Bush And The Judiciary, What Should Be Next?
May 26, 2005 - PipeLineNews - As we observes the smoke which continues to rise from the GOP’s latest Senate debacle we feel that it’s time to move on and to test the word and hopefully the mettle of the new Democrat working majority.
It is no secret that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Justice, William Rehnquist is gravely ill, having undergone throat surgery and chemotherapy to treat his thyroid cancer.
Over the past few weeks, rumors have been circulating that sometime in early Summer Mr. Rehnquist will resign from the court.
Such a move will signal the start of the second phase of the judicial battle currently being skillfully manipulated by the RINO gang of seven - primarily by its leader John McCain as he preps for 2008.
If the President intends to attempt to get his already tattered second term back on track he must assert himself. We feel this is his best chance, though it may already be too late.
We suggest that upon the announcement of the Chief Justice’s retirement, either Anthony Scalia or Clarence Thomas should be nominated as Chief Justice.
Our choice would be Scalia.
Aside from the fact that a Scalia nomination would probably be viewed as less contentious than one featuring Thomas, Justice Scalia also has seniority which is an important consideration. Given Scalia’s personality, of the two he might be the most effective in guiding the court back towards a policy of strict construction of the Constitution and away from its recent descent into internationalism and the type of goo-goo jurisprudence displayed in its latest death penalty case, Roper v Simmons.
Scalia’s credentials as a conservative are beyond question and his intellectual brilliance is of such high caliber as to have moved a long-time legal observer to remark, that if mind were muscle Scalia would be the “Terminator” of American conservative jurisprudence.
Moving any sitting Supreme Court jurist up a notch would obviously create a vacancy among the associate justices.
Enter J.Michael Luttig
Judge Luttig currently serves on the 4th US District Court of Appeals.
He is considered a rising star and has built a reputation in legal circles as a self-assured, conservative jurist.
"He is a man who is not tortured by doubt over the correctness of his judicial philosophy," - Bruce Fein, Deputy attorney general, Reagan Administration
“His reputation is one of an extremely smart, hard-line conservative Even those on the left, who disagree with his politics, really agree that he is very, very smart." - Heather Gerken, Harvard Law School – CNN August 22, 2001
Luttig clerked for Justice Scalia, when he was a member of the US Court of Appeals on the DC Circuit and served as law clerk and special assistant to Warren Burger while he was Chief Justice.
Additionally he served as Assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Counsel and Counselor to the attorney general in the mid 1980s. In 1991 he was appointed to the 4th Circuit by George H.W. Bush, where he currently serves.
While on the 4th Circuit, Luttig’s decisions in support of Virginia’s anti-partial-birth abortion legislation and parental notification have won him admiration among social conservatives and the pro-life community.
Luttig is also known for his affirmative stand on capital punishment, a matter that has affected him personally.
In 1994 a 17 year-old cold blooded predator - Napoleon Beazley - and two accomplices murdered Judge Luttig’s 63 year old father John in the driveway of their Texas family home as he attempted to steal their car. As Michael’s father clung to life, bleeding on the pavement, Beazley callously walked over to him and shot him point blank in the head, killing him.
Despite the obvious brutality of the crime it became a cause celebre among the anti-capital punishment crowd. Beazley was lionized by the New York Times, in a series of August 2001 editorials by Bob Herbert who termed the murderer's imminent execution as a - "Texas Travesty."
The ACLU supported appeal of the conviction went all the way to the US Supreme Court which deadlocked 3-3 on overturning the decision [a tie vote is not sufficient to overturn a lower court decision].
The Supreme Court appeal was unusual in that Justice Thomas, Souter and Scalia all recused themselves from the case because of their friendship with Mr. Luttig.
Though Luttig philosophically supported capital punishment before the murder of his father, the fervency with which that position is now held can’t but have been magnified as a result of the ordeal.
Recommending Mr. Luttig, aside from his confident conservatism is the fact that he is only 51 years old and if nominated and confirmed by the Senate would be the Court's youngest member [Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Stephens hail from the 1920s, the remainer from the 1930s & Justice Thomas was born in 1948] and could therefore make a tremendous long-term impact there.
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