Four of these judges are over 70 years old. How old are they supposed to remain competent?
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States
This op-ed was written in mid-September of this year, just a few days ago, in the wake of many powerful rulings that are set to be decided after a congressional recess. The timing of this essay is key. The author, Eric Segall, is a law professor at Georgia State University’s College of Law. He therefore has a very qualified opinion when it comes to law. He has written extensively on the Constitution and the court system; he writes op-eds, essays, and law review articles. In his opinion essay, the author argues that the Supreme Court is not operating to its fullest potential by focusing on the flaws in the judicial system. Segall's purpose is clear: the Supreme Court is heavily flawed. He suggests problems and offers fixes. To achieve his purpose, Segall uses all three appeals. Ethos is generated for him in the preface; pathos and logos are generated as he lists and explains his reasoning. Additionally, Segall uses words like "our" and "we", letting the reader join his argument. He invites the reader to care about the way their country functions. With his credentials, Segall could have written a complex, jargon-riddled piece decipherable only by other law professors. Instead, he tried to reach a larger audience. Although his immediate audience is the average CNN reader, his op-ed has the potential to reach much farther. His extended (and likely intended) audience is people of power in the US government. The average person does not have the power to change the Supreme Court (Segall included), but maybe a well thought out, wide-reaching article could help plant an idea. The author effectively made me care about a topic I don't tend to care much about. His appeal to logos really drove his idea home; a lifetime is too long of a time to expect any one person to be competent, so why should some of the most important people in our judicial system be expected to be so? Even though I don't agree entirely, he succeeded at making me care about the Supreme Court.
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