The Judiciary

With Democrats in control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, Senate Democrats are coming out against a filibuster for whomever President Obama nominates to the Supreme Court. Going one step further, key Democrats are denying their own support of the filibuster on all sorts of judges — from district to appeals courts to the highest court in the land.

On Sunday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) told ABC's "This Week" that “we never filibuster Justices of the Supreme Court.” In fact, Leahy himself supported the filibuster. Read more...

The Hill's A.B. Stoddard answers viewer questions about which way President Obama should go with nominating a Supreme Court Justice, and the GOP trying to rebrand themselves as a party.

As many commentators have already pointed out, the replacement of David Souter is unlikely to alter the nature of future Supreme Court decisions. The Supreme Court, as opposed to the United States Senate, operates strictly by majority rule, which means the jurist who occupies the median vote on the nine-member bench exercises an inordinate amount of power, particularly on divisive cases.

Justice Kennedy, the current king of the median vote (previously occupied by Justice O’Connor) can swing almost any controversial decision by making sure he sits in the middle of a decision. He can do that because Supreme Court decisions are a multi-stage process full of negotiations and compromises. Read more...

In a recent press review of New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D) role as a young attorney representing tobacco companies, one law professor was quoted as saying that it would be unfair to assess lawyers by whom they represent. “Nobody would want to live in a world in which lawyers are judged by the clients they take,” he suggested. Indeed, that it is an article of faith among most lawyers, and mostly a devious one, in my judgment. Read more...

There's an old Rodney Dangerfield joke that goes something like this: "I went to see my psychiatrist the other day and he told me I was crazy. I asked for a second opinion and he said, 'OK, you're ugly, too!' "

The joke is similar to the request made by Attorney General Eric Holder, who, after being told by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel that legislation before Congress granting voting rights to the District of Columbia was unconstitutional, "ordered a second opinion from other lawyers and determined that the legislation would pass muster." Read more...

On March 24, the United Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case involving a critical and uncomplimentary movie about Hillary Clinton. A hostile critique of the new secretary of State, made when she was a presidential candidate, “Hillary, The Movie” was produced by a conservative advocacy group that did to Hillary what one might expect a Michael Moore type would do to Sarah Palin or W (remember him?). Already on DVD and the Internet (what isn’t?), the movie was prevented from being shown on cable television during the past election season because the Federal Election Commission ruled it violated the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Read more...

The sad news about the illness of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, bad enough in itself, suggests that President Obama may have more important matters added to his already full platter of state business.

If the president has the need to appoint a new justice — perhaps more than one — he has an opportunity to assure the present liberal-conservative balance (imbalance), but not to change it. The aging Justice John Paul Stevens and the restless Justice David Souter might also leave the court during President Obama’s first term. He then could appoint three solid, young, progressive justices to balance the four adamantly conservative justices now sitting. Justice Anthony Kennedy would remain the swingman. Read more...

Hotels overflowed. Planes, trains and automobiles clogged with visitors to the nation's capital to view, in person, the swearing-in of the 44th POTUS. Over-the-top media hype (and exaggeration) of the attendance numbers for weeks and weeks prior to Inauguration Day. Nearly every media outlet in the world watching as Barack Obama took the oath of office. Sort of.

Obama jumped in too soon on the oath and Chief Justice John Roberts messed up, so out of what the White House termed "an abundance of caution" they hastily threw together a "do-over" just to make sure. Strangely, the new president, who just hours before pledged a new openness in his administration, prohibited television cameras from capturing the re-do "moment" and didn't even bother to use a Bible this time, even though quite a big deal was made over his choice of the Lincoln Bible the day before and all the alleged special meaning it held for Barack Obama. At least Roberts donned his official black robes, doing his part to respect the seriousness of the oath. Obama and his staff tried to make it seem as if it were no big deal. Roberts knew that it was, indeed, a very big deal. They can't both be right on this point. Read more...

President-elect Obama’s new head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department, Dawn Johnsen, called the legal reasoning that gave the president broad powers to authorize “rough” interrogation of terrorists “shockingly flawed … bogus … outlandish.” She said it allowed “horrific acts” and demanded to know, “Where is the outrage? The public outcry?”

This is the person who will decide how to interrogate terrorists. If she errs on the side of weakening methods of questioning, there’s no chance her boss, Eric Holder, the new attorney general, will reverse her. He approved of the Clinton/Reno “wall” preventing intelligence from finding out what criminal investigators had found out and took the lead in pardoning the FALN terrorists. Read more...

He just couldn’t leave bad enough alone. Getting away with murder(s) was not enough. This time, the scene changed, and so did the key characters, except O.J. Johnny Cochran is gone to his maker. Judge Ito replaced by a low-visibility, no-nonsense judge. The glow is now gone from the younger, untouchable star.

The bizarre administration of justice finally worked its way. Nullification in Los Angeles was replaced by overreaction in Las Vegas. The man is finally there for all to see, shackled hand and foot, in prison-issue garb, whimpering before a judge, who was sipping her Slurpee while the prisoner begged for forgiveness. Read more...