Judges Decision Making Process

Lex Brown
Judicial Processes
4/10/2015
Dr. Scott
Judges Decision’s Based on Region Throughout this semester we have learned about the processes, decision making, and what influences judges in their siding on court cases. We have learned that judges make decisions based on their political party affiliation. They also make decisions on according to their own beliefs or morals. But what makes someone fall into the political party they are in? Most say their beliefs and morals, however I do not disagree, I believe there is more to it. Taking it a step further, how or why someone believes what they do can usually be traced back to their parents, upbringing, family, and region of the United States they are from. For example take the Bush
Wade was whether or not the Constitution embraces a women’s right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion. The Court decided, in a 7 to 2 vote, that a women did have the right to have an abortion under the 14th amendment being the right to privacy. Now, the Supreme Court bench during this time was praised for being “one of the more balanced Supreme Court benches”, meaning there was a relatively equal split of those who tended to vote liberal and those who tended to vote conservative. The two Supreme Court Justices who voted against the right to abortion were Justice White and Justice Rehnquist. Justice White tended to have a more liberal outlook when making decisions. Although he is from a red, or Republican state, Colorado, at the time he was appointed by President Kennedy who was, like White, a liberal. In this case White chose not to turn to the Constitution when making his decision on the case but to stick to his own beliefs on whether abortion was right or wrong. The second Justice to vote against the legality of abortion was Justice Rehnquist a conservative from Wisconsin. On the opposite end of the meter, Rehnquist came from a state who voted Republican as well, but had more of a conservative approach to his decision making. The case of Roe v. Wade is a prime example of how balanced the bench was at the time. In the instance of Roe v. Wade the Justices tended to make their decision based more-so on their beliefs than on their Political
But, the politician that this mostly affects is the President the state produces. The President then gets to appoint Justices, if there are any openings, and choose Justices with their same ideology from states who share the same ideas as the President appointing them. I also found out that states tend to fluctuate on the political party they vote for. Ten to fifteen years ago a majority of the states voted Republican. Now we are starting to see a more Democratic shift. The selecting and decision making of the Supreme Court Justices, is like everything else in politics, just that… a bunch of politics.

Work Cited
"HOLLINGSWORTH v. PERRY." Hollingsworth v. Perry. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.
"How the Justices Ruled on the Health Care Law." The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 June 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.
N.p., n.d. Web.
"ROE v. WADE." Roe v. Wade. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.

I got a large majority of my information from oyez.org and following links about specific cases or justices. It was all from oyez.org so I cited the whole website instead of every single link I went