Free Republic

There is no way, of course, that Senator Barack Obama would ever nominate three controversial figures from his past to serve on the United States Supreme Court: the convicted felon Antoin Rezko; the former Weather Underground radical Bill Ayers; or Mr. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Yet the names and faces of the three men appear in a new television advertisement — running in Michigan and Ohio this week and nationally on Fox News on Monday, at a total cost of $500,000 — arguing that Mr. Obama’s judgment about his associates shows that he cannot be...

If elected, McCain might well push the court far to the right -- with dramatic consequences for abortion rights, sexual privacy, diversity in schools and more. Yet there is much at stake for the future of the Supreme Court and American constitutional law, and this is one of the areas of clearest difference between John McCain and Barack Obama. McCain has said that he wants to appoint conservative justices like Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Obama voted against confirmation of both of those individuals and has said that he would pick liberal justices like Ruth Bader...

ELLEN ADVOCATES MAKING (LESBIAN) LOVE, NOT WAR, AND DEFEATING PROPOSITION 8 Ellen Degeneres, sometimes less than affectionately known as Ellen Degenerate, used Leno’s “Tonight Show” podium last night to advocate against Proposition Eight in California: http://television.aol.com/tvtop5/ellens-plea-the-tonight-show/2261100?icid=200100397×1210673684x1200657447. Ellen contended that millions of dollars are being raised by proponents of the proposition, which–radically, it appears– amends the California constitution to state that marriage always has been and always should a contract between a man and a woman. It would therefore effectively ban “gay marriages.” Ellen generously suggested that those millions would be better spent on people whose mortgages are being foreclosed rather...

TALLAHASSEE -- Ricky L. Polston, a conservative appellate judge from a small North Florida town, was tapped Wednesday by Gov. Charlie Crist to sit on the state Supreme Court. Polston, 52, will replace retiring Justice Kenneth Bell. Raised on a small family farm in Graceville, Polston received his undergraduate and law degrees from Florida State University law school. He was appointed in 2000 by then-Gov. Jeb Bush to the First District Court of Appeal, which deals with the majority of legislative and executive branch feuds. Polston singled out two cases important to him: A DCA dissent he wrote upholding Bush's...

As I discuss on Bench Memos (here, here, and here), somehow President Bush recently nominated—and the Senate, not surprisingly, last Friday confirmed—at least three district-court nominees whose records of political contributions are exclusively or heavily Democratic (including support for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race and for Barack Obama now) and who show, so far as I’m aware, no signs of sharing President Bush’s espoused judicial philosophy.

A judge in Central California has taken the unusual step of tossing out, in advance, the results of an upcoming school board election after finding that it violated the terms of the California Voting Rights Act.

A Federal judge from Louisiana is under a cloud of impeachment and if he's convicted it'll be the first Federal judge impeached in almost 20 years. The story was covered by the new wire service named ProPublica, a service that claims to be non-partisan. Yet in two stories on this judge there is not one mention of the fact that he was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton, nor that his corruption was known by the Department of Justice when Clinton made the appointment. I wonder why ProPublica didn't find that relevant, don't you? A while back, I...

Future of the Judiciary by: Lance Nation, September 17, 2008 As the race for the White House punches into overdrive, a critical factor in choosing the next president has seemingly been forgotten—federal court appointments. Russell Wheeler in the recent Brookings Institution panel, “The Next Administration and the Future of the Judiciary,” stated, “It is the makeup of the federal courts, the Court of Appeals, that is of real importance.” Wheeler, a visiting Fellow of the Brookings Institution, argued that the future Supreme Court makeup is unquestionable. “If Barrack wins, the Supreme Court will stay balanced. If McCain wins, the court...

Democrats have often caricatured conservatives' concern with judges as part of what they consider an "obsession" with abortion. In fact, over the last 40 years judicial activism has brought the courts to the center of national policy making in virtually all aspects of life. However, before 9/11, even the most activist judges generally did not attempt to drive the nation's foreign and defense policy. The Constitution reserves such matters to the president and Congress, and constitutional doctrines such as the separation of powers and "political question" were recognized and applied by courts as a means of avoiding much active engagement...

Still unable to fog a mirror, the moribund, do-nothing Democrat “leaders” in Congress have apparently decided to do more nothing, especially on judicial confirmations.

One of the most important but most overlooked issues in the political campaign involves the kind of judges the next president will appoint. Those appointments, and this is no exaggeration, may well determine whether our free society survives and flourishes. The kind of judges the next president of the United States appoints will determine whether or not: 1. The U.S. Constitution survives as intended by the Founders. 2. Leftist judges turn all of their radical ideas into law without the consent of the governed and the normal law-making process. They will do that by legislating from the bench, that is,...

WASHINGTON — Immigrants seeking asylum in the United States have been disproportionately rejected by judges whom the Bush administration chose using a conservative political litmus test, according to an analysis of Justice Department data. The analysis suggests that the effects of a patronage-style selection process for immigration judges — used for three years before it was abandoned as illegal — are still being felt by scores of immigrants whose fates are determined by the judges installed in that period. The data focuses on 16 judges who were vetted for political affiliation before being hired and have since ruled on at...

Excerpt - JACKSON – Something unusual happened Thursday at the Mississippi Supreme Court. It may be the first time a majority of the justices voted to prohibit a colleague from publishing a dissent in a case. In other words, Presiding Justice Oliver Diaz of Ocean Springs disagreed with a court decision and wanted to write about it. His fellow judges said, no, he couldn’t and they apparently stopped the court clerk from filing Diaz’s statement into the record. Diaz's document also wasn’t made available to the public, as every other order and dissent are. ~ snip ~

You've Gotta Have Heart? How Obama Chooses Judges by Deal W. Hudson 8/10/08 Evoking the power of the human heart is the daily bread of American pop culture. It rarely raises an eyebrow. But the use of "heart" by Barack Obama to describe his criteria for picking judges is troubling. Speaking to Planned Parenthood just over a year ago, Obama said: We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom; the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And...

The battle for the Senate has been overshadowed by the presidential race, but just as important as who will reside in the White House is whether Democrats can get 60 seats in the Senate. The "Magic 60" would give Democrats a filibuster-proof majority, and the keys to true power in the Senate. Assuming that their party leaders could keep Democratic senators in line, 60 votes would mean a fast track for their agenda, prevent Republicans from blocking it and a clear path for their nominations for the federal bench.

Sources say the White House has tentatively signed off on a package of five judicial nominees proposed by Pennsylvania Sens. Arlen Specter and Robert Casey that would fill all of the vacancies on the Eastern District of Pennsylvania bench and one of two openings on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the deal goes through, the White House will first withdraw the nomination of Eastern District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter to the 3rd Circuit, replacing her with Eastern District Judge Paul S. Diamond. Pratter's nomination had been met with significant opposition and was ultimately doomed when Casey refused...

This Governor is in the habit of rolling out Judicial appointments in big batches. Until this week, his last batch of new Judges was announced back in May -- twenty of them. I have made no bones about that fact that it is galling to me that the Governor, who was elected with all of the support of the Republican Party, loves to appoint registrants of the party of Barack Obama to the bench. In that May batch, it was 9 Republicans and 8 Democrats. It is a very sad situation for GOP donors and activists that we have to...

If John McCain were elected, the appointment of a conservative justice could immediately reshape the court. The senator from Arizona might be forced to temper his choice to accommodate confirmation by a solidly Democratic Senate, but his nominee would undoubtedly be far to the right of either Stevens or Ginsburg, potentially solidifying a five-member conservative majority. If Obama had the opportunity to make an appointment, it would be only the fourth nomination from a Democratic president in more than 40 years. And for activists on the left, it could signal the opportunity to create a new dynamic for the court....

The judiciary is becoming an important election issue. John McCain is warning conservatives that control of today's finely balanced Supreme Court depends on his election. Unfortunately, his jurisprudence is likely to be anything but conservative. The idea of a "living Constitution" long has been popular on the political left. Conservatives routinely dismiss such result-oriented justice, denouncing "judicial activism" and proclaiming their fidelity to "original intent." However, many Republicans, like Mr. McCain, are just as result-oriented as their Democratic opponents. They only disagree over the result desired. Judge-made rights are wrong because there is no constitutional warrant behind them. The Constitution...

McCain: Bork Was No "Maverick Jurist" John McCain is planning to be in North Carolina tomorrow where he is scheduled to give a speech on judicial nominations: John McCain’s campaign said Friday that Fred Thompson and Sam Brownback will join the presumptive GOP nominee in North Carolina next week for a major speech on judicial appointments. Both Thompson and Brownback have endorsed the Arizona senator, and both Republicans presented themselves throughout the Republican primary battle as “consistent conservatives,” particularly regarding social issues and judicial appointments. The speech, to be held Tuesday at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, will be just...

I would love to wake up one morning and hear on Fox & Friends that the cops found a wannabe child molester dead in the woods rather than the kid he was about to rape. Is that too harsh? Okay, how about finding the perv bleeding badly from an 8mm wide crack in his skull, with a punctured lung, a shattered knee cap, a penectomy performed with a shard of dirty glass as he teeters on the verge of death in a patch of poison ivy smack dab in the big middle of grizzly bear country? How’s that? I hope...

The landmark decision of the Supreme Court on the Washington handgun law yielded two eye-opening revelations of critical importance to Americans ("Justices back gun owners," June 27). The first is the majority opinion that the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment does give gun rights to individuals. But the second revelation is that the reasoning behind the opinions of the dissenting justices should send cold shivers down the spines of freedom-loving Americans. In his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens suggests that the Second Amendment should not interfere with legislators' intent. The majority opinion, he says, "would have us believe that over 200...

'The conviction of David Olofson is a gross miscarriage of justice' A Wisconsin man today surrendered to federal authorities to begin serving a 30-month prison term for having a broken rifle, prompting the Gun Owners of America to issue a warning about the owner's liability should any semi-automatic weapon ever misfire. "A gun that malfunctions is not a machine gun," Larry Pratt, executive director of GOA, said. "What the [federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] has done in the [David] Olofson case has set a precedent that could make any of the millions of Americans that own semi-automatic...

TEEN SEX RING IN VERMONT There may be something about Mary but there is definitely something about judges. Perhaps the job, the power, the judicial robes go their heads? Who knows? The Supreme Court of the United States has made more than its share of screwy decisions, from the Dred Scott miscarriage of justice to the horror of Roe v. Wade and its subsequent result of 50,000,000 legal murders of the pre-born to its recent decision that child rapists can’t be executed. On my local scene, I still recall Judge “Cut ‘Em Loose Bruce” who was notorious for his years...

James P. Evans, a physician and molecular biologist, teaches genetics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He also directs the school’s Clinical Cancer Genetics Services, counseling patients about genetic testing. On weekends Dr. Evans, under the auspices of the Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource Center — a Congressionally mandated program — teaches the nation’s judges about genetics. Dr. Evans, 49, was interviewed recently in New York; he had come to speak at the World Science Festival. Q. WHY DO JUDGES NEED TO KNOW THEIR GENETICS? A. Because they are frequently trying cases that hinge on genetics....

Conservative lawmakers and family advocates gathered in Washington, D.C., today in support of Judge Robert Conrad, who was nominated to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court in July 2007 and has been waiting for a vote ever since. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, again called on Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the committee, to schedule a hearing for Conrad. North Carolina Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr joined Concerned Women for America and others at the rally. “Bob Conrad is a very qualified nominee with a long history of public service, and he has...

A factor that weighs heavily in McCain’s favor is his Senate record. Judicial issues haven’t been his trademark, but he has consistently supported conservative Supreme Court nominees. In 1987 he spoke on behalf of embattled Reagan Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, saying he supported him “without any hesitation.” In recent years McCain has voted for every one of Bush’s judicial nominees. “He voted for Alito and Roberts despite the fact that he had to know they would vote to strike down McCain-Feingold,” said Levey. “That addresses the concern that he might not appoint strict constructionist judges who are more likely...

During a May 14, 2008, preliminary hearing for two men accused of a convenience store robbery, the Honorable Nazario Jimenez, Jr., a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County located in the at the 8th Police District, made the following comment: "... let's hope that if anybody is going to rob any place, that it's done this way. Let's give credit where credit is due. No weapons were used..." Is this the state of affairs in Philadelphia now? Has the criminal justice system deteriorated so badly, the expectations of the judges so meager, that they express, in open...

Legislation moving toward House debate would slash six judges from the St. Louis Circuit Court, while adding new judges to courts in the St. Louis County, Kansas City and Springfield areas.Rep. Bryan Stevenson, R-Webb City and a lawyer, said state resources must be allocated efficiently, and some courts desperately need more judges. He pointed to a special legislative committee report along with a state report conducted by the National Center of State Courts that found St. Louis has more judges than it needs. Stevenson said the studies and other judges have indicated St. Louis has more than it needs and...

(CNSNews.com) - The records of Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are very different when it comes to judges and courts. The Republican and Democratic candidates for president are far apart when it comes to judicial philosophy and the votes they cast on major judicial nominations during the 109th and 110th Congresses. McCain wants to appoint judges who hold a constructionist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, according to his campaign's Web site. "When applying the law, the role of judges is not to impose their own view as to the best policy choices for society but to faithfully...

In a McCain administration, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson would play a dominant role in selecting Supreme Court nominees and other judicial appointments, sources close to the McCain campaign and to Thompson tell us. And why is Fred suddenly everywhere? These sources say that the agreement between McCain and Thompson is behind Thompson’s resurgence in the national media in recent weeks. In a McCain campaign conference call with reporters yesterday on last week’s Supreme Court decision on terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Thompson -- without claiming such status -- played the role of a prominent McCain adviser. Developing…

Henry Mark Holzer’s thought provoking article at FrontPage Mag today - Obama’s Supreme Court - gives us a preview of Obama's judicial appointees’ litmus tests. (Holzer is a libertarian Constitutional lawyer and Professor Emeritus at Brooklyn Law School) There are some serious concerns if the fate of the federal judiciary, let alone the Supreme Court, falls into Obama's hands (especially with a compliant Senate). Let's take a look at the words of Obama himself: On July 17, 2007, Obama made a speech in Washington, D.C. to the country’s leading abortion-meisters, “Planned Parenthood.” In the words of NBC reporter Carrie Dean,...

Boom! McCain hits one out of the park. McCain will lock down a lot of conservatives with this one. Fred knows exactly what he is doing and as long as McCain follows his advice, there will be no Harriet Miers, David Souters, or Anthony Kennedys coming out of a McCain administration.

About 600 of Chicago’s top African-American lawyers and judges gave standing ovations Thursday to two preachers who’ve been vilified in recent months for their sermons that went nationwide on the Web. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Rev. Michael Pfleger became headaches for Democrat Barack Obama’s presidential campaign when their controversial comments became fodder for conservative talk-show hosts. Wright said “God damn America” in arguing that American foreign policy helped bring on the 9/11 attacks. Pfleger said Hillary Clinton resented Obama as a black man taking the nomination she felt was hers. But despite the heat on them, the two...

Quietly for now, perhaps more visibly later, Sen. Sam Brownback has set himself a missionary task. That task involves persuading the so-called "religious right," his core constituency, to get behind the John McCain presidential candidacy. .... "You get down to the raw points of it, and that's the (Supreme Court)," he said. He tells conservatives that McCain's "very reliable on that... and so (in a different way) is Barack Obama." "Barack's a good guy - I like him - but he's a very liberal Democrat," Brownback said. "If you have a liberal Democrat plus a Democratic House and Senate, that's...

So it is extraordinary that during the Bush administration's seven years, nearly all of them a time of war that began on Sept. 11, 2001, the court has been prompted to push back four times. Last week's decision in Boumediene v. Bush, in which the court ruled that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have a right to challenge their detentions in the federal courts, marks only the most recent rebuke. It is not hard to see why the court has traditionally been so quick to side with presidents during armed conflicts. The justices presumably lack the expertise of White House military...

John McCain said Friday that the Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo Bay detainees is “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” The presumptive GOP nominee said the decision, a 5-4 ruling Thursday that determined Guantanamo detainees have the right to seek release in civilian courts, would lead to a wave of frivolous challenges. “We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called … habeas corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material. And we are going to be bollixed up in a way that...

An apology from the 9th Circuit judge for his computer collection of porn isn't necessary. He just needs to say, 'So what?' ...Judge Alex Kozinski's statements about the stash of sexually explicit images he collected and that the public (until this week) could view on his website have been varied, although not necessarily inconsistent: He thought the site was for private storage and offered no public access (although he shared some of the material on the site with friends). People have been sending him this stuff for years (implying that it just accumulates, like junk mail). He might accidentally have...

Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, along with Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, announced May 21 that the Gun Violence Task Force (GVTF) seized and intends to seek the forfeiture of a 2003 Hummer owned by one Gary Jackson. Mr. Jackson and an individual by the name of Ronald McBeth were arrested by the GVTF for allegedly making a straw purchase of a handgun. Mr. Jackson is a paroled felon and is not legally permitted to own a gun, so he used Mr. McBeth, who has no criminal record, to buy two handguns and ammunition. Mr....

The Democrats in the U.S. Senate are running out the clock on President Bush’s conservative judicial nominations. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had promised to confirm at least 15 judicial nominations made by President Bush in his last two years in office, which would be roughly the same number as that of Bill Clinton in his last two years. Said the Majority Leader on the Senate floor in April of this year: “We are trying to keep up with the average that has gone on in years past without a lot of political bickering.” Unfortunately, Harry Reid is keeping...

McConnell has essentially shut down the Senate floor this afternoon by forcing the Senate clerk to read aloud the entire 500 page global warming bill. So if legislative language is your thing, turn on C-SPAN and watch the Senate at its best, or worst, depending on your perspective. McConnell (R-Ky.) believes Reid (D-Nev.) has backtracked on a promise to clear a significant number of Republican judicial nominees, but Democrats are becoming more and more hesitant to give Bush judges a lifelong appointment to the federal bench in the waning months of this White House. "The Democratic majority has refused to...

If you ask Americans what issues matter most to them in choosing a president, the candidate's judicial philosophy is not likely to make it into the top 10. But a president's power to nominate judges is, in fact, one of his most powerful tools - and often leaves a legacy that lasts far longer than any policy initiative. President Dwight Eisenhower was no liberal activist, but his appointment of Earl Warren as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court dramatically shifted the nation leftward for decades on everything from criminal justice to separation of church and state to legislative reapportionment....

Defenders of Marriage as a lifelong union between one man and one woman faced another challenge in the growing activist led effort to compel Legal recognition of equivalent status for homosexual partnerships and married couples. On Wednesday, May 28th, California’s Chief of Vital Statistics issued guidelines to the 58 County Clerks’, effective June 17, 2008, requiring that they issue marriage licenses to homosexual partners. In addition, she issued new language which removes any reference to the applicants being a man or a woman, assigning instead the new identification of “Party A’ and “Party B” to the applicants. ...There is a...

Mr. Obama, on the other hand, is a lawyer and has had a long and deep interest in the courts and the law. Cass R. Sunstein, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and an Obama adviser, said in an interview that because Mr. Obama had taught constitutional law for 10 years at Chicago, “he is immersed in these issues.” “The first thing to know,” Professor Sunstein said, “is that he knows this stuff inside and out, and he has the credentials to be easily appointed to the court himself.” From his remarks in the Senate opposing the...

Strict Constructionist Philosophy "Our freedom is curtailed no less by an act of arbitrary judicial power as it is by an act of an arbitrary executive, or legislative, or state power. For that reason, a judge's decisions must rest on more than his subjective conviction that he is right, or his eagerness to address a perceived social ill." -John McCain Remarks to The Federalist Society November 16, 2006 John McCain believes that one of the greatest threats to our liberty and the Constitutional framework that safeguards our freedoms are willful judges who usurp the role of the people and their...

California Chief Justice Ronald George could have taken the easy road in the legal conflict over gay marriage. When the clock struck 10 a.m. and the Supreme Court released its decision, George knew his court had made history. The 68-year-old George penned the 121-page ruling striking down California's ban on same-sex marriage, opening a new chapter in this era's most wrenching civil rights battle. The 4-3 decision, which George calls the toughest of his career, was announced as the chief justice was in his office, hosting a television crew from New York filming a documentary on the death penalty. Now...

Short but serious question: So, what's it gonna be folks? Turncoat RINO or America hating Marxist?

John McCain and Barack Obama, the two leading presidential candidates, have set out sharply contrasting views on the role of the Supreme Court and the kind of justices they would appoint. Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.), in a speech two weeks ago, echoed the views of conservatives who say "judicial activism" is the central problem facing the judiciary. He called it the "common and systematic abuse . . . by an elite group . . . we entrust with judicial power." On Thursday, he criticized the California Supreme Court for giving gays and lesbians the right to marry, saying he doesn't "believe...

Click on link to see story - copyright rules prohibit it's posting here. Bottom line 3 of the 4 judges in CA homo-marriage ruling were appointed by Republicans.