Drug Policy Opinion: Page 20

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Drug Policy Opinion

Statements found in Court opinions regarding illicit substances. Public policy considerations, individual predilections of the Justice writing the opinion, the objective and subjective views on the the drugs, the drug use and the drug war... All of these can be found in this section.

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Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association (1989)
JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom JUSTICE BRENNAN joins, dissenting:

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.

[...]

Richardson v. United States (1999)
JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom JUSTICE O'CONNOR and JUSTICE GINSBURG join, dissenting:

...[T]he CCE offense is aimed at what Congress perceived to be a peculiar evil: the drug kingpin.

[...]

Richardson v. United States (1999)
JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom JUSTICE O'CONNOR and JUSTICE GINSBURG join, dissenting:

The continuing series element [of the CCE offense] reflects Congress' intent to punish those who organize or direct ongoing narcotics-related activity. As the Court said in Garrett: "A common-sense reading of this definition [of 'engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise'] reveals a carefully crafted prohibition aimed at a special problem. This language is designed to reach the 'top brass' in the drug rings, not the lieutenants and foot soldiers." [...] As part of that statutory design, the continuing series element of the offense aims to punish those whose persistence and organization establish a successful, ongoing criminal operation. The continuing series element, as a consequence, is directed at identifying drug enterprises of the requisite size and dangerousness, not at punishing drug offenders for discrete drug violations.

[...]

Richardson v. United States (1999)
JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom JUSTICE O'CONNOR and JUSTICE GINSBURG join, dissenting:

In the CCE context, the continuing series element advances the goals of the statute in a way that is neither unfair nor irrational: It is a direct and overt prohibition upon drug lords whose very persistence and success makes them a particular evil.

[...]

Richardson v. United States (1999)
JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom JUSTICE O'CONNOR and JUSTICE GINSBURG join, dissenting:

There are many ways to be a drug kingpin, just as there are many ways to commit murder or kidnapping.

[...]