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Developing a SCOTUS short list of district court judges

By Douglas A. Berman

With this Newsweek essay, headlined "The 2008 Bench Press: The most important decision a president ever makes?  It's choosing a Supreme Court nominee," Anna Quindlen reminds us that it is not too early to start obsessing over who might be on the presidential candidates' SCOTUS short list.  Though I have (and others have) blogged this topic before, my recent great experience at the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference reminded me how many federal district judges would make great Justice material. In this post from 2005 during the last round of nomination debates, I argued that the Supreme Court could really benefit from having a Justice with trial court experience.  Remarkably, it has been nearly half a century since the Supreme Court has even a single Justice with experience as a federal district court judge, and I think the Justices' confusing work in various arenas (especially sentencing) reflects a lack of practical district court wisdom...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 11, 2008 (boomark / email).