loopholes in the Emancipation Proclamation. He probably did.

He reminds me of Uncle Ruckus. Reverse vitaligo.

He is a disgrace to the bench and to the great man, Thurgood Marshall, whose chair he sits in but will never truly occupy.

seated on the bench. I hate hoping people contract a deadly illness within the next year. With him. I remain hopeful.

"I have never wished another man dead, but I have read many obituaries with great satisfaction." Though commonly attributed to Mark Twain, Darrow actually said it.

about Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill? I'm reading it now. Holy cow, there's like a one in a trillion chance that Anita was lying. Even his friends say in the book that the things Anita recalled and his pornography interests she alleged are undoubtedly Clarence. A very nasty person.

The man is a pig. The pubic hairs on the coke can... I would have beat his ass.

in the book several people, including I believe his own friends(?) say they heard the coke can thing before. And he acted so insulted and demeaned at his hearings that sexual matters and porn were alleged to his behavior.

Everybody knew he was lying thats why I know GHWB is a straight up jerk. I felt like he was insulting the black community on purpose by picking him. During the hearing my mom was just screaming at the TV.
He was so fake and the way he stumbled over his lie words. I see why he never asks questions on the bench. He lies too much to know what to say.

and trumped-up phony outrage and false victimization. Anyone over the age of ten could see he was lying his ass off.

As Harry Truman once said about a well known Republican "Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in. ”

The fact that he's a Supreme Court justice is just

This is my reasoning on each

1. I agree, Dred Scott is the worst from the standpoint of its impact on the equal rights of a group of Americans who the Supreme Court should have seen as its duty to protect. From an impact perspective on a vulnerable minority, it is one of my three worst.

2. Bush v Gore is the worst from the standpoint of its impact on the Democratic process of free and fair elections and for its butchering of the equal protection clause, which hundreds of Constitutional lawyers wrote about in protest. As others have noted its impossible to ignore the resultant impact of the Iraq war and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, as well as the U.S. crippling its moral authority to protest torture and illegal detention by the improperly installed administration committing those crimes.

3. Citizens United is the worst from the standpoint of, for all intents and purposes, institutionalizing corruption on a grand scale, again, having a massive impact on the Democratic process of free and fair elections and misinterpreting the first amendment. Money<>speech

That one made me scared and ready to build a guillotine.

Our freedom to vote for who we want? I'm shocked you don't get it. I agree they do not compare in some ways, but what if the election was throw back before the Civil War and there was never an Abe Lincoln in office to write the Emancipation Proclamation? How many more years would slaves have suffered, because of a stolen election?

Your casual write off of a stolen election is sad since you don't think of the overall implications involved. If no stolen 2000 election, no 5000 troops dead and 100,000 Iraqi dead.

Think about it.

We never really get to vote for who we REALLY want anyways. I want Yoda. Or Angela Basset.

Really, I don't want to compare the two. Dred Scott was a horrible injustice toward black Americans. And of course you are right in that (for example) Roves criminal follies in Ohio 2004 does not compare to the misery and suffering during the Middle Passage. However even though we don't get to pick, look at how fucked up the nation is in general from the 2000 selection. Now imagine how much worse things would have been if a pro-slavery politician worked dirty and stole the election during the civil war?

Hey if it was up to me, we would all live in a social democracy. Like you said, it ain't.

Bush vs Gore made me sick to my stomach. I was so scared he was going to take us into Iraq. My uncles were in Vietnam and they ALL sat around predicting that we would be at war within a year or so. They were always right about everything pertaining to war.
Now look at America. The right has lost it since they are used to winning by cheating and time is running out on that tactic. One day the Fox news crowd will be dead and I'll be old and I'll sit my grandkids down and tell them what a Republican was.

Dred Scott was pure evil.

which is why both decisions were horrible and stupid. Taney thought he could resolve the hotly-contested slavery issue by rendering a legal decision that would settle matters once and for all, but the decision made the situation even worse by both strengthening the Northern abolitionist movement and emboldening the hard-core Southern secessionists. In the case of Bush v. Gore, the majority of justices just wanted Bush to be president and cobbled together a bizarre and completely disingenuous equal protection argument to justify it.

but any case like Plessy or Dred Scott that ruled entire groups of human beings as anything less takes the top spot.

It completely destroyed my faith in the SUCKUS, I mean SCOTUS.

Remember at the time of Bush v Gore the justices did not know just how horrible a president Bush was going to be. Yes, it was despicable partisan hackery, but did not rise to the level of disgusting evil that is Dred Scott.

We are supposed to have three equally powerful branches of government. If the courts couldn't strike down unconstitutional laws passed by Congress and signed by the president, what protection would we have? A Republican president and a Republican-controlled congress could easily pass a law making abortion illegal again, and if the Supreme Court had no power to call that law unconstitutional as they did in Roe v. Wade, there would be no remedy at all. The Constitution would be essentially meaningless if Congress itself could decide what was constitutional. Quem custodiet ipsos custodes?

. . "The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please." —

"The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches."

—Thomas Jefferson to W. H. Torrance, 1815. ME 14:303

"But the Chief Justice says, 'There must be an ultimate arbiter somewhere.' True, there must; but does that prove it is either party? The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs. And it has been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our Constitution, to have provided this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations is at once to force."

—Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:451

"But, you may ask, if the two departments [i.e., federal and state] should claim each the same subject of power, where is the common umpire to decide ultimately between them? In cases of little importance or urgency, the prudence of both parties will keep them aloof from the questionable ground; but if it can neither be avoided nor compromised, a convention of the States must be called to ascribe the doubtful power to that department which they may think best."

—Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:47

"The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."

—Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:51

"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."

—Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277

"In denying the right [the Supreme Court usurps] of exclusively explaining the Constitution, I go further than [others] do, if I understand rightly [this] quotation from the Federalist of an opinion that 'the judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the judiciary is derived.' If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se [act of suicide]. For intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it has provided is not even a scare-crow . . . The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please."
—Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819. ME 15:212

"This member of the Government was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt."

—Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:114

"My construction of the Constitution is . . . that each department is truly independent of the others and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the Constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially where it is to act ultimately and without appeal."

—Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819. ME 15:214
The "The Constitution . . . meant that its coordinate branches should be checks on each other. But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."

—Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804. ME 11:51
http://www.streetlaw.org/en/Page/284/Thomas_Jeffersons_Reaction

from becoming despotic, which is exactly what we are starting to see now. I suppose he was assuming that the Congress would always be comprised of sensible people who understood the Constitution and the limits of their own power. Boy, was he wrong.

Which the state legislatures are doing quite effectively these days. There have been a lot of bad Supreme Court decisions. There have also been a lot of good ones - these are just a few I can think of off the top of my head. Look them up; you'll see that all of them protect individual rights from the effects of bad legislation.

Roe v. Wade (protecting abortion rights)
Griswold v. Connecticut (birth control legal per right to privacy)
Loving v. Virginia (interracial marriage)
Mapp. v. Ohio (unreasonable search and seizure in state courts)
Miranda v. Arizona (requires informing suspect of rights upon arrest)
Gideon v. Wainright (right to appointed counsel)
Brown v. Board of Education (striking down de jure segregation of schools)
Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (commerce clause requires private businesses to comply with the Civil Rights Act)
Lawrence v. Texas (striking down sodomy statute)

Without those and many other decisions interpreting the Constitution, state and federal legislatures would have the unfettered ability to oppress anybody they wanted. Look at what some states have been doing with respect to reproductive rights - only the courts are standing in their way.

N.T.

"The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please." Thomas Jefferson

The Supreme Court has taken the right to challenge the constitutionality of laws made by the Legislature. The Constitution did not give the Supreme Court that right. They took upon themselves the actions of a Constitutional Monarchy. The remedy for bad laws made by Congress is to vote the bastards out.

"Section 1.

The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

Section 2.

The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states;--between a state and citizens of another state;--between citizens of different states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.

In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed."

I voted for Dred Scott, for all the reasons already enumerated. That decision was SO wrong, and so damaging not only to millions of people, but to the very soul of this nation, such as it was and is. Racism and white supremacy writ large, without doubt and without apology.

"Buck v. Bell" though has a place of dishonor as probably the worst ever USSC decision regarding people with disabilities. In it, the court ruled in 1927 that people with disabilities could be sterilized by the states against their will, at the discretion of state authorities.

Carrie Buck was a 17 year old Virginia woman who had been placed in foster care and then in an institution because of her alleged cognitive disabilities. While in foster care she was raped, and as a result became pregnant, and was thus charged with being a "moral imbecile." (Yes, that was the term used). The child she then bore was also alleged to be "mentally retarded." Fully in the throes of the bogus eugenics movement, the state of Virginia wanted to sterilize her so Carrie could have no more "imbecile" children. Buck went to court to prevent it, and the case was argued all the way to the Supreme Court.

In writing for the majority, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote "three generations of imbeciles are enough." (It was alleged that Buck's parents were also disabled). The decision led to a flood--perhaps tens if not hundreds of thousands--of forced sterilizations of people with disabilities. (Little known historical fact: the vasectomy was perfected as a surgical procedure by doctors experimenting on disabled boys locked into state institutions. It was also a common practice in some institutions to castrate any and all males, once they reached puberty). As it turned out, Carrie Buck's daughter Vivian would make the honor roll in her high school. Some "imbecile."

At least one other member of Buck's family--her sister Doris--was also forcibly sterilized. They were, according to eugenics "expert" Harry Laughlin, members of "the shiftless, ignorant and worthless class of anti-social whites of the South." He made this determination without ever examining anyone in the Buck family. But while "Buck v. Bell" was in this instance about "white trash" the decision was applied with at least equal vengence to poor Blacks.

State laws pushing the forced sterilization of people with disabilities remained on the books until the 1970s, and were used by the German Nazis as models for their Nuremburg Laws. In fact, American eugenicists had close ties with German Nazis all through the 1930s.

A good reference on this is Stephen Trombley, "The Right to Reproduce: A History of Coercive Sterilization." A good quick summary of the case occurs in Fred Pelka, "The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Disability Rights Movement" (1997).

Fatal flaw in negative eugenics. We still have a lot of positive eugenic pilicies in place luke home mortgage interest deduction, child deduction etc.

Dred Scott was pure evil.

The Civil Rights Cases overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which guaranteed equal access to public accommodations and transportation. That paved the way for Jim Crow laws, which Plessy v. Ferguson then upheld.

Imagine a twentieth century which begins with the Civil Rights Act being already a generation old, rather than six decades of struggle away.

Why wasn't it in the original poll?

I think the two I mentioned are FAR worse than Bush v. Gore. You obviously disagree. That's fine.

They grow up to be cats.

but the Hall of Shame has to include

Citizens United and Dred Scott near the very top, the K2 of awful decisions
Bush v. Gore
Korematsu

and perhaps the worst of all - Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway, which later gave the country the fatal cancer of corporate personhood. That may be the Everest.

It delcared that black people are not human beings. It upheld slavery.

And it was one of the events that brought the U.S. on the road to civil war.

Worst. SCOTUS. Decision. EVER!

There are solid arguments as to which of them rates the worst.

Recent history, no doubt, Citizens United. (IMHO)

Dred Scott and Korematsu are FAR worse in my opinion. My values.

You disagree obviously. Civil rights for PoC trump Bush v. Gore ANY FUCKING DAY in my book.

That's how I feel. I really don't give a shit how many people disagree with me on DU, not changing my mind on this one.

Good day sir.

I'm just making fun of some of the comments that said all the white people are listing Bush v Gore.

That was the worst of the worst. Frigging appointing a president. Stopping my right for my vote to be count. I live in FL voted for Gore that year. So when the votes were finally counted Gore won. The SC picked the loser and gave that to the US to govern. So the loser won and screwed our country up royally. No w as prez, no Iraq war, no patriot act, no messed up hurricane responses, no wall street melt down, no ISIS, no a lot of bad dumb things all cause the SC picked w the loser over the true winner Gore.