A decade ago, for example, Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer, arguing about the meaning of the separation of powers, traded quotes from Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall." Justice Scalia wrote: "Separation of powers, a distinctively American political doctrine, profits from the advice authored by a distinctively American poet: 'Good fences make good neighbors.' " Justice Breyer countered with: "One might consider as well that poet's caution, for he not only notes that 'Something there is that doesn't love a wall,' but also writes, 'Before I built a wall I'd ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out.' "
If poetry can inform a judicial decision, why not the writing of a foreign court? Do we want our Supreme Court justices to ignore everything around them except their dusty precedents? Prof. Althouse reasonably suggests that the justices should not live that "cloistered life," and takes issue with John Roberts for pandering to the right wing view that American courts should not be open to (rather than bound by) the thinking of courts in other nations.
I deeply respect Judge Roberts and the conception of judging that he will bring to the court. But I also think that he will need to interact with other judges who do things differently, who open their minds to the opinions of the world and bring some fresh thinking back to constitutional interpretation.