Posted on 10/07/2005 10:29:53 AM PDT by Uncledave
MIERS' EXPERIENCE [Jonah Goldberg]
I get a lot of email making this point, which I think is fair as far as it goes:
I did a quick review of the bios of the current Justices. If you leave out the departing OConnor, the only Justice with any significant private practice experience left on the Court is Kennedy, at about 14 years. Souter and Scalia had a handful of years right out of law school; believe me when I tell you that doesnt count. Thomas had a couple of years in-house at Monsanto between government positions. Roberts had 10 years at Hogan & Hartson, but as I understand it, it was exclusively appellate work, which only barely counts.
J. Harvie Wilkinson (my Con Law professor years ago) has no private practice experience. Michael Luttig had about 4 years.
Miers, by contrast, has over 25 years as a commercial litigator. Though Ive seen some of the derisive comments about the intellectual rigor of that branch of the profession as compared to the supposedly more rarified field of Constitutional Law, that is nonsense. A good commercial litigators practice is, in fact, one of the most intellectually challenging careers in the profession. Every case, every business you represent, and every deal is different. You have to explain unfamiliar and complex commercial issues (which are found in both large and small cases) to judges and juries.
If you confine appointments to Constitutional scholars, youre going to have nothing but academics and government lawyers, which is what youve basically got there now.
My point is that if Miers is a good lawyer, the fact that she hasnt had an opportunity to deal with search and seizure issues in her career is not disqualifying. In fact, her familiarity with many of the regulatory, tax and other commercial issues faced by the Court will be much greater than her colleagues. And maybe well have fewer of those ridiculous 7-part tests to deal with.
Posted at 01:22 PM
Jonah didn't write this. It is an email sent to him. Posters slamming Jonah are offbase. He is posting what his readers are saying.
Abortion is your only requirement? What about the 2nd Amendment? What about consulting foreign law? Putting an anti-abortion activist on the court isn't going to solve much. By the way, Miers is against abortion.
Johna subscribed to it. He is a chip off Moms blockhead.
I read Charles K's peice. I know conservatives want a known entity.
Did not read that she supported racial preferences.
BTW: My husband is a Kirk - we call him Capt Kirk - have since HS.
By the accounts I've read, these are fine, conservative judges. If she has been so heavily in on this successful process, then she definitely knows some of the ropes and that's another great point in her favor IMO.
bttt
The real breath of fresh air we need on the court is a non-lawyer, someone who can read and understand the English language and who isn't willing to let flowery language persuade them that black is white, that discrimination is equality, and that the First Amendment permits censorship of religious expression and regulation of political speech. Someone to bring some common sense to the Court, and an articulate advocate of the sovereign people's right to non-arbitrariness in the adjudication of law.
Actually, the vast majority of lawyers, even many of the very best lawyers, NEVER argue a case before the Supreme Court. Unless a lawyer works in the Solicitor General's Office (the main function of which is to represent the Government in cases before the Supreme Court), the Appellate Section of the Attorney General's Office in one of the larger states, or in one of the handful of appellate litigation botique practices in Washington (which is what Chief Justice Roberts did), the odds of ever winding up before the Supreme Court are miniscule. In 33 years as a litigator at a large law firm with a sophisticated trial and appellate practice, I have had exactly two cases where a party filed a petition for a writ of certiorari (a petition asking the Supreme Court to hear an appeal). Both petitions were denied. I have argued plenty of Constitutional issues over the course of my career, but I suspect I will retire having, like most lawyers, never having argued in the Supreme Court.
Read again. He was saying that appellate work "only barely counts" as true private practice, not that it only barely counts toward USSC experience.
that totally stunned me. how stupid can one be.
No one with an anti-Roe background (as opposed to anti-abortion) has a chance. Specter guarantees it.
And, what in the world does abortion litigation have to do with this? Either you're FOR killing babies or AGAINST killing babies.
Well said.
Well done George W. Bush for picking Harriet Miers for Supreme Court Judge.
Still standing by your analysis. LOL
No, it's not an example of snobbery. His whole point is that she brings something other than appelate (read: arguing fine points often peripheral to the facts of the case) private practice experience to the bench.
Agree or disagree, but don't mischaracterize the argument presented.
I think you misunderestimate the talents of many brilliant individuals available. I've worked on some cases that lawyers had trouble understanding but I didn't.
Commercial litigation in general sometimes involves the operation and interpretation of Federal statutes and regulations, but only very seldom involves Constitutional issues per se. You can't possibly generalize the way this e-mailer is doing that Miers is "qualified" simply by virtue of being a "commercial litigator." This is just another "smoke screen" the 'zoids are throwing up as "boob bait" for the "base."
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