John Fredrick Parker
Donor
What are some historic Supreme Court Cases that were close to going the other way? How could said reversal have happened -- say it was 5-4 OTL, which Justice would be the best candidate for reversal -- and what would have been the effects of said reversal? Two ideas that come to mind:
Trop v Dulles (1958) -- OTL, it established that it was unconstitutional for the government to revoke the citizenship of a U.S. citizen as a punishment, in this case for wartime desertion; Whittaker voted with the 5 member majority, and he was known as an extremely vacillating judge. If he had ruled in favor of the government, future draft conflicts (like the one during Vietnam) might have gone very differently.
Bowers v Hardwick (1986) -- Justice Powell was actually planning on voting in the plaintiff's favor; supposedly a major reason for reversing on this was that he couldn't think of any gay people he knew, even though one of his clerks was a (closeted) homosexual. If Powell votes with Blackmun's four (even if it's just in judgement), this would essentially be Lawrence v Texas, 17 years earlier.
What do you think of these examples? And what potential cases can you think of?
Trop v Dulles (1958) -- OTL, it established that it was unconstitutional for the government to revoke the citizenship of a U.S. citizen as a punishment, in this case for wartime desertion; Whittaker voted with the 5 member majority, and he was known as an extremely vacillating judge. If he had ruled in favor of the government, future draft conflicts (like the one during Vietnam) might have gone very differently.
Bowers v Hardwick (1986) -- Justice Powell was actually planning on voting in the plaintiff's favor; supposedly a major reason for reversing on this was that he couldn't think of any gay people he knew, even though one of his clerks was a (closeted) homosexual. If Powell votes with Blackmun's four (even if it's just in judgement), this would essentially be Lawrence v Texas, 17 years earlier.
What do you think of these examples? And what potential cases can you think of?