DrugPolicyCases.com | |||
|
Authors ›› Marshall
In his first dissenting opinion as a Member of this Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes observed:
"Great cases, like hard cases, make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their real importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment. These immediate interests exercise a kind of hydraulic pressure which makes what previously was clear seem doubtful, and before which even well settled principles of law will bend." Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U.S. 197, 400-401 (1904). A majority of this Court, swept away by society's obsession with stopping the scourge of illegal drugs, today succumbs to the popular pressures described by Justice Holmes. [...]
I agree that the separation of powers doctrine relates only to the allocation of power between the Branches, not the allocation of power within a single Branch. But this conclusion by no means suggests that the Constitution as a whole is indifferent to how permissibly delegated powers are distributed within the Executive Branch. In particular, the Due Process Clause limits the extent to which prosecutorial and other functions may be combined in a single actor. See, e. g., Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 485-487, 33 L. Ed. 2d 484, 92 S. Ct. 2593 (1972).
[...]
|
|