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There are two ways the Senate can approach a president's judicial nominees, and specifically President Obama's nomination of UC Berkeley law Professor Goodwin Liu to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. One: "We had an election, a Democrat won, and the president can pick whom he likes." To wit: Liu - a Rhodes scholar and graduate of Stanford, Oxford and Yale Law School who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg - is highly qualified. Republicans should not use delay tactics and the filibuster to thwart a full-Senate up-or-down vote on Liu. Two: "Because...

The irony of Justice John Paul Stevens' retirement is that it is likely to change the Senate more than the Supreme Court. Stevens' announcement Friday gives President Obama his second chance to reshape the court. But as with his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to replace David Souter, Obama's choice would be replacing one of the court's existing liberal stalwarts. That means even if he chooses another liberal like Sotomayor, the court's ideological balance would remain the same. The string of recent narrow 5-4 decisions would likely remain unbroken. But court watchers agree that is not likely to make this choice...

On Friday, April 9, 2010 a significant retirement announcement made the National news, Justice John Paul Stephens is leaving the bench. His departure must be a rallying cry for all those who recognize the true fundamental human rights issue of our age, the right to life from conception to natural death. Justice Stevens is by all accounts a gentleman and an intellectual. His demeanor has earned him the respect and admiration of many, including his colleagues on the bench who disagreed with many of his judicial opinions. The most notably wrong among those opinions was his support of the majority...

Justice Stevens’ retirement from the Supreme Court creates a potential game-changer for the midterm elections. If Republicans respond correctly to this, they can recapture the House, make big gains in the Senate, and bring most of the Tea Party crowd back into the GOP fold. On April 9, Justice John Paul Stevens announced that he will retire from the Supreme Court this summer. This move has been anticipated since late 2009, when Stevens didn’t hire his full allotment of law clerks for the Court’s next term. But making the announcement now completely changes the national dialogue, with widespread implications. Many...

WASHINGTON – Goodwin Liu couldn't speak English until kindergarten, but he went on to become co-valedictorian at Rio Americano High School in Sacramento, a Rhodes Scholar and a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Now he's under attack on Capitol Hill, where Republicans oppose his nomination to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Liu, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, is attracting far more attention than most judicial nominees. While his backers are excited by his solidly liberal credentials, some opponents fear Obama is preparing Liu for what would be a historic appointment: the first...

According to Bloomberg News, the Obama administration has zeroed in on three candidates to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who now says he "will surely" retire during Obama's presidency, and two are women. The front-runner is Solicitor General Elena Kagan and the other two are federal appellate judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland.

<p>The battle over the next Supreme Court justice is already under way, as the No. 2 Republican in the Senate on Sunday would not rule out blocking a successor to Justice John Paul Stevens -- who said in interviews published this weekend his retirement is on the horizon.</p>

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, a leader of the court's liberal wing, will decide soon whether to retire after 35 years on the court, two newspapers on Saturday quoted him as saying. U.S. Stevens, 89, has hinted for weeks that retirement may be at hand but has said he has not made up his mind. In interviews published in the New York Times and Washington Post, he discussed his possible retirement. He plans to leave either this year or next, the Post reported, quoting Stevens as saying, "I will surely do it while he's still president," referring to Democratic...

Around here, one of the most powerful men in the nation is known as plain old John Stevens -- courteous bridge player, early-morning regular at the country club's tennis courts, a quiet and spry condo neighbor who checks his weight in the gym before heading off for his daily swim. But those who cross paths with him in his second home of South Florida have the same question as the president of the United States, the leadership of Congress, the abortion rights combatants, the disgruntled conservative legal activists and the grateful civil libertarians,

Justice Stevens says he will 'surely' retire during Obama's presidency By Jordan Fabian - 04/03/10 04:47 PM ET The usually reticent with the press Justice John Paul Stevens gave two major interviews this weekend that provide new information about if and when he will retire from the bench. Speculation has arisen that Stevens, 89, will step down sooner rather than later. The White House is preparing for confirmation proceedings over the summer, the New York Times wrote Saturday. In an interview with the Washington Post, Stevens, who is considered a member of the liberal wing of the Court, Stevens said...

It is difficult to imagine the Ninth Circuit as any more radically liberal than it already is. Despite a few stellar judges, the Court is full of liberal activists who have earned it the reputation of having the highest Supreme Court reversal rate of any court in the nation. But, with his latest judicial nominee, President Obama just may do what seemed impossible. There are many red flags in the judicial record of Ninth Circuit nominee Goodwin Liu, who is Associate Dean at the University of California Berkeley Law School. Here are just a few highlights. Judicial Philosophy: Though Liu...

Impeccable credentials are no defense against Republican obstruction tactics for Obama nominees waiting for U.S. Senate confirmation. The Republicans seem to be stalling the president's appointments simply because they can. They held up the nomination of Barbara Keenan, selected to become the first woman on the Virginia-based Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, even though there was no controversy about her qualifications, ideology or anything else - and the court was seriously shorthanded. Still, the nomination languished for months because of a GOP filibuster. She was ultimately confirmed, 99-0. These delay tactics go beyond the usual tit-for-tat when power shifts...

President Obama's judicial nominees are getting more dangerous with each White House announcement. If you don't believe us, consider one judge's opinion that the "sexual sadism" of a multiple rapist-murderer was "clearly a mitigating factor" that argued against executing the murderer and perhaps even against convicting him in the first place. Or that a type of Megan's Law sex-offender registry should be overturned because it "stigmatizes nondangerous registrants." Even a child-porn convict should serve a sentence less than half as long as official guidelines suggest if his mental and emotional condition is fragile. U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny of...

The Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed the hearing for a controversial Court of Appeals nominee after the panel received a letter from a home-state prosecutor blasting the candidate as a judicial loose cannon and after Republicans raised concerns about bias in favor of sex offenders. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chatigny gained notoriety in 2005 for his role in trying to fight the execution of convicted serial killer and rapist Michael Ross, also known as The Roadside Strangler, whom Chatigny had described as a victim of his own "sexual sadism." His conduct in that case, which included threatening to go...

Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he's obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson's brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

This may come as a surprise to some people, but the U.S. Constitution does not specify the size of the Supreme Court. The original Judiciary Act of 1789 set the number of justices at six. It shrank to five in 1801. It expanded to seven in 1807. It grew to nine in 1837 and 10 in 1863. It fell back to seven in 1866. It returned to nine in 1869 and has remained at that number since. Political issues accounted for the changes. The Federalists reduced the number to five, hoping to deprive Thomas Jefferson of an appointment. The incoming...

Supreme Court Justice Barack Obama? By Jeffrey Rosen February 21, 2010 He's too detached and cerebral . Too deferential to Congress. Too willing to compromise . And he's too much of a law professor and not enough of a commander in chief, as Sarah Palin recently admonished. Outlook: Supreme Court Justice Barack Obama? These are some of the qualities for which the president, rightly or wrongly, is criticized. They are also the qualities that make him well suited for another steady job on the federal payroll: Barack Obama, Supreme Court justice. Think about it. Though Obama has struggled to find...

He's too detached and cerebral. Too deferential to Congress. Too willing to compromise. And he's too much of a law professor and not enough of a commander in chief, as Sarah Palin recently admonished. These are some of the qualities for which the president, rightly or wrongly, is criticized. They are also the qualities that make him well suited for another steady job on the federal payroll: Barack Obama, Supreme Court justice. Think about it. Though Obama has struggled to find his footing in the White House, his education, temperament and experience make him ideally suited to lead the liberal...

If two U.S. Supreme Court vacancies materialize this spring, they may have the same impact on the nation's capital that two heavy snowfalls have had this month: gridlock, paralysis and frayed tempers. Stories raising the possibility that justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg may leave at roughly the same time have suddenly become part of the Washington conversation, already fueling nightmare scenarios of dragged-out battles between a weakened President Barack Obama and a fiercely contentious Senate over possible replacements. "Republicans are out for blood, and Democrats are out for a fight," said Steve Wermiel, professor at American University...

During a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting today, Sen. Harry Reid offered up criticism of the ABA's process of evaluating nominees for the federal bench, saying whether the individual is qualified shouldn't depend on prior judicial experience. Reid's comments came as he was introducing a nominee from Nevada, Gloria Navarro, the Blog of Legal Times reports.