Justices Who Change: A Reply to Epstein et al.

By Linda Greenhouse[*]      

[Editor's Note:  This piece is a response to Epstein et al., Ideological Drift Among Supreme Court Justices:  Who, When, and How Important?, 101 Nw. U. L. Rev. Colloquy 127 (2007), http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawreview/colloquy/2007/8/ (link).]            

The growing recognition by political scientists and law professors that Supreme Court Justices can and do change while on the bench is a breath of fresh air on a subject that for much too long has been in the grip of abstract academic thinking and untested assumptions.[1]