What do you know about Chief Justice John Roberts?

TASK:

• Read the questions about Chief Justice John Roberts and the events and rulings he has presided over during his time on the Supreme Court.
• You need to match the correct answer to the question.
• Write the letter of the answer in the corresponding column.

Answers

1. US v Windsor – declared the Defence of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional
   Hollingsworth v Perry – found that the initiators of California’s Proposition 8 did not have ‘standing’ to contest a lower court’s decision to declare it unconstitutional, hence preserving the right to same-sex marriage in the state
2. 2005
3. That he had ‘no agenda’ and he would pursue a ‘limited approach to constitutional interpretation’
4. Shelby v Holder – which relaxed justice department controls over voting arrangements in states with a history of discrimination against minority voters, mostly in the South
5. It does not always seem to match the views he declared during the confirmation process
6. Its ideological direction
7. A series of conservative 1st Amendment decisions have been endorsed by majorities of both liberals and conservatives:
   United States v Stevens (2010) – struck down a federal law that made it a crime to create or sell dogfights videos and other depictions of animal cruelty (8-1, Alito dissented)
   Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011) – struck down a California law banning sale or rental of violent video games to under-18s (702, Breyer and Thomas dissented)
   Synder v Phelps (2011) – upheld the right of anti-gay activists to protest at military funerals (8-1, Alito dissented)
8. Anthony Kennedy
9. Find out which justice is most frequently in the majority in cases that are decided by 5 votes to 4
10. Gun rights: some cases have enabled the court to strike down congressional gun controls (DC v Heller (applying just to DC) and McDonald v Chicago as violating 2nd amendment)
11. It endorsed the right of bodies such as corporations and unions to involve themselves without restrictions in election campaigns
12. 7 Republican nominees and 2 Democrat nominees
13. They were the first court rulings on the 2nd Amendment since US v Miller in 1939, and the uncertainty over whether it does guarantee an individual right to gun ownership was such that the NRA was reluctant to see Heller brought to the court for fear the verdict would go the wrong way
14. It provided evidence of a return to conservative activism
15. The replacement of Sandra Day O’Connor by Samuel Alito in 2006 could have been expected to give the Roberts Court a decided conservative bias, but the evidence so far is mixed
16. They appear to point in different directions and may contradict each other
17. They have been in sentencing policy (with the support of Kennedy and in one case Roberts (Graham)) – 3 state laws have been struck down as violations of the 8th Amendment, reducing the applicability of the death penalty and life parole for under 18s:
    Kennedy v Louisiana (2008) – the death penalty for any crime other than murder and crimes against the state, even the rape of a child, is unconstitutional
    Graham v Florida (2010) – offenders under 18 cannot be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for non-homicide offenses
    Miller v Alabama (2012) – extended the principle of Graham, so that even under-18s found guilty of homicide cannot be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole
18. Struck down congressional law and reversed an earlier court decision, McConnell v FEC
19. The anguish was considerable and some even called for Chief Justice to be impeached
20. Most notably the requirement for every American to have health insurance

What do you know about Chief Justice John Roberts? (ANSWERS)