OK, while I've been able to contain myself up to this point, here's a little "politics."

One time my mission president made the comment to a group of district leaders that I was "not normal" and that I enjoyed reading church handbooks (largely because missionaries aren't supposed to read, say, George R. R. Martin, Tad Williams, or Robert Jordan). Likewise, every so often I stop by the Supreme Court's website, and see if there are any interesting opinions recently issued. I've noticed that Roberts has been able to shepherd the Court toward a lot of unanimous opinions. Yesterday the Court released an opinion in Brigham City v. Stuart.

From the official summary: "At about 3 a.m., four police officers responded to a call regarding a loud party at a residence. ... They entered the backyard, and saw—through a screen door and windows—an altercation taking place in the kitchen of the home."

The question was whether the police should have entered the home without a warrant and without permission, given that they saw a fight taking place inside. The Utah courts decided that because the police only entered for the purely selfish reason of arresting the suspects, they were involved in an unreasonable search. The Supreme Court unanimously held that "Because the officers’ ... motivation is irrelevant ... it does not matter here whether they entered the kitchen to arrest respondents and gather evidence or to assist the injured and prevent further violence."

This wouldn't catch my attention if this had been a split decision. But a unanimous decision generally means that it wasn't even close. Rhenquist had a way of finding what everybody on the Court could agree with, and then adding more to his opinion until only four other judges would sign off on it; releasing a 5-4 decision and grabbing as much ground as possible. Roberts, instead, seems happy to get all nine justices to agree on a single general premise. While it makes court watchers happy to see everybody playing nice, it does tend to make the District courts look silly.

For instance, several law schools recently tried to limit access military recruiters had for their impressionable and sophisticated students because the schools don't like Congress's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Lower courts wrestled with the issue, and had a difficult time deciding where to draw the line. The Roberts Court issued an opinion that could have been summed up in two sentences:

"The Constitution gives Congress the power to raise armies. The District Courts shouldn't spend their time trying to balance fifteen different factors to determine that exercising that power is Constitutional."

Or, how Stevens wrote in this case:

This is an odd flyspeck of a case. The charges ... are minor offenses ... two of which could have been proved by evidence that was gathered ... before [police] entered the home. The maximum punishment for these crimes ranges between 90 days and 6 months in jail. And the Court’s unanimous opinion restating well-settled rules of federal law is so clearly persuasive that it is hard to imagine the outcome was ever in doubt. Under these circumstances, the only difficult question is which of the following is the most peculiar: (1) that the Utah trial judge, the intermediate state appellate court, and the Utah Supreme Court all found a Fourth Amendment violation on these facts; (2) that the prosecution chose to pursue this matter all the way to the United States Supreme Court; or (3) that this Court voted to grant the petition for a writ of certiorari.

It seems that looking good as a District Court Judge just got a little harder.