John Roberts

John Roberts is the 17th and most current Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was nominated by former president George Bush to fill this position after the passing of William Rehnquist. John G. Roberts had previously worked for William Rehnquist as a law clerk before assuming the position as Attorney General during the Reagan administration. He continued working for the Reagan Administration as well as the Bush administration in the Justice Department.

In 2003 he assumed the role as a judge for the D.C. Circuit until he was nominated to serve as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. It was the passing of William Rehnquist that lead him to the position that he currently holds today.

Some early decisions by John Roberts included views on the Controlled Substances Act. The case of Gonzales v. Oregon was the first major case conducted under John Roberts’ tenure as Chief Justice. The Supreme Court decided that the United States Attorney General had no right to apply the Federal Controlled Substances Act to physicians who prescribed drugs under the conditions of the Oregon State law for assisting with suicide to individuals who were terminally ill.

In another ruling held a couple months later, John G. Roberts wrote a decision regarding the Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights. Under this ruling he declared all college institutions that accept Federal funding to allow the recruitment of the military to be conducted on campus. This was despite the disapproval of Clinton's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, to which many universities objected.

John Roberts’ first dissent was during the Georgia v. Randolph case of 2006. In this case the majority of other Supreme Court members made the decision to prohibit police from invading and searching the home of more than one occupant. They tried to pass a law that made it unlawful to search the home of an occupant that consented to the search while the other disapproved. However, John Roberts dissented to this case and criticized the major’ty's opinion as inconsistent to prior case law.

Another major ruling under Roberts was the support of certain abortion restrictions. During the Gonzales v. Carhart ruling, the Supreme Court passed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act which prohibits the termination of any late term fetus through intact dilation and extraction.

John G. Roberts also enforces the Equal Protection Clause where he opposes schools that assign students according to race, maintaining schools that are integrated. The Court reviewed two cases involving the school district programs that relied on race to decipher which schools where fit for certain children. The Court ruled that these practices involved racial discrimination and was in violation of the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

John Roberts’ current term as Chief Justice is under constant speculation. The current views of President Obama is said to conflict with the beliefs of Chief Justice John Roberts. Many conclude that his current role in the judicial system has made an impact on the administrative effects of the Court. One of his current concerns is having the Court apply a reverse to decreasing its public records.

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