The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Court to Weigh Arizona Statute on Immigration,” shows what every conservative supposedly dreads, an activist court injecting itself into major policy decisions. In addition to immigration, the Court will also be deciding the fate of President Obama’s healthcare law and ruling on Texas legislative maps that could affect the balance in the House of Representatives.

The Court’s situation has been compared to the titanic struggle between President Roosevelt and the Court in 1936 when major elements of the New Deal were struck down. Whether President Obama is in for a similar fate remains to be seen.

Frankly, it doesn’t look good for the President. The Court has taken a decided turn to the conservative side, and it would take a bold decision to uphold his individual mandate, the key component of the healthcare package. As to immigration, the President may be in for a better fate. The supremacy of the federal government over the states is a long-standing element of our legal system, and these appeals to the 10th amendment fly in the face of precedent.

However, it seems to me, regarding the Texas redistricting, the Court should heed the 10th amendment. To fail to do so would impose top-down control over what has traditionally been a local process.

Ideally, the Court should try to bridge the polarism and divide between the Democrats and Republicans on all these issues, but doing that would take “Solomonic” wisdom.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Minors can Buy Violent Games, Justices Decide,” describes what must have been a difficult ruling for the Supreme Court, a 7-to-2 decision declaring a California law unconstitutional for its prohibition of store owners selling video games to children under 18.

At first glance, the ruling may seem counterintuitive. After all, who thinks selling violent video games is a good thing? But it is the role of parents to decide what games their kids should buy, and criminalizing the actions of store owners for this purpose is not the proper purview of government. More important, as the Court observed, the California law would have created an entirely new category of speech outside of the First Amendment, an amendment that has been held sacrosanct by the present Court in a wide number of rulings including controversial funeral protests and depictions of cruelty to animals.

The Court observed that the depiction of violence, unlike obscenity, incitement and fighting words, has never been exempted from First Amendment protections, and it was unwilling to create a new category lightly.

Of course, many parents may not be happy with today’s ruling, and it does make their job a little harder. But deciding what happens under their own roof is their responsibility, not the government’s, and upholding the First Amendment is one of our most precious traditions.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Supreme Court Tightens Rules in Class Actions,” describes a broadly based decision impacting the rights of women and other disadvantaged to groups to file and win cases based on discrimination. In an action brought to benefit 1.5 million women, they ruled that there was no commonality of purpose against them and thus disallowed the lawsuit from its inception.

The Justices split along 5-4 margins for many aspects of the ruling, thus showing the impact of the 5-4 ideological split in the Court. But all court watchers agreed upon the impact of the decision on a wide variety of class action suits because it seemingly overturns “40 years of precedents” of class action law.

Businesses, of course, hailed the ruling, but one wonders whether certain basic structures in our society meant to protect the disadvantaged have now been dismantled. It does certainly provide one additional reason to elect a Democratic President in 2012 because of the transformational aspect that the next Justice will have on the court. Right now, Justice Kennedy acts as the pivotal decision-maker on my Court rulings (though not on this one). If the next Justice is a conservative, even that breaking capability may be gone.

The lead story in today’s New York Times, “Justices Uphold Hateful Protest as Free Speech,” shows how much the Supreme Court values the First Amendment; so much that they are willing to go against their core beliefs to uphold it.

As has been much publicized, the Supreme Court consists of five conservative and four liberal justices, or four-to-four with Justice Kennedy in the middle, based largely on whether they were selected by a Democratic or Republican President. Yet yesterday’s surprising 8-1 ruling showed a rare unanimity on a very controversial issue.

The case concerned protests at a military funeral by a fringe Church who believes that the United States is “doomed” because of its tolerance of homosexuals. Their demonstration upset the father of the marine being buried, who just wanted to say goodbye to his son in peace, and whose grief was aggravated by the protesters.

Yet the Court ruled that the protesters were justified by the First Amendment for two reasons. First, the protest was based on a matter of public policy — the most protected area of all First Amendment rights — and second, the protesters were obeying the law, demonstrating in a peaceful manner in an unrestricted area.

While this ruling upset the father very much — on the CBS Evening News he said the justices had a lot of book knowledge but had the “common sense of a goat” — it is consistent with another unpopular ruling in Citizens United, allowing unlimited campaign contributions by corporations to protect their free speech. Democrats and Republicans will probably fall on opposite sides of these two rulings, but at least the Supreme Court is consistent.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Kagan Follows Precedent by Offering Few Opinions,” describes the Senate hearings for Elena Kagan to confirm her nomination to the Supreme Court by President Obama. Though the article describes the hearings as par for the course, it includes some unique matters in this specific case.

First, Elena Kagan had written an article encouraging judicial nominees to be more forthcoming yet in her own hearing she refused to comment about a number of items including gun rights, abortion, Bush v. Gore and others saying either that they might come up before the Court again in the future or that they demanded all the weight given to “settled law.”

However, unlike other nominees she displayed a remarkable sense of perspective and self-deprecating humor. When asked where she was at Christmas — regarding the terrorist bombing case — she replied that “like all New York Jews, she was probably at a Chinese restaurant.”

And when questioned about televising Supreme Court cases, she referred to the need to get her hair done more often.

And Ms. Kagan did elaborate more fully regarding some of her views including the death penalty and the controversial case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the decision giving corporations the same free speech rights as ordinary citizens. Many have referred to this case as “conservative judicial activism.”

And I must conclude by noting that Senator Jeff Sessions, who questioned Ms. Kagan repeatedly about some of her views occassionally showed a surprising lack of courtesy and appropriate deference.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Justices Extend Firearm Rights in 5-to-4 Ruling,” describes a major victory for the NRA, the extension of the protection of the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, to states and local communities. The new ruling outlaws complete handgun bans such as the one currently existing in Chicago.

Since the ruling merely represents an extension of a previous decision applied to Washington, DC and the federal government, it is probably over-emphasized in the New York Times story. Plus the ruling is limited in a number of ways including the nature of restrictions that are acceptable. The Justices readily acknowledge it may set off a flood of legislation.

The Justices also limited the ruling in other substantial ways, noting specifically that it did not apply to schools, political events or other sensitive locales. And it did not apply to felons or people with mental illnesses.

The article gets into a technical discussion regarding whether it was more appropriate to rely on the due process clause of the 14th amendment to extend the Bill of Rights to the states versus the privileges and immunities clause. A nice debate for lawyers, but it is the practical effect of this ruling that causes the most concern. And that effect will not be known until the constitutionality of ensuing regulations is tested.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Justices Uphold a Ban on Aiding Terror Groups,” describes a new ruling by the Supreme Court banning “material support” to foreign terror organizations designated by the U.S. government. It notes that expert support, even for peaceful purposes, can result in the ability to transfer other resources for more violent actions.

This ruling just makes common sense. There have always been acknowledged limits on free speech rights, the yelling “fire” in a crowded theater the most dramatic example. However, when Congress has ruled that a group engages in terrorism, the bane of the modern age, it makes sense to impose limitations on their support. Groups such as Hamas, for example, operate a broad-based charity organization to gain support, and money, for their more nefarious goals.

Sometimes civil libertarians, theoreticians and philosophers would like to deal with the world the way it should be rather than the world that exists. It would be nice if we could draw all these legal distinctions, but people can die as a result. A common tactic of evil is to masquerade as good, and exposing these organizations for what they truly are, and then cutting them off, is more than common sense. It may be crucial for our survival.

The lead story in today’s New York Times, titled “Justices Limit Life Stentences for Juvenies,” describes a new ruling by the Supreme Court forbidding the application of life-without-parole sentences for juveniles convicted of crimes without a murder.

Justice Kennedy, as usual, played a pivotal role in the decision, with this central element approved by a 5-4 vote (the case itself was decided narrowly in a 6-3 decision). It was a key Supreme Court ruling — the first time a category of offenders was excluded from a punishment that did not involve the death penalty.

The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments was the basis for the decision, and the article noted the continuing debated about whether an evolving society affected the definition of “cruel and unusual.” In a Neandrethal-like statement, Justice Thomas wanted to apply the definition of “cruel and unusual” when the Bill of Rights was adopted. Of course, at that time, slavery still ruled in the land.

The decision overturns laws in 37 states, Washington, D.C., and the federal government. However, only 129 juvenile offenders are directly affected by the decision, 77 of them in Florida.

Enlightened decisions like this one demonstrate the critical role the Supreme Court plays in our society as a harbinger of new attitudes in consonance with our changing values, attitudes the public in many states may not be willing to accept. Brown vs. Board of Education comes prominently to mind.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “President is Said to Choose Kagan as Next Justice,” describes Mr. Obama’s pick for the current vacancy on the Supreme Court. His selection of Elena Kagan, his current solicitor general, will create the highest number of women justices ever, three with Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The selection was framed as the center choice between a more liberal and a more conservative option. Unlike President Obama’s other choice, Sonia Sotomayor, Ms. Kagan has not previously served as a judge and so lacks an extensive paper trial her automatic detractors could scan for ammunition to oppose her.

The traditional battle between left and right over Supreme Court nominations will inevitably continue with this selection. President Obama was upset at a recent Court decision providing free speech rights to corporations, and his selection of Ms. Kagan, who is relatively young, will leave his imprimatur on the Court for a long time to come.

Ms. Kagan, a former Dean of Harvard Law School and the current Solicitor General, is also viewed as a persuasive force who could vie for Justice Kennedy’s swing vote on the body. Of course, there will be the usual postering among Senators during the debate for confirmation, the usual questions about abortion and women’s rights, and the usual token resistance to please the various interest groups.

Inevitably, however, unless something untoward happens, I believe she will be confirmed.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, titled “Justices Reject Ban on Depicting Animal Cruelty,” describes a ruling by the Supreme Court declaring that videos showing dogfights between pit bulls are protected by the First Amendment. With the other recent ruling supporting the free speech rights of corporations, roundly denounced by the Obama administration, this action shows a strong First Amendment philosophy by the court.

Even though dogfighting and animal cruelty is illegal in all 50 states, the videos by Robert Stevens showed the event occurring in Jamaica. And the court applied the following rule to this situation: only if the market for the speech is “intrinsically related to the underlying abuse” can it be declared unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court, in its ruling, declined to create a new category of speech unprotected by the First Amendment. The current categories lacking First Amendment protection are obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement and speech integral to criminal conduct. Because of the “intrinsic” rule described above, dogfighting videos are not covered under the latter category.

The only dissenting justice in the 8-1 ruling was Samuel Alito who disagreed about the application of the intrinsic rule and felt the videos should be included.

The Humane Society called for Congress to draft new legislation to cover dogfighting videos that would pass Constitutional muster. This seems like a wise course of action.