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U.S. Supreme Court

Jun. 15, 2011

Unanimously Wrong

U.S. Supreme Court unanimously allows government to arrest persons on pretext of being a material witness. By Erwin Chemerinsky of UCI School of Law

Erwin Chemerinsky

Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law

Erwin's most recent book is "Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism." He is also the author of "Closing the Courthouse," (Yale University Press 2017).


At the beginning of every constitutional law class, I emphasize for my students that they should not assume that a decision is "right" just because the U.S. Supreme Court says so, and that they can conclude that even unanimous rulings are wrong. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Ashcroft v. Al-Kidd, 2011 DJDAR 7777 (May 31, 2011) was unanimously and tragically wrong. The Supreme Court held that there was no constitutional violation and no basis fo...

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