Is interpreting that case. Host thanks for adding your scholarship and experience to our discussion tonight. Thanks for our viewers for being involved in the landmarks case. Well see you next week. Our original series landmark casing continues next monday with a look at lochner versus new york. The court rules that a new york labor law interfered with the 14th amendment right of businesses and employees to enter into contracts by limiting the number of hours a bakery worker can be required to work. The justices declared that the law was not justified as a legitimate exercise of Police Powers to protect health and safety. Thats live next monday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. You can learn more about cspans landmark cases series which explores the human stories and constitutional dramas behind some of the Supreme Courts most significant decisions by going to cspan. Org landmarkcases. From the web site, you can find cspans landmark cases book features background, highlights, and a legal impact of each case written by veteran court and published by cspan in cooperation with cq press. Landmark cases is available for 8. 95 plus ships. We spoke with Patrick Leahy about the cases. Then a discussion from the washington journal about what to expect. And at midnight, another chance to see the landmark cases on the slaughterhouse cases of 1872. Senator Patrick Leahy, thank you for giving us some time. I would like to start and have you talk about at the role of the Supreme Court in society today. The Supreme Court is everything in america. We have three branches. The president and the court. Their decisions can affect so much. I mean they decided a president ial election. Before the ballots were all counted. Bush versus gore they changed dramatically the way we finance political elections. They are obviously youve had a great deal of effect when just recently they basically gutted the Voting Rights act and some states took that as a chance to disenfranchise a lot of people. Now so far better or worse they can do things that affect the average person far more than what we might do in individual acts of congress. Host theres a continuing debate. Perhaps it is one that has gotten louder about whether or not the Supreme Court overreaches and works at a level that wasnt intended bit founders. What is your position on that . Senator leahy some of the members say we must stick to what the founders said. They tend to make that a flexible role depending on what it goes with their own feelings. I think it is a it can be a very activist court. Perhaps that was foreshadowed with marbury versus madison. They had been. Thats been both good and bad. They basically upheld segregation at one point. Then they realized what a mistake they made and years later ruled it illegal. The theyve done some positive things. Ludwig versus virginia. It was only a few decades ago it was illegal for a man, woman of different races to be married. In virginia. They were arrested for that. It is inconceivable to america that would be the case anymore. Thats because of the Supreme Court made it very clear you cant do that. One man and one vote was a major change. Roe versus wade has has we debated abortion for years in the country. The Supreme Court decides the issue in roe versus wade. Theyve also been very activist and i mention bush versus gore. They decided that election before all of the ballots were counted. Thesethese i wanttous have a Supreme Court. But i want a Supreme Court that is not ideologically polarized but it is more reflective of the country. And being reflective of the country and being first and foremost reflective of the laws of the country. Host lets stay with that. The people who were critical say it is antidemocratic that nine judges get to decide something or overrule something that the representative branch of government has decided. Is it antidemocratic when they look at and review the laws that you have written . Senator leahy in some of the ways it is. Take the Voting Rights act. That was passed decades ago. It was renewed just a few years ago after hundreds and hundreds of hours of debate and hearings. The almost every member of the house representatives, both parties voted for it. They past virtually unanimously in the United States senate. Again republicans and democrats. They signed it into law with great pleasure. It is always said by a republican president. This is after weeks and months of debate and hundreds of hours of testimony hearings and so forth. They had one hearing in the Supreme Court and one of the justices in the very cavalier ways. They havent looked at this one. He had heard an hours worth of argument. By a 54 decision, they overroad it. There was no question that when totally against what the American People wanted. But theres a small subset of the American People that wanted it. There were laws passed so some of the people couldnt vote. Host you are the most senior democrat on the committee. You have chaired the panel in the past. Would you explain what the role of the Senate Judiciary committee is vis visavis the Supreme Court . Senator leahy we need to be careful. Can i read what i said during the first televised hearings. Thats for sandra day oconnor. I said this, if i had to choose one moment to explain the most about the way the american system or government worked it would probably be the moment when we choose the justice of the Supreme Court. It is a moment when the interest of all three branches of government join. Also when the guardianship of the constitution has to be safely conveyed. That we have to stand there and say is that man or woman going to be a guardian of our constitution . They realize in the set as 100 senators we have to make a decision for 300 million americans. The decision we make on a Supreme Court justice especially goes beyond the time most of us will serve. They are Lifetime Appointments in the Supreme Court. If you make a mistake, you dont get to do a do over. Host what do you look for . Senator leahy im not as concerned about their philosophy republican, or democrat but will they treat all litigants equally . Will they really adhere to the constitution . Will they show respect for the laws that have been passed . We have some who i voted against. One person was somniated to the Supreme Court. Because i heard and read a number of the things about the constitution and the cases. Then in his testimony under oath, hes taking whats going to be an entirely different position. I asked him are you having any confirmation conversion . I voted against him, not because i agree to disagree to some of the things he had written or said, but the inconsistency of it bothered me greatly. Host im going to dive into some of the specific cases were looking at in the landmark series. Before you came to the senate, you were a prosecutor. Two of the cases have to do with rights that would have affected people who were in the judicial system. One of those is the famous miranda case. The other is m. A. P. And the decision and law. Would you talk about both of those in the context of your work as a prosecutor and how they changed the process . Senator leahy it was very interesting. Both m. A. P. And miranda came down the time i become a prosecutor. I become the prosecutor and chief Law Enforcement officer for about a quarter of the state of virginias population. I was 26 years old. I had been practicing law for only two or three years. I was asked on friday if i would take over the job on monday. They had all kinds of problems in the states attorney office. He was leaving. I took it over. I did some cram studies. I realize the police had not been adviced. I held seminars most evenings on my own time. I would bring in Police Officers and train them. I still have retired Police Officers that come up to them and show me the miranda card with my name on it. I had them printed up at my own expense. I also try to point out to them these help follow in the rules of m. A. P. Follow in the if you have a if you do the wrong thing and seizing something is going to be excluded or following the rules of miranda, if you dont warn people of their rights, you cannot use a confession that they make. These rules are here to protect you as well the person you are arresting. And follow them. If you are if you got a good case, you are going to have it no matter what. Make sure make sure the peoples rights are respected. Because i also knew for my own work in defending cases before, sometimes you get the wrong person. I want to show you respect in the rights all the way along. Now at that time, it was very controversial. What do you mean we have to read this guilty, accused, we have here is that somebody once said. In fact, a former attorney general once used that expression. The guilty accused. But we knew we had to tell them their rights. Of course you did. Because think of it this way what if you were arrested for something . And you may think, look, they got the wrong guy. Wouldnt you want to know what your rights are . That sunk in pretty heavily. Before cases were being thrown out because they werent being followed, none of my cases were thrown out. Police may grumble, but they followed the rules. Now it is inconceivable sort of in my state to not follow those rules. It is just ingrained. Host in the case of map the exclusion rule has had more and certainly into the age of people accused of acts of treasuring against terrorism against the United States. Senator leahy we have a nation of laws. If you dont have Something Like map or an an exclusionary rules. Well follow the rules. Not the one time. We have to ill mother the rules. Thats a very easy and treacherous to go down. I have members of the senate when osama bin ladens soninlaw was captured. And going to be prosecuted in new york. In new york city. They were saying it was terrible. You cant have them come there. Worse than that, they read him his rights. They told him that. My response to that is we are a nation that believes in laws. Dont we want to show that example to the rest of the world . I said frankly if you were a prosecutor in new york city and you had osama bin ladens soninlaw being charged and you have all of the evidence against him whether he con fezzed or not, you would do anything tonight one prosecuting that case. Of course, he was convicted. We also sent the signal to the rest of the world that we follow the rule of law. Thats why i worry about Something Like guantanamo. Thats not the image of the United States we want to give. Ultimately, it plays against us. You can always find a case, somewhere, where by following the rules somebody might get away with something. It happens so rarely. But if you dont follow the rules, thats what you do, then we none of us get away. We are all hurt by it. Host another area in the current age from map has precedent is on warrantless wiretapping. You were so involved in privacy issues and digital and internet issues. How does the map decision affect the governments interest and Public Safety interest there . Senator leahy thats a good question. Weve gone through some great debates on this. Weve just had another one on how we what we are allowed to get. It becomes more and more difficult. With the way we communicate today. It is not when i was a prosecutor you get a warrant and get eclipsed to a telephone line somewhere. Here with Electronic Devices and all, you might not be able to put the idea that we have a blanket sweep from all of us. In the long run, thats going to hurt us. Thats not going to make us safer. Getting back to the rules, the example that you used is this if you had papers in your desk at home, you fully expect that the police want to come into your home and look at those papers. They are going to have to get a warrant. To come in and look at them. Now if you are holding it those same files in the cloud and youve got it somewhere on the internet or communicating like that, shouldnt they have to follow the same rules . It is your privacy were talking about. Everybody said we need this to be safer. Especially since 9 11. We had all of the information before 9 11 to stop that attack from happening. We just didnt take the information they had and appropriately had and connect the dots. If you collect everything, in many ways, you have nothing. Learn to do better analysis of it. We had at the time very few people looking at this material who could speak the languages of those who were in the wiretaps. We learned from that. But it doesnt make us less safe to have to follow the rules of law. Host change subjects because you referenced earlier the Voting Rights act. One of the case weve chosen for the series is baker versus carr. It was call the most significant case during the tenure on the court. Do you agree . If so, why . Senator leahy i do. I do. I was in law school at the time in georgetown. I remember us talking about it. I said we all have a right to vote. I grew up in vermont. You assumed that. I came down here, and i realized it didnt always work that way. I also realized that the way you could have things where you dis proportionate to voting. They said no. Were americans. Americans can vote and americans should be allowed to vote. Host the impact of it over the court of time has been what . Senator leahy i think it has probably changed much in the United States. I think one of the impacts is you see people trying to erode it. You have to ask why. Host you mention chief justice warren. Several of the cases are from his tenure. When you look back at warren period, haas his significance on the courts history . Senator leahy i think the fact that he tried to get a unanimous court. There was going to be a split court. They kept it going a couple of years win years, i think the court complexity changed. Then they had it unanimous. I dont think that president eisenhower would have felt the ability or the need to enforce it if it hadnt been unanimous Supreme Court. Our Honor Society law schools invited the Supreme Court for lunch, and they came on the insistent they dont have a head table. They want to sit at tables with some of the students. My wife and i got to sit with hugo black. He was a man who had been a segregationist. You know, from the south. He joined in these historic things. He made it very clear to the students if were going to do something significant in this country, it is going to have to be done unanimously. Otherwise people are going to question what the court is doing. Now you know and i know thats not always going to happen. I think the warren court tried very hard to do that. To make it unanimous. And i think when you see some of the cases, you see some of the bitter dissents in some cases it is because you are justices that know why we dont work harder to make this unanimous. Bush versus gore is very, very hard for people to agree to because it was a split court. The Citizens United, these were cases. Shelby county. Look at some of the notes that im going over some of these things. The Citizens United split the court just stevens read his dissent from the bench. Remember Justice Stevens was a republican nominee. And he president ford dominated him. He felt very very strongly about this. One of the reasons was people dont trust it. They see it as a purely political decision. I think it is damaged the Supreme Court. Host we have about eight minutes left. Four of cases that we have chosen have to deal with the 14th amendment. Is that coincidental or has the court taken on cases . Senator leahy thats interesting. 114 years since part of the second founding. Host why do you call it that . Senator leahy well, we had the founding fathers. When those series of amendments came through, it is like the United States become more aware of what they are and more aware of the fact slavery ending and so on that we had to treat all people the same. Now you know and i know having said at that time, it look a long long time. Some places in the country it is still going on. But it was some of the second founding. It was a Second Coming of the United States. Why they picked so many in that i really dont know. But i do know that even among those who claim to be strict constructionist, theyve gone way off of the reservation. Citizens united say that corporations of citizens i mean the absurdity. You push that to what it means. General eisenhower was elected president. Why cant we elect General Electric . It is as absurd as Citizens United. It means just a handful of people with huge amounts of money can influence what all of us as americans do. Host one of the other cases you preferred to as an notorious era in American History. Weve chosen the lochner case. Why did you call that a notorious time in American History . Senator leahy well, theres a case here were not going to look at everybody in the country. Were going to look at only those the wealthy and the well connected. We dont have to care about the others. Host the lochner era was about 32 years long. Senator leahy then you have the threat from franklin roosevelt. I have to assume that president roosevelt knew it would never happen. They expressed that ti