Judicial Activism Card

For debaters working on the current LD topic about Judicial Activism, six reasons why activist judges won't go completely wild but will still be constrained.

Duncan Kennedy, Imagining a Judge's Reasoning Process, in ANALYTIC JURISPRUDENCE ANTHOLOGY 208-209 (Anthony D'Amato ed., 1996)

First, I see myself as having promised some diffuse public that I will "decide according to law," and it is clear to me that a minimum meaning of this pledge is that I won't do things for which I don't have a good legal argument....

Second, various people in my community will sanction me severely if I do not offer a good legal argument for my action....

Third, I want my position to stick....

Fourth, by engaging in legal argument I can shape the outcomes of future cases and influence popular consciousness about what kinds of action are legitimate....

Fifth, every case is part of my life-project of being a liberal activist judge. What I do in this case will affect my ability to do things in other cases, enhancing or diminishing my legal and political credibility as well as my technical reputation with the various constituencies that will notice....

Sixth, since I see legal argument as a branch of ethical argument, I would like to know for my own purposes how my position looks translated into this particular ethical medium.

Some of these I think blend together, but they still represent a pretty good aff block or spike.