As perhaps the most famous dissenter, Justice Scalia
knows how to craft a barb. And he’s not
alone. The Columbus
Dispatch describes the “pointed language” of dissents written by justices
of the Ohio Supreme Court. The Dispatch
reports, for example: “In June, [Justice] Pfeifer took issue with a majority
opinion that relied on a statute containing a 307-word sentence by writing a
one-sentence dissent: 300-plus words to lampoon the ‘24 lines of unrelenting
abstruseness.’”
Vociferous dissents may be fun to read, but how useful are
they? Here are a few resources for
exploring this type of judicial opinion:
Justice Ginsberg offers her views on The Role of Dissenting Opinions in a
lecture published by the Minnesota Law Review.
PBS
offers discussion of several “famous dissents,” including dissenting opinions in Korematsu and Dred Scott.
Check out some of our titles, like Scalia Dissents
and Foreshadows of the
Law: Supreme Court Dissents and
Constitutional Development.