In advance of the release of his memoir, Life, Law & Liberty, retired Justice Anthony Kennedy sat down with Adam Liptak of the New York Times for an interview.
The book discloses (or perhaps confirms) that Justice Kennedy drafted the Court's opinion in Bush v. Gore. In the Liptak interview, Kennedy acknowledges the problems with opinions produced under time pressure:
In his book, Justice Kennedy disclosed that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist had assigned him the majority opinion in Bush v. Gore, the 2000 decision that delivered the presidency to President George W. Bush. It was "a close case" and "a close call," he wrote, and he concluded that the majority opinion should be unsigned, which it was.
The court issued its decision, by a 5-to-4 vote on the key issue, the day after the case was argued. Justice Kennedy said that sort of quick action, like the court's recent spate of emergency rulings, was not ideal.
"The court just has to do the best that it can," he said. "But it does need time."
