Litigation

Judge Diane Wood: A Supreme Persuader?

By Peter Hardin

If President Obama is hunting for a Supreme Court nominee who can play the role of intellectual counterweight to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and sometimes persuader of swing vote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, it helps explain why Judge Diane Wood is under strong consideration.

That’s the view offered in a New York Times profile of the 59-year-old judge on the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Times chronicles cases where the court’s “Judicial Bouts Reveal Power of Persuasion,” as the headline states and portrays a role played by Judge Wood as persuader and “philosophical outlier, a left-leaning woman in a world of right-leaning men.”

Two conservative colleagues on the court are Judge Richard A. Posner and Judge Frank H. Easterbrook, the chief judge, and the article examines Judge Wood’s ability to keep friendly relations with them on a personal level while also sparring with them on the bench. The article provides some insights in quoting remarks about how she works with them:

• Thomas C. Goldstein, editor of SCOTUSblog, said, “If she can have a decades-long relationship with these judges and maintain their respect, and do things like have Easterbrook come around in [a case about a condominium association's no-mezuzah rule], it really shows that she’s not tilting at windmills. She is very interested in persuading.”
• “Essentially, she’s a controlled fighter who likes to counterpunch,” said Richard A. Epstein, a libertarian thinker.
• Judge Posner said, “I think she’s been very tactful in dealing with people–not giving up her views but trying to look for common ground.”

Judge Wood also is seen by some conservatives as an abortion-rights extremist, and her nomination likely would be regarded as provocative by social conservatives. Wood has “a pattern of incendiary positions on a whole range of hot-button culture war issues,” said M. Edward Whelan III, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

She has clerked for Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, worked at the Justice Department and served on the faculty at the University of Chicago law school.

In other news about the upcoming nomination to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, Judge Ann Claire Williams, a second federal appeals court judge in Chicago, now is on Obama’s working list, the Chicago Tribune,  Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun and The Blog of Legal Times reported.

Initially appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1985, Judge Williams is a former prosecutor and African-American. The National Bar Association, a partner of Justice at Stake, recommended her nomination earlier to Obama (see Gavel Grab.)

She was recommended as a potential nominee to succeed Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in 1995 by the liberal group Alliance for Justice. You can keep updated about the nomination process by reading Justice at Stake’s judicial nominations news page, and you can click here for a Gavel Grab post about another front-runner, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, or click here for a Gavel Grab post about still another front-runner, Judge Merrick Garland.

Full post as published by The Gavel on April 22, 2010 (boomark / email).