Abstract
With last fall marking the fiftieth anniversary of Earl Warren's appointment as Chief Justice, enough time has passed to place the criminal procedure revolution in proper historical perspective and rethink the Court's role there as countermajoritarian hero. In the discussion that follows, I aim to do that by examining five of the revolution's most celebrated decisions: Mapp v. Ohio, Gideon v. Wainwright, Miranda v. Arizona, Katz v. United States, and Terry v. Ohio. In none of these cases, I argue, did the Supreme Court act in a manner truly deserving of its countermajoritarian image. To be clear, I do not deny that these decisions were historically significant, salient events; nor do I deny that they were doctrinally revolutionary (though two fall short of even that mark). My point is simply that upon close inspection, the landmark cases of the criminal procedure revolution say more about the Supreme Court's lack of inclination for countermajoritarian decision making than the contrary-and that, in turn, has profound implications for the heroic, countermajoritarian function we tend to ascribe to judicial review.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2004
Recommended Citation
Corinna Barrett Lain, Countermajoritarian Hero or Zero - Rethinking the Warren Court's Role in the Criminal Procedure Revolution, 152 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1361 (2004)