Justice Souter to Retire

[flylooper]

Originally Posted by bassjones

I'm hoping Scalia's just ornery enough to refuse to retire while Obama's in the White House.

My money's on Hillary for this one. I'll wager all my casino cash right now.

Are you nuts?

$10. Bet?

[flylooper]

Originally Posted by jim schmidt

It's nice to hear of a SCOTUS vacancy and to not have to worry about it.

Really! (I'm just grinning from ear to ear!)

[bassjones]

there have been a few appointments by Republicans that have backfired on them - Souter for one. you never know when that will happen with a Democrat too.

[flylooper]

All I want is a justice who isn't doctrinaire. I want someone who sticks with the law and interprets it in the context of the real world.

[Gaolee]

Originally Posted by flylooper

Well, Michelle Malkin has certainly started her caterwaul.

The fun will really begin if/when Obama has a pick to replace one of the conservatives. I'm going to lay in a few pounds of popcorn for the hearings.

Does anybody, even conservatives, take Michelle Malkin seriously? She is about as profound an idiot as MAnn Coulter or the fat flaccid fascist himself. None of them can tolerate the idea somebody might see the world differently from the way they do. They are a waste of good bandwidth, both electronic and mental.

[bassjones]

Originally Posted by flylooper

All I want is a justice who isn't doctrinaire. I want someone who sticks with the law and interprets it in the context of the real world.

all i want is someone who won't try to rewrite the constitution.

[Gaolee]

Originally Posted by bassjones

there have been a few appointments by Republicans that have backfired on them - Souter for one. you never know when that will happen with a Democrat too.

It will happen to a Democrat as soon as the Democrats get as far away from reality as the Republicans have gotten. Current "conservative" thought is not big on logic, precedent, or common sense. The Democrats may never get as screwed up as the Republicans are now. I don't think the Republicans have ever had as corrosive and negative a philosophy as they currently have, either. When the Republicans return to the world at large and get out of the pathetic cul-de-sac they are in, they might not have things backfire as badly.

There are some real conservatives out there, but there aren't any in the GOP these days, as far as I can tell. The GOP has become a bunch of foaming Brownshirts with no real agenda except to grab power and enrich themselves. As such, a lawyer with the brains to be in a position to be nominated to the SCOTUS is far less likely to come down as a doctrinaire Republican than as a typical unpredictable Democrat.

[baldheadeddork]

Originally Posted by bassjones

there have been a few appointments by Republicans that have backfired on them - Souter for one. you never know when that will happen with a Democrat too.

Souter shouldn't have surprised anyone. His opinions didn't change when he got to the Supreme Court. It only backfired if you somehow thought he was going to change into a doctrinaire conservative. Stevens is an even more ridiculous example.

During the campaign Obama talked about the importance of having people on the Supreme Court who would bring experience outside of the judiciary or teaching in a law school. I think his first instinct is going to be to go outside of the normal pool of appeals court judges and noteworthy law professors. This would in theory raise the risk of someone shifting ideology when they get on the court, but you'd nominate them with a much stronger idea of where they stand.

I bet whoever he nominates will have had substantial experience in grass-roots community work. I think he wants someone who has personal experience with how the law works at the lowest level of society.

And, for a bonus, that would send the wingers into orbit.

[bassjones]

how about someone who understands the constitutional role of the judiciary? I suppose that would be too much to ask though...

[baldheadeddork]

Originally Posted by bassjones

how about someone who understands the constitutional role of the judiciary? I suppose that would be too much to ask though...

Do you have examples on the court now?

[bassjones]

roberts.

[Gaolee]

Originally Posted by bassjones

roberts.

[Tripped1]

Originally Posted by Gaolee

It will happen to a Democrat as soon as the Democrats get as far away from reality as the Republicans have gotten. Current "conservative" thought is not big on logic, precedent, or common sense. The Democrats may never get as screwed up as the Republicans are now. I don't think the Republicans have ever had as corrosive and negative a philosophy as they currently have, either. When the Republicans return to the world at large and get out of the pathetic cul-de-sac they are in, they might not have things backfire as badly.

There are some real conservatives out there, but there aren't any in the GOP these days, as far as I can tell. The GOP has become a bunch of foaming Brownshirts with no real agenda except to grab power and enrich themselves. As such, a lawyer with the brains to be in a position to be nominated to the SCOTUS is far less likely to come down as a doctrinaire Republican than as a typical unpredictable Democrat.

They have an agend. See dixiecrats and religious fundamentalist, that is about all that is left from what I can see.

[baldheadeddork]

Originally Posted by bassjones

roberts.

So you agree this is a reasonable reading of the protection against unreasonable search and seizure?

When he was a judge, on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, he ruled significantly in a 2004 case, Hedgepeth ex rel. Hedgepeth v. Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. As you consider his conception of justice, would you confirm John Roberts as chief justice of the United States, now that he has been nominated by Bush?

The facts of the case are detailed by constitutionalist John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, which helped provide a lawyer to the mother of the plaintiff: "On October 23, 2000, 12-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth . . . arrived at a Washington, D.C., Metro station to catch the train home." She put one of the french fries she'd bought in her mouth.

"Immediately, a police officer demanded she put down her french fries and remove her backpack. Although Ansche never resisted or failed to cooperate with the officer, she was told to place her hands behind her back and she was handcuffed." Ansche was informed she had broken the law against eating in a subway station, and her shoestrings were removed by a policeman, who searched her.

"Led to a police car," she was "taken to the police station, where she was interrogated, booked, fingerprinted and finally released into her mother's custody after being detained for several hours."

The likely future chief justice John Roberts ruled for a unanimous three-judge panel that Ansche's Fourth Amendment and equal-protection rights had not been violated. Ansche's mother has pointed out that if an adult had committed the same crime, he or she would have been issued an appearance ticket—not treated like a dangerous felon.

Here is what Judge Roberts said in his decision: "No one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation." Indeed, he added, this 12-year-old girl "was transported in the windowless rear compartment of a police vehicle to a juvenile processing center. . . . The child was frightened, embarrassed and crying throughout the ordeal."

However, righteously said John Roberts, revealing the core of his humanity under his black robe: "[The arrest advanced] the legitimate goal of promoting parental awareness and involvement with children who commit delinquent acts."

On Fox News Channel's July 20 Special Report With Brit Hume, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe—whose books on constitutional law have often been quoted in Supreme Court decisions—addressed John Roberts's disposition of this flagrant criminal act by 12-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth:

"Saying that the Constitution afforded no protection against a flat rule that allowed no tolerance whatsoever when someone, like a little kid, eats a piece of food in the subway, why didn't that [decision by John Roberts] violate [the child's] liberty?"

He was referring to the essential constitutional interest in personal liberty that is particularly embedded in the Bill of Rights. Without those 10 amendments, the Constitution would not have been ratified.

Tribe went on to say, "The country needs to know, not how he will rule in particular cases—God knows, in the next 30 years, cases we can't even dream of will come before him— but what will be his starting premises about the Constitution?" (Emphasis added.)

As Tribe put it, "If you're a minor, one french fry and you're busted, [for the judge to show no discretion] needs some explanation."

Roberts gave his explanation in his decision. Ansche Hedgepeth was a delinquent! She and her parents must be taught a lesson about our immutable rule of law. "The question before us," Roberts wrote for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, "is not whether these [Metro system] policies were a bad idea but whether they violated" the Constitution. "We conclude they did not."

A twelve year-old kid handcuffed, thrown into a police van and hauled off and booked for eating one french fry in a Metro station - when an adult would have been given a ticket - doesn't violate the Fourth?

And we can check back this summer for Roberts view on a similar case - the strip search of a thirteen year-old girl by school officials because she may have been in possession of two Advil.

[Trash]

Originally Posted by Gaolee

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