NPR: This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—April 7

“Judicial activism” is determined only by whether your side won:

NPR: This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—April 7 by Ed Whelan:

1969—Justice Thurgood Marshall’s majority opinion in Stanley v. Georgia declares that the First Amendment forbids criminalizing the possession of concededly obscene material. Marshall blithely distinguishes away the Court’s previous categorical statements that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. Stanley, Marshall grandiosely proclaims, is asserting “the right to satisfy his intellectual and emotional needs in the privacy of his own home.” Yep, that carefully captures what viewing obscenity is all about. (Three justices, including Brennan, decline to join Marshall’s opinion and instead separately find a Fourth Amendment basis for vacating Stanley’s conviction.)

Anytime the First and Fourth Amendment is decided in favor of freedom of speech or the press or the right to be secure from government intrusion is judicial activism?