Foreword: The Unfinished Business of the Supreme Court - An Introduction
It is a commonplace that the decisions of the United States Supreme Court often raise as many questions as they resolve. This is not to say that the level of indeterminacy in the law necessarily grows as one decision raises new issues for judicial resolution. In some cases, the Supreme Court makes a large statement of great effect, so that the follow-on questions are of smaller scope than the one just resolved. But in some instances, the reverse can be true, such that a hint of things to come in one case presages major doctrinal developments that take place in the future. For these purposes the exact direction of the vector is of less importance than awareness of the irreducible minimum of flux and uncertainty that comes when the Supreme Court tackles issues both large and small. For the purposes of this brief foreword, the trend is clear. The articles contained in this volume tend to look at big cases that have made major strides, leaving open smaller cases that are still of intense theoretical and practical interest. Such is true of the essays found here, which I shall review in brief detail.
