Advertisement
Opinion L.A.

Opinion: Roberts’ rules of writing

By Michael McGough
Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Whatever you think of the jurisprudence of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., his prose style is succinct and stylish. I first noticed this during his confirmation process when I went spelunking through National Archives files of memos he wrote during the Reagan administration. I have been confirmed in that impression by Roberts’ judicial opinions. They prove that judges can follow both the Constitution and ‘The Elements of Style.’

Two recent examples:

* In his opinion Tuesday striking down an overly broad law against the depiction of animal cruelty, Roberts had a pithy response to a suggestion that the law was constitutional because it made an exception for “any depiction that has serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value.’ He wrote that ‘ ‘serious’ should be taken seriously.’ Later in the opinion he observed: ‘Most of what we say to one another lacks ‘religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical, or artistic value’ (let alone serious value), but it is still sheltered from government regulation.’ ‘

Advertisement

* In an opinion today in a case involving the (yawn) Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, Roberts began this way: ‘People make mistakes. Even administrators of ERISA plans.’

All right, neither of these snippets is likely to make it into Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. But contrast Roberts’ writing with that of other legal luminaries.

Here is a quotation from an article that has caused trouble for the brilliant Goodwin Liu, one of President Obama’s appeals court nominees: ‘My thesis is that the legitimacy of judicial recognition of welfare rights depends on socially situated modes of reasoning that appeal not to transcendent moral principles for an ideal society, but to the culturally and historically contingent meanings of particular social goods in our own society.’

In the kingdom -- or courtroom -- of the tone-deaf, a judge with Roberts’ way with words is chief.

-- Michael McGough

Opinion L.A.
Michael McGough

Michael McGough is the Los Angeles Times’ former senior editorial writer, based in Washington, D.C. He wrote editorials for The Times from 2006 to 2021. Before that, McGough worked for 30 years for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as a reporter, editorial writer, editorial page editor and Washington correspondent. He wrote about law, national security, politics, foreign policy and religion. McGough is a graduate of Allegheny College and also attended the University of Kent at Canterbury in England and Yale Law School, where he received a master of studies in law degree.

Advertisement