Anthony Kennedy was born in 1936 in Sacramento, California. After he had graduated from Harvard Law School, he started teaching constitutional law (Madani, 2013). In the 1970s, Kennedy became a part of the U.S. Court of Appeals. In the late 1980s, he was chosen by Ronald Reagan to be one of the Supreme Court justices. Anthony Kennedy made a name for himself for his conformist views. Moreover, the majority of his decisions emphasized the issue of individual rights (Madani, 2013).
It is important to mention that Kennedy served in a number of positions throughout his career (including the Army, the Federal Judicial Center, and the Board of the Judicial Conference of the US) (Biographies of current justices of the Supreme Court, n.d.). Just like his father, Anthony Kennedy is connected to the Republican party. He also was a campaigner in California and got acquainted with another activist who had been closely related to Ronald Reagan. Later, Kennedy was the one who provided help to Reagan in outlining the first Proposition which was an election initiative intended to minimize state spending (Madani, 2013).
Anthony Kennedy is known to be one of the most startling and volatile justices on the US Supreme Court. He managed to provide a considerate unconventionality which failed to replicate any specific philosophy. His occasional withdrawal from conventional jurisprudence mirrored an open-minded outlook on several individual rights (Matt, 2016). For instance, even though he was commonly reverent to the government on criminal law and other issues associated with it, he voted, along with other liberal justices, to pronounce undemocratic a Texas regulation that proscribed the despoliation of the American flag (Madani, 2013). The decision was based on the fact that the Constitution views such decrees as figurative speech. The views on foreign law are seen as a protruding aspect of Justice Kennedy’s sporadic difference in comparison to his more old-fashioned colleagues (Madani, 2013). This has triggered discontentment among the majority of conformist Congress associates and politically aware experts.
In addition to being a Justice of the country’s highest court, Anthony Kennedy is also involved in a number of interesting didactic projects (Madani, 2013). In addition to his Supreme Court practice, he often visits China to conduct lectures. He is also well-known for his lectures on international law in the United States and Canada. Kennedy was involved in the development of a didactic program for senior justices in Iraq. He had also taken an important part in the creation of an online program aimed to endorse American culture and values (Madani, 2013).
I believe that it is appropriate for justices to use their real-life experiences in their interpretations of the law. Nonetheless, this issue should be seen as a double-edged sword for the reason that the application of personal beliefs and experiences may be unconstitutional and have nothing to do with justice (Gibson & Nelson, 2016). In Kennedy’s case, the line between personal experiences and judicial decisions is rather thin. He proved to be driven by equity, but can also be characterized as unpredictable. I think that his past positions had a great influence on his outlooks (Madani, 2013). The fact that Anthony Kennedy was able to both support his father’s Republican affiliation and make rather liberalistic decisions shows that this Supreme Court Justice is beyond proficient and knowledgeable in a number of constitutional questions despite his duality.
References
Biographies of current justices of the Supreme Court. (n.d.). Web.
Gibson, J. L., & Nelson, M. J. (2016). Change in institutional support for the US Supreme Court. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(3), 622-641. Web.
Madani, H. (2013). The Supreme Court and the judicial branch: How the federal courts interpret our laws. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow.
Matt, F. (2016). Why the Supreme Court is a key US election issue. Web.