Supreme Court Year in Review

That said, there is an interesting thread connecting the immigration case and the life without parole case Emily mentions. As you say, Emily, Justices Kagan and Kennedy have shown a special solicitude for juveniles because they are ?different? in all the ways that have become familiar after Roper and Graham, the cases establishing that young people are reckless, impulsive, and vulnerable to external pressure?all qualities Alito sees as terrifying rather than worthy of special protection. The interesting common theme today is that Justice Scalia is desperately angry at the Obama administration?s special solicitude for children in announcing his support for a stripped down DREAM Act. Obama was announcing a new policy toward young people brought to the United States illegally by their parents for at least some of the same reasons Kagan seeks special scrutiny for young people who commit homicides. Justice Scalia is horrified at the prospect, explaining in his dissent that this will squander limited immigration resources. ?The husbanding of scarce enforcement resources can hardly be the justification for this, since those resources will be eaten up by the considerable administrative cost of conducting the nonenforcement program, which will require as many as 1.4 million background checks and biennial rulings on requests for dispensation.? I don?t want to make too much of the fact that both Alito and Scalia and?as you point out, Emily?the chief justice don?t think that special solicitude for young people, who don?t have as much control over their lives as adults, necessarily represents ?evolution? in the right direction, but it?s an interesting confluence today to say the least.

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