ABSTRACT
A central component of the modern approach is the combination of a realistic recognition that judges cannot entirely escape their own personal values with a legalistic demand that they should utilize conventional authoritative sources, such as precedent, text, and history. The reason that Marbury has taken on such iconic status as the basis for judicial authority is that, while it embodies the fundamental problem that politics and law are not entirely separate, it also holds out the promise that they can be successfully combined. If the Court were dominated by realists, the results are easy to imagine. If justices believed that it was wholly appropriate to implement their personal or political values, they would not refer to conventional legal authorities at all. The Court's modern record does, of course, have intensely legalistic aspects, but to understand contemporary judicial practices it is necessary to imagine the mind and the psychology of a person who is able to be simultaneously a legalist.
