Micromanagement by Court Decision

TIME has an important article this week on the way in which the Roberts Court has provided the final descent from decisions that affect enormous numbers of the general population (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Roe v. Wade) to decisions that affect 100 citizens, or 10, or 1. Along with the decrease in importance of cases comes a vast increase in rhetoric--opinions that are hundreds of pages v. the 14 pages needed for Brown. The reasons for this are eye-opening; the author (David Von Drehle) posits that this is the most homogeneous court ever--they're all intellectuals from the federal court of appeals.

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