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Justice Scalia Gives The President ( and the rest of us) Something To Think About

It is a new year here and first thing out of the box is a story about, Justice Scalia suggesting there are too many judges on the Supreme court.

Note I didn't say too many lawyers. (He is not advocating the promotion of non attorney's to the bench.)Scalia is actually saying what a lot of libertarians have been saying over the past 20 years, that is, there are not enough trial lawyers and other non-government lawyers on the bench and it is skewing the court to a position of over favoring the government at the expense of the individual.

Throughout history up until the last 20 years, there have always been non-judicial members of the court. Now most of the makeup of the SCOTUS are former prosecutors and government lawyers who then became judges pretty much right out of the government service without spending any real time in the well on behalf of an individual or company. The mindset of a person who works with the government their whole lives is that the government is always right. That was the antithesis of the fabric of our Constitution writers.

Scalia makes an excellent point that the court needs people on it who have spent a good portion of their lives defending the needs and rights of people.

One doesn't need to be a "Constitutional scholar" to be a good appellate court justice. Mr. President if you are looking for a few names for consideration that may share your sense of right wrong and and the American way, how about Professor Charles Ogletree from Harvard, Hon. Dennis Archer a former mayor of Detroit, Michigan Supreme Court Justice and recent past president of the American Bar Association (also the first president of the ABA of color.) or Judge Nancy Gertler a trial judge in the first circuit who spent much of her early career as a Criminal Defense lawyer?

Whom do you think would make a good Supreme Court Justice??

Hat tip: Law.Com

Edited to add hyperlink to posting and Hat tip.

Full post as published by That Lawyer Dude on January 05, 2010 (boomark / email).