Vikram Amar Quotations

Unless a legislature passes a bill testing the opinion, there is no way to know if the court's opinion has changed. They can't signal a change of attitude without a vehicle for it.

If the trial court was wrong in letting her serve as her own counsel, that's not a mistake that's immune from appellate review. The system has to have a way to protect people from themselves.

At one level this is a very technical, dry case about when deference is owed (to an executive interpretation of federal law). But Kennedy is trying to rise above the technicalities to make a point about executive overreaching. Kennedy likes to remind people of the big picture.