What Say the Reeds at Runnymede? Magna Carta in Supreme Court History

Abstract

What Say the Reeds at Runnymede? Magna Carta in Supreme Court History DEREK A. WEBB At Runnymede, at Runnymede, What say the reeds at Runnymede? The lissom reeds that give and take, That bend so far, but never break, They keep the sleepy Thames awake With tales of John at Runnymede.1 Introduction: An 800th Anniversary to Remember On June 15, 2015, lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean commemorated the 800th anniversary of the moment when King John affixed his seal to Magna Carta in Runnymede. In Runnymede that day, Queen Elizabeth, Prince William, and Prime Minister David Cameron appeared before a throng of thousands of British and American lawyers and politicians to commemorate the occasion. The keepers of the four remaining “exemplifications” of the 1215 Magna Carta, The Deans of Lincoln Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral and the archivists of the British Library, the keepers of the four remaining “exemplifications" of the 1215 Magna Carta, were all on hand. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch spoke on behalfofthe United States. The American Bar Association rededicated its small memorial it had first placed in Runnymede in 1965 for the 750th anniversary celebration. The weekend before the big day, churches throughout the country rang their bells, archers vied against each other in skills competitions, a medieval fair replete with traditional jousting was thrown, and, in a colorful river pageant, a flotilla of boats of all shapes and sizes floated down the Thames River towards Runnymede. And the day before the anniversary itself, a fullscale reenactment of the conflict between King John and the barons was staged in the Runnymede Pleasure Grounds. And in Washington, D.C., that day, the Supreme Court commemorated Magna Carta in the way it often does best: Justices Antonin MAGNA CARTA IN SUPREME COURT HISTORY 211 Scalia and Stephen Breyer argued about its implications for a case in dueling citations to the Great Charter. In Kerry v. Din, the two Justices disagreed about whether a decision by the State Department not to grant a visa to the husband of a U.S. citizen deprived that U.S. citizen of “due process.” And both looked back to Magna Carta to help them understand the contours of what the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause required in that situation. It was a fitting tribute to Magna Carta that year, as the Justices cited Magna Carta more often in October Term 2014 than in any other single previous term in Supreme Court history.2 A joke that perco­ lated around the Court that year summed it up nicely: “Write Smarta’—Cite the Carta!” The contrast between the commemora­ tions in Runnymede and Washington, D.C., that day illustrates a unique quality of Magna Carta. Magna Carta is impossibly old. The Supreme Court first opened its doors and met for business on February 2,1790, in the Royal Exchange building in New York City. Five hundred seventy-five years before that, King John met with the barons in Runnymede. The time between those two meetings, more than twice the length of time in which the United States itself has existed, reminds us of the sheer, staggering, nearly prehistoric antiquity of Magna Carta, and the relative youth of our own constitutional system. And yet, across nearly a millennium of history, we continue to look back to Magna Carta as the earliest and most totemic symbol of constitutionalism and the rule of law in world history. Despite its antiquity, Magna Carta has managed to reach out from the vast deep ofthe past to exert a modest but ongoing influence on the deliberations of the Court. Indeed, Magna Carta has served as something of a leitmotif throughout Supreme Court history. Whenever a Justice has reached for a foundational legal text to undergird a claim about the fundamental liberties of individuals and the appropriate limits of government, Magna Carta has been available. As early as 1819, Justice William Johnson observed the easy availability and applicability of Magna Carta for judicial decisions when he wrote, “As to the words from Magna Charta ... after volumes spoken and written with a view to their exposition, the good sense of mankind has at length settled down to this...