I just want to archive this quote for future reference. It is from Jack Balkin’s article entitled, “What Brown Teaches Us About Constitutional Theory” in the University of Virginia Law Review.

“Judges are sort of like place kickers in football. Most place kickers are pretty bad at making an open-field tackle to stop a speedy running back returning a kickoff. But place kickers can help pile on after the other players have tackled or slowed down a runner. That is sometimes how I imagine courts and their relationship to social change: They see the running back lying on the ground, groaning under the weight of a huge pile of linebackers. The judges say to themselves, “It’s time for us to do some justice!” and they throw themselves on the pile.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 11th, 2004 at 1:07 am and is filed under Judiciary, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.