The Supreme Court and Group Conflict: Thoughts on Seeing Burke Put Through the Mill

1958 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 665-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan F. Westin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Initial Reaction ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Group Conflict ◽  
Judicial Process ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Military Relations

In the fashion of fellow Young Burkes who are challenging liberal folkways in areas from civil-military relations to free speech, Albert Mavrinac offers here a prescription for Supreme Court supervision of group conflict in America. At the outset, it is fitting to pay tribute to his intellectual fortitude. To embrace Lucifer, Lochner v. New York, and, in the same article, to condemn St. Joan, Brown v. Board of Education (in the latter case virtually in the midst of the beatification ceremonies), and to strike this stance in the presence of a constitutional law fraternity strong in its liberal piety—this is indeed a profile in academic courage. I take it that my assignment as commentator in this Review is to discuss what there is besides courage to support his revisionist credo.My initial reaction was that Mavrinac had written an interesting essay about wisdom for legislators: it hardly seemed possible that an analysis of judicial standards should lack discussion of the integrity of the judicial process itself and focus so sharply on extra-court considerations. Having persuaded myself that a consistent theory of judicial review must lie in the interstices of the argument, I re-read it.

The Constitutionality of Involuntary Civil Commitment of Opiate Addicts

1988 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 641-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Civil Commitment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Involuntary Treatment ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Narcotic Trafficking ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Opiate Addicts ◽  
The 1960S

This paper deals with the constitutionality of involuntary treatment of opiate addicts. Although the first laws permitting involuntary treatment of opiate addicts were enacted in the second half of the nineteenth century, addicts were not committed in large numbers until California and New York enacted new civil commitment legislation in the 1960s. Inevitably, the courts were called upon to decide if involuntary treatment was constitutional. Both the California and New York courts decided that it was. These decisions were heavily influenced by statements made by the United States Supreme Court in Robinson v. California. The Robinson case did not actually involve the constitutionality of involuntary treatment; it involved the question of whether it was constitutional for a state to make addiction a crime. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court declared (in a dictum) that a state might establish a program of compulsory treatment for opiate addicts either to discourage violation of its criminal laws against narcotic trafficking or to safeguard the general health or welfare of its inhabitants. Presumably because the Robinson case did not involve the constitutionality of involuntary treatment of opiate addicts, the Supreme Court did not go into that question as deeply as it might have. The California and New York courts, in turn, relied too much on this dictum and did not delve deeply into the question. The New York courts did a better job than the California courts, but their work too was not as good as it should have been.

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