The Supreme Court
美国最高法院

Following Souter
跟随苏特的脚步

 

May 7th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition

Barack Obama has a chance to rejuvenate the Supreme Court’s liberal wing
贝拉克•奥巴马有机会复兴最高法院的自由派。

AP

DAVID SOUTER (second from right, above) is a singular character. Though wealthy, he lives the life of Diogenes. He lunches frugally at his desk, typically on yogurt and an apple, which he eats to the core. He seldom goes out. He has no time for modern distractions such as television. But most unusually of all, despite having life tenure as a judge on the Supreme Court, he is planning to retire at the tender age of 69.

大卫•苏特 (图上方从右边数起第二位)是个非凡的人物。尽管他很富有，却过着如第欧根尼（古希腊哲学家，犬儒学派的代表人物，据说第欧根尼住在一个木桶里，所拥有的所有财产包括这个木桶、一件斗篷、一支棍子、一个面包袋——译者注）般的生活。他中午就在办公桌旁简单地吃点东西，通常是酸奶和一只苹果，而且他会把苹果吃得只剩果核，一点也不愿浪费。他极少出门，从不把时间浪费在诸如电视等现代社会中令人分心的事物上。但是最不寻常的是，尽管拥有最高法院法官这一终生职位，他还是计划在69岁这个相对较轻的年龄卸甲归田（读者也许会问，69岁还年轻吗？不妨来看看现任首席法官罗伯茨之前的三任美最高法院首席法官离职时的年龄：威廉•伦奎斯特，81岁，任上病死；沃伦•伯格，79岁，主动退休；厄尔•沃伦，78岁，主动退休——译者注）。

He loves judging but hates Washington, DC. He calls it the worst city in the world, though he has barely travelled. He yearns to return to his home in a tiny hamlet in New Hampshire, a dilapidated wooden farmhouse where he lives alone. His announcement, on May 1st, sent ripples of excitement through the city he despises. President Barack Obama now has a chance to pep up the court’s liberal wing with a youthful replacement.

他喜欢法官这一职业却痛恨华盛顿这座城市。他将其称为世界上最糟糕的城市，尽管他基本上不出远门。他渴望回到他位于新罕布舍尔州一座小村庄中的家，那是一座破败不堪的木结构农舍，他在里面独自生活。他于5月1日发表的这则声明却在这座他鄙视的城市里激荡起了骚动的涟漪。奥巴马总统现在有机会选拔一个年轻人填补他留下的空缺以充实最高法院中的自由派。

The Supreme Court matters. Its nine members decide what the constitution means. When there is doubt as to whether a law, a president or the actions of a local police department are lawful, the nine get the final say. Their decisions cannot be overruled, except by a future Supreme Court or a constitutional amendment. And they are appointed for life.

最高法院的地位举足轻重。该法院的九名法官拥有诠释宪法的权力。当人们对一部法律、一位总统、或一所地方警局的行动是否符合法律产生疑问的时候，这九个人拥有最终裁决权。他们做出的决定不能被推翻，除非是未来的最高法院裁决或是宪法修正案。而这些法官一旦获得任命，就能终生任职。

Small wonder that confirmation hearings for nominees are ferocious. One jurist with superb qualifications was scuppered when it was revealed that, at the age of 12, he had described the film “To Kill a Mockingbird” as “kind of boring”. Obviously a racist, concluded the Senate. Another candidate had once offered to marry his girlfriend if she was pregnant. This proved he was “maniacally” opposed to abortion, said the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a windbag who “had uttered his first full sentence at the age of 14 months and hadn’t stopped since.”

因此，讨论提名人选的听证会其激烈程度是不言而喻的。曾有一位获提名的法学家资质超群，但当人们得知他在12岁时将《杀死一只知更鸟》这部电影形容为“有点无聊”后，他的提名未能获得核准，因为参议院由此断定他明显是个种族主义者。另一名候选人曾经向他女友主动提出如果她怀孕了就娶她为妻。参议院司法委员会主席——他是个“自从在14个月大的时候头一次说出一个完整的句子之后就再也停不下来”的饶舌之人——说这证明这位候选人“疯狂地”反对堕胎。

These, as it happens, are scenes from “Supreme Courtship”, an amusing novel by Christopher Buckley. But reality is not so far removed from satire. When Robert Bork, a learned conservative judge, was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1987, Ted Kennedy called him a “Neanderthal” who would bring back segregated lunch counters and slam the courthouse doors “on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of…individual rights.” Mr Bork was not confirmed. Clarence Thomas, a black conservative, was narrowly confirmed in 1991, but only after enduring what he called a “high-tech lynching” over allegations that he sexually harassed a colleague.

实际上，这些轶事都是克里斯托弗•巴克利在他那本有趣的小说《向最高法院求爱》中记载的。但是现实跟讽刺文学的差距也并不远。当博学的保守派法官罗伯特•伯尔克在1987年被提名进入最高法院任职时，泰德•肯尼迪（美国前总统约翰•肯尼迪的弟弟，民主党元老，是现今美国国会参议院任期第二长的参议员——译者注）称他为“尼安德特人”，说他会让实行种族隔离的午餐柜台死灰复燃并且把法院大楼的门摔在“司法体系往往是其个人权利之唯一保护者的数百万公民的手指上”。于是乎，伯尔克的提名流产了。克莱伦斯•托马斯，一位黑人保守派，他1991年获得提名后也是在忍受了针对他性骚扰一位女同事的指控展开的被他自己称为“高科技私刑”的调查后才勉强获得核准的（托马斯法官也是现任的九名最高法院法官中唯一的非白人法官——译者注）。

Mr Souter, who was picked by President George Bush senior in 1990, escaped with only a light hazing, largely because he was so little known. At the time of his nomination he had been an appeals court judge for only two months. Mr Bush figured that Senate Democrats would be unable to attack his record because there was no record to attack.

苏特法官是由老布什总统于1990年提名的，他之所以能够顺利通过提名审核而只受轻微戏弄，主要是因为他那时还只是个无名之辈。他获得提名之时才当了两个月的上诉法院法官。老布什总统由此考虑到参议院中的民主党人将无法攻击苏特的记录，因为根本就没有关于他的记录。

This brilliant plan backfired. Mr Bush had been assured that Mr Souter was a staunch conservative; he proved to be anything but. Pro-lifers who expected him to help overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a right to abortion, were disappointed. He had a chance to scrap it in 1992. Instead, he reaffirmed it. The same year, he joined a 5-4 majority upholding the ban on prayer in public schools. And in 2000, in Bush v Gore, he voted against automatically awarding the presidency to the son of the man who nominated him. As some readers will recall, he lost that one. He is said to have considered resigning.

这个聪明的计划结果却事与愿违。老布什当时得到保证说苏特是个不折不扣的保守派；但事实证明他除了保守派什么都是。反对堕胎的人士寄希望于他会帮助推翻罗伊诉韦德案（编号410 U.S. 113，是美最高法院于1973年作出的关于堕胎的地标性裁决，结果为最高法院以7-2的比数，认定德州刑法限制妇女堕胎权的规定，违反宪法增修条文第14条“due process/正当法律程序”条款，Harry Blackmun法官代表法院为此案写了极为精彩的判词，其中追本溯源，甚至分析了历史上的波斯帝国、希腊城邦、罗马帝国等时期对生命权和堕胎的态度——译者注），1973年最高法院对该案的判决中认可了堕胎权，但是苏特让他们失望了。1992年时他本有机会推翻这一判决，而他却选择再次确认判决的正确性。同年，他投票支持不许在公立学校举行祷告的禁令，从而使其以5-4微弱多数通过。而在2000年的布什诉戈尔案（编号531 U.S. 98，是美国司法史上一个存在很大争议的判决。结果为最高法院以5-4的比数判定佛罗里达应于判决做出的当天2000年12月12日停止重新计票，从而将小布什送上了总统宝座——译者注），他投票反对自动将总统宝座授予提名他出任最高法院法官的那位总统的儿子。一些读者应该还记得，那次投票他输了。据说当时他曾经考虑过辞职。

In 2005 Mr Souter sparked another controversy by voting to allow the government to seize people’s homes and hand the land to private developers. The constitution allows the expropriation of private property for “public use”, such as building a road. In Kelo v New London, a town in Connecticut wanted to evict some homeowners and replace them with wealthier people and businesses who might pay higher taxes. Mr Souter and four other justices thought that was just fine. Outraged property-rights sticklers proposed to have Mr Souter’s home bulldozed and replaced with a hotel. They failed, of course, but most states have since passed laws curbing the power of local governments to grab land on behalf of private corporations.

2005年苏特引发了另一场争议，他投票支持一项允许政府征用居民住房并将土地交给私有开发商的法案。美国宪法允许征用私有地产作“公共用途”，例如建造公路。在凯洛诉新伦敦市案（编号545 U.S. 469，2005年。该案涉及拆迁和土地使用权的问题，结果最高法院以5-4微弱优势认定新伦敦市政府的行为是“公共用途”——译者注）中，康涅狄格州的一座城市（新伦敦市）的市政当局企图驱逐一些住房所有者并以更富有的人和商业机构取而代之，因为这些人可能带来更高的税收。苏特法官和另外四名法官（这四名法官分别为Anthony Kennedy，John Paul Stevens，Ruth Bader Ginsburg和Stephen Breyer——译者注）认为这不构成违宪。愤怒的坚决维护财产权分子建议用推土机把苏特法官的住宅夷为平地并在之上建造一座酒店。他们当然没能得逞，但是此后大多数州都通过相应法律来限制地方政府以私人企业名义征用土地的权力。

In the past year, in cases that were not decided unanimously, Mr Souter has voted 86% of the time with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court’s liberal lioness. He agreed with Samuel Alito, a young conservative, only 14% of the time. Republicans rate him one of the elder President Bush’s biggest mistakes. Democrats, having been pleasantly surprised, hope that Mr Obama does not hand them the other sort of surprise with his replacement.

去年，在一些最高法院未能达成一致意见的案件中，苏特法官在投票时与最高法院的自由派女领军人物鲁思•贝德•金茨伯格（她是现任的九位最高法院法官中唯一的女性，但她现在受到直肠癌和胰腺癌的双重折磨——译者注）意见一致的概率高达86%。而与年轻的保守派萨穆埃尔•阿利托观点一致的概率却只有14%。共和党人据此把苏特列为老布什总统最大的错误之一。而民主党人则是又惊又喜，他们希望奥巴马总统用来填补苏特空缺的人选不会给他们带来另类的惊讶。

That seems unlikely. With at least 59 Democrats in the 100-seat Senate, Mr Obama can be fairly sure that his choice will be confirmed. The question is: what sort of judge would he like? The answer is unclear. Although Mr Obama has taught constitutional law and edited the Harvard Law Review, his opinions on constitutional matters are hard to pin down.

这似乎不大可能。民主党在总共100席的参议院中占有至少59个席位，因此奥巴马总统能够十分肯定地确保他选择的人选顺利获得核准。问题在于：他将是一个怎样的法官？答案是不清楚。尽管奥巴马曾经教授宪法并编辑《哈佛法律评论》，人们还吃不准他在一些宪法问题上的看法。

When campaigning for the Democratic nomination, he told liberals what they wanted to hear. Addressing a Planned Parenthood conference in 2007, he said: “[W]e need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognise what it’s like to be a young teenage mom [or] poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that’s the [criterion] by which I’ll be selecting my judges.”

当奥巴马竞选民主党总统候选人提名的时候，他在自由派人士面前大谈他们想听的。他在2007年的一场计划生育大会上发言时说：“……我们需要一个会用心，用换位思考去体会作一个少年母亲、作一介贫民、作一个非洲裔美国人、作一名同性恋者、作一个残疾人，或作一个老人的人。而这就是我将据此选择法官的[标准]。”

For conservatives, this was alarming. Justice is supposed to be blind, not empathetic. As conservatives see it, liberal judges have repeatedly subverted the rule of law in recent decades by overruling elected lawmakers with scant constitutional justification. Roe v Wade, which relies on a constitutional right to privacy that is nowhere written in the constitution, is the most controversial example.

对保守派人士来说，这足够令人警觉的。正义应该是没有感情的，而不是有移情力的。在保守派人士看来，通过在鲜有宪法合理性的情况下推翻选举产生的立法者们的意见，自由派法官们在最近几十年里一而再，再而三地暗中破坏法制。以宪法中并未明文规定而法院却认定符合宪法的隐私权为依据的罗伊诉韦德案便是其中最具争议的例子。

But as president Mr Obama has sent out mixed signals. On the one hand, he says he wants “someone who understands that justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook. It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people’s lives.” That sounds like a prescription for judicial activism. But Mr Obama also says he wants “somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honours our constitutional traditions… and the appropriate limits of the judicial role”. That is exactly what conservatives say they want.

但是当选总统后奥巴马释出了矛盾的信号。他一方面说他想要“一个懂得司法并不是抽象的法律理论或法律案例集中的一个注释，而是我们的法律如何影响到人们日常生活的具体实际的人。”这听起来像是指定了司法积极主义。但是奥巴马也说过他想要“一个献身于法制、尊重我们的宪法传统……和司法系统职责之合理范围的人”。这恰好正是保守派想要的。

So no one knows what to expect. Many Democrats want him to choose a Hispanic woman, since the court currently has no Hispanics and only one woman. Speculation swirls around Sonia Sotomayor, an appeals court judge who grew up in poverty in the South Bronx after her father, a manual labourer from Puerto Rico, died when she was nine.

因此没人知道奥巴马的葫芦里卖的是什么药。很多民主党人想要奥巴马选一个拉美裔的女性，因为最高法院的法官中目前还没有拉美裔法官，而女法官也只有一人。猜测集中到了索尼娅•索托马约尔身上，她是一位上诉法院法官（确切地说是第二上诉法院法官——译者注），从小在纽约南布朗克斯地区(也就是公认的Hip-Hop的起源地——译者注)长大，家境贫寒。她的父亲，一位来自波多黎各的体力劳动者，在她九岁时就去世了。

It could be no more than speculation, however. Unkind critics question Ms Sotomayor’s intellect. And she upset many with her ruling in Ricci v DeStefano, a case now before the Supreme Court. A group of white firefighters sued for racial discrimination when they were denied promotions. They had passed an aptitude test, but because none of their black colleagues passed, the city decided to promote no one. Ms Sotomayor sided with the city.

但是，这也仅仅是猜测而已。那些刻薄的批评家们怀疑索托马约尔女士的智商。而她在里奇诉迪斯特法诺案（编号07-1428 & 08-328，该案是一个“affirmative action/积极平衡权益措施”是否使用过度的典型案件，其中心问题是市政府是否可以拒绝承认那些将导致白人申请者获得升迁的几率将远高于少数族裔申请者的考试结果有效，因为害怕这样做将招来种族歧视的指控——译者注）中的判决也让很多人失望，而现在此案已经移送至最高法院审理。此案中，一群白人消防队员由于没能得到升迁而以种族歧视为由提起诉讼。他们都通过了一项能力测验，但是由于他们的黑人同事中没有一个人通过测验，市政府决定谁都不予提拔。索托马约尔女士站在了市政府一边。

The conventional wisdom about Mr Souter’s retirement is that an ageing liberal will simply be replaced by a younger one. On the most angrily debated issues, such as abortion, that may be true. And the court may soon be forced to rule on some aspect of gay marriage, although the states seem for now to be liberalising apace without direction from above. But Mr Souter does not entirely fit the liberal stereotype. For example, he complains about the “stark unpredictability” of the punitive damages that lawyers often urge juries to impose. Last year he wrote the majority opinion striking down a $2.5 billion award against Exxon for an oil spill in Alaska.

对苏特法官退休的普遍看法是一个衰老的自由主义者将被一个更年轻的自由主义者所代替。在那些争论最激烈的问题上，如堕胎，这种看法或许是对的。而最高法院或许很快就将被迫就同性婚姻的某个方面作出判决，尽管各州眼下似乎正在缺乏最高法院指示的情况下大肆推行同性婚姻自由化。但是苏特法官并不完全符合典型自由主义者的形象。例如，律师们经常督促陪审团对诉讼对手处以惩罚性的损失赔偿，而苏特则抱怨这里面存在着“彻头彻尾的不可预见性”。去年，他写了一个案子的多数派意见，此案中法院判定埃克森美孚公司无需为在阿拉斯加发生的石油泄露事故支付25亿美元的赔偿。

The next court could hear plenty of commercial cases, not least because the recession has spurred the federal government to involve itself more in private business. Mr Obama is propping up banks, managing car firms, re-writing mortgage contracts and chasing white-collar criminals. All these ventures raise legal questions. Mr Obama will want an ally on the Supreme Court; but as Mr Souter’s career attests, unsackable judges make unpredictable allies.

下一届最高法院有可能审理大量的商业诉讼案，尤其是因为经济衰退已经促使联邦政府更多地参与到私人经营活动之中。奥巴马政府扶持银行、管理汽车企业、重写抵押贷款合同、追捕白领罪犯。所有这些活动都导致法律问题的产生。奥巴马将希望在最高法院拥有一个盟友；但是就像苏特法官的职业经历所证明的那样，无法解雇的法官们与谁结盟难以预测。

 

premiermao: http://www.ecocn.org/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=19093

 

 

 

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