Posted on 10/04/2018 2:07:22 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens on Thursday said that he does not believe President Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed to the high court.
Stevens told a small crowd in Boca Raton, Fla., he once believed Kavanaugh to be qualified, but his performance in Senate Judiciary hearings changed his mind, according to The Palm Beach Post.
“I’ve changed my views for reasons that have no relationship to his intellectual ability,” Stevens said, noting Kavanaugh's fiery denial of sexual misconduct accusations in a Senate Judiciary Hearing last week.
“The Senators should pay attention to this,” Stevens added.
Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, a lifelong Republican, told a small crowd in Boca Raton that Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s performance at confirmation hearings should disqualify him. “The Senators should pay attention to this.”
— Lulu Ramadan (@luluramadan) October 4, 2018 Stevens said that criticism over Kavanaugh's temperament for the court following the heated testimony before the panel had “merit.”
Kavanaugh's nomination has been mired by three women accusing him of varying degrees of sexual misconduct from when he was in high school and in college.
Kavanaugh has fiercely denied all the allegations.
Last week, Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the first of the three accusers, testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing.
Kavanaugh offered a blistering denial of any wrongdoing and often engaged in tense exchanges with Democrats on the committee. At one point he asked Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) if she had ever blacked out from drinking after she asked him the same question.
The nominee’s conduct during the hearing caught the attention of many on the left, who cited his temperament as another reason to vote “no” on his confirmation. Klobuchar later said that if she “was in his courtroom and acted like that, he would have thrown me out.”
The FBI returned results of a week-long investigation into the allegations to the Senate on Thursday.
Senate Republicans claim that there was no corroborating evidence for any of the claims against Kavanaugh and have vowed to confirm the nominee in a vote over the weekend.
Stevens, a nominee of former President Ford, retired in 2010. He was replaced by President Obama nominee Elena Kagan.
I hope Stevens lives to see it and then he can drop dead.
Stevens is the best example of what a disappointing president President Ford was. Thank goodness for President Trump his nominees to the Courts.
Don't these serious charges nullify his gasbag opinions?
Republican President Gerald Ford nominated him. No more stealth nominees from the left! No more politically correct, affirmative action nominees! Only originalists who have trustworthy records of decisions on the Second Amendment and other important constitutional issues to prove themselves.
Isn’t he the guy that voted that Government should be able to take peoples property via eminent domain in order to give it to private businesses.
Heller v. D.C. - Appeals (2010-2011, not the 2008 case)
https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/DECA496973477C748525791F004D84F9/%24file/10-7036-1333156.pdf#page=46
[Excerpts:]
“KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge, dissenting:...
[...]
In my judgment, both D.C.’s ban on semi-automatic rifles and its gun registration requirement are unconstitutional under Heller.
In Heller, the Supreme Court held that handguns – the vast majority of which today are semi-automatic – are constitutionally protected because they have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens. There is no meaningful or persuasive constitutional distinction between semi-automatic handguns and semi-automatic rifles. Semi-automatic rifles, like semi-automatic handguns, have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens for self-defense in the home, hunting, and other lawful uses. Moreover, semi-automatic handguns are used in connection with violent crimes far more than semi-automatic rifles are. It followsfrom Heller’s protection of semi-automatic handguns that semi-automatic rifles are also constitutionally protected and that D.C.’s ban on them is unconstitutional.
[...]
In my view, Heller and McDonald leave little doubt that courts are to assess gun bans and regulations based on text, history, and tradition, not by a balancing test such as strict or intermediate scrutiny.”
Never having been a judge before tends to make her less than series.
When I looked at it some time ago, her "opinion" output dropped way off. Roberts is likely just carrying her.
Supreme Court Finalist Brett Kavanaugh Called “More Conservative” Than Justice Scalia
LifeNews ^ | July 6, 2018 | MICAIAH BILGER
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3669034/posts
Brett Kavanaugh Said Obamacare Was Unprecedented And Unlawful
The Federalist ^ | JULY 3, 2018 | Justin Walker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3669054/posts
You don’t get a vote.
Spot on
Fun fact: He also thought Senate Republicans should’ve granted Merrick Garland a hearing and a vote.
Even Tribe despaired about the intellectual capacity of Kagan!
Especially ones up for election!
On the plus side, Stevens, who will be 100 years old in a year and a half, will have forgotten all about this controversy before his wet nurse starts spoon-feeding him his chocolate pudding this evening...
Shocked!... I'm shocked I tell ya.../s
John Paul Stevens was an airhead on the Court. Sounds like things have not changed.
Too impassioned in your defense? You dont have the correct demeanor for the SCOTUS.
Not impassioned enough in your defense? You must be guilty.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.