Washington Post story by R. Jeffrey Smith addresses the political impact of George Bush on the federal courts, to include our own 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Although there is a hue and cry at the Supreme level, let us not forget that the daily business of the bench happens closer to home in the district and circuit courts, and all those young former prosecutors who have close ties to a particular party or senator will be with you/us for a long, very long time since they get life-time tenure and can only be removed for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Inability to get along is evidenced by:
Ideological trench warfare is frequently on display in the 6th
Circuit's austere fourth-floor hearing room in the Potter Stewart
Courthouse here, which shifted to Republican-appointee control in
mid-2005. Rulings sling around words such as "absurd," "rash,"
"meritless," "Pollyannaish," "unconscionable," "careless,"
"overwrought" and "alarming" -- from jurists on each side, directed at
the judgments of colleagues appointed by the other political party.
Tensions between Democratic and Republican appointees have become so
intense that they no longer regularly lunch together at the city's
University Club.
Click on heading for entire story:
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 8, 2008;
Page A01
CINCINNATI -- In June 2005, two federal appellate judges here ordered
Joseph Arnold released from a 21-year prison sentence after ruling that
there was no credible evidence he had threatened to shoot his
girlfriend's daughter with a pistol.
But Arnold's relief was fleeting. Prosecutors appealed to all of the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. And the full court, dominated by appointees of President Bush
and other Republican presidents, reversed the initial appellate ruling,
saying the evidence presented by prosecutors was sufficient to merit
Arnold's conviction.
Other criminal defendants, including some on death row, remain in
federal prisons for the same reason: After initial appellate verdicts
that their convictions or sentences were unjust, the last word came
from Bush's judicial picks on the 6th Circuit. Acting in cooperation
with other Republican appointees on the court, they have repeatedly
organized full-court rehearings to overturn rulings by panels dominated
by Democratic appointees.
Although the impact of Bush's judicial appointments is most often
noticed at the Supreme Court, it has played out much more frequently
and more importantly here and in the nation's 12 other appellate
courts, where his appointees and their liberal counterparts are waging
often-bitter ideological battles. After Bush's eight years in office,
Republican-appointed majorities firmly control the outcomes in 10 of
these courts, compared with seven after President Bill Clinton's tenure. They also now share equal representation with Democratic appointees on two additional courts. * * *
