Should Supreme Court Justices be Judicially Active or Judicially Restrained?

Part 1: Judicial Activism vs. Judicial Restraint: 

1. Judicial Activism: It is a judicial philosophy in which judges make bold policy

decisions, even charting new constitutional ground. Advocates of this approach
emphasize that the courts can correct pressing needs, especially those unmet by the
majoritarian political process. Basically, it is the loose interpretation of the Constitution.

2. Judicial Review: It is the power given to the courts to determine whether the acts of
congress are in accord with the U.S. constitution. It was established by John Marshall in
Marbury v. Madison.

Part 2: Relationship to Famous Court Cases: 

l Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)l
 Name of the Case: Hammer v. Dagenhart
 Date it was decided: Jun 03, 1918.
 Facts of the Case:
1. The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act prohibited the interstate shipment of
goods produced by child labor.
2. Reuben Dagenhart's father, Roland, sued on behalf of his freedom to
allow his fourteen year old son to work in a textile mill.
 Issues:
- Does the congressional act violate the Commerce Clause, the Tenth
Amendment, or the Fifth Amendment?
 Holding:
The Keating-Owen Child Labor Act was outside the Commerce Power and the
regulation of production was a power reserved to the states via the Tenth
Amendment.
 Judicially active/judicially restrained:
This court case is an example of the Supreme Court being judicially restrained.
The decision ruled that Congress has no power under the Commerce Clause to
regulate in-state labor conditions. The Commerce Clause was interpreted with a
strict interpretation. In this case, the Judges reviewed the language of the
constitution when making their decision and relied on what they believed the
Framers intended. Thus, it is judicially restrained.

l Heart of Atlanta Hotel v. United States (1964)l

 Name of the Case: Heart of Atlanta Hotel v. United States
 Date it was decided: Dec 14, 1964.
 Facts of the Case:
 3. Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade racial discrimination by
places of public accommodation if their operations affected commerce.
4. The Heart of Atlanta Motel in Atlanta, Georgia, refused to accept Black
Americans.
5. The government sought to enjoin the motel from discriminating on the
basis of race under Title II.
 Issues:
- Did Congress, in passing Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, exceed its
Commerce Clause powers by depriving places of public accommodation
of the right to choose their own customers?
 Holding:
The Commerce Clause extends the anti-discrimination provisions in the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 to hotels that host travelers from outside the state. In a
unanimous decision authored by Justice Clark, the Court held the government
could enjoin the motel from discriminating on the basis of race under the
Commerce Clause.

 Judicially active/judicially restrained:

This court case is an example of the Supreme Court being judicially active. The
decision ruled that Congress was allowed to regulate local incidents under the
Civil Right Act of 1964 which was ruled constitutional under the Commerce
Clause. In this case, the Commerce Clause was loosely interpreted. commerce
clause was deemed constitutional, but judges used judicial activism when deciding
that the public accommodation simply could not choose their guests. Thus, it is an
Judicially active school.
l Korematsu v. United States (1944)l
 Name of the Case: Korematsu v. United States
 Date it was decided: Dec 18, 1944.
 Facts of the Case:
6. In response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II,
the U.S. government decided to require Japanese-Americans to move into
relocation camps as a matter of national security.
7. President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February
1942, two months after Pearl Harbor.
8. A Japanese-American man living in San Leandro, Fred Korematsu, chose
to stay at his residence rather than obey the order to relocate.
9. Korematsu was arrested and convicted of violating the order.
10.He responded by arguing that Executive Order 9066 violated the Fifth
Amendment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed Korematsu's conviction.
 Issues:
- Did the President and Congress go beyond their war powers by
implementing exclusion and restricting the rights of Americans of
Japanese descent?
 Holding:
The Court ruled that the evacuation order violated by Korematsu was valid. The
majority found that the Executive Order did not show racial prejudice but rather
responded to the strategic imperative of keeping the U.S. secure from invasion.
The Court relied heavily on a 1943 decision, Hirabayashi v. U.S., which addressed
similar issues.

 Judicially active/judicially restrained:

This court case is an example of the Supreme Court being judicially active. The
decision ruled that the government was not going beyond their war powers by
restricting the rights of American of Japanese descent. In this case, the rights of
these Japanese Americans were restricted by the government and the justices
argued that the need to protect against espionage outweighed the rights of
Japanese Americans. Thus, the court made a decision that favors the majority of
people and strictly goes against the rights of the plaintiff to deal with war time
demands despite the constitution.

l Brown v. Board of Education (1954)l

 Name of the Case: Brown v. Board of Education
 Date it was decided: May 17, 1954.
 Facts of the Case:
11.This case was the consolidation of cases arising in Kansas, South
Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and Washington D.C. relating to the
segregation of public schools on the basis of race.
12.In each of the cases, African American students had been denied
admittance to certain public schools based on laws allowing public
education to be segregated by race.
13.They argued that such segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment.
14.The plaintiffs were denied relief in the lower courts based on Plessy v.
Ferguson/
 Issues:
- Does the segregation of public education based solely on race violate the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
 Holding:
The Supreme Court held that “separate but equal” facilities are inherently unequal
and violate the protections of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. The Court reasoned that the segregation of public education based
on race instilled a sense of inferiority that had a hugely detrimental effect on the
education and personal growth of African American children.

 Judicially active/judicially restrained:

This court case is an example of the Supreme Court being judicially active. The
decision ruled that “separate but equal” facilities are inherently equal and violate
the Equal protection Clause of the 14thAmendment. It kind of is super judicial
activism since the 14thAmendment itself can also be argued to be unconstitutional
and this decision is based off of the 14thAmendment.

Part 3: Your opinion

I believe the Supreme Justices need to judicially restrained in their decision

making processes because judicially active Supreme court will defy the purpose of
having the Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justices are supposed to base their
decisions solely off of the Constitution rather than belief and personal opinions. If
they implement their own opinions in the decisions, they end up distorting the
Constitution and create loophole in order for their opinions to be “supported” by
the Constitution. Thus, they should solely base their decision off of the
Constitution and not make the Constitution fit their interpretation.

Some examples of the problems of a Judicially active decision are the Elastic
clause. Most acts declared constitutional expanded federal power with the use of
Elastic clause to support its constitutionality. Although judges who are judicially
active can help stop societal injustices, they are more likely to create decisions that
stretches the meaning of constitution, causing issues.