Litigation

What Do We Want in a Justice? ?Judicial Experience?

By Peter Hardin

A national poll shows strong support among Americans for selecting a Supreme Court justice who has worn the judicial robes.

Some activists and Democrats have urged President Obama, in deciding upon a nominee to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, to look beyond candidates who have spent time on the bench.

But the Washington Post-ABC News poll found judicial experience to be the most valued characteristic, according to a Washington Post article.

• Seven in 10 people answering the survey considered judicial experience a positive qualification for a nominee, compared to only 5 percent who thought of it as a negative. The poll found these other opinions about the court, or about the nominations process:
• The high court was judged balanced in its decision-making by 46 percent of respondents, compared to 26 percent faulting it as too liberal and 21 percent labeling it too conservative. (In a poll three years ago, the latter two numbers were 18 percent and 31 percent, respectively.)
• Sixty-five percent of Americans were comfortable with Obama picking the next justice to sit on the high court.
• Diversity in making the selection wasn’t a hot issue for the public. Eight in 10 respondents said they didn’t find it important  whether the nominee is female, African-American or Protestant.
• If the nominee were gay, 22 percent said it would strike them as a strongly negative factor, while seven in 10 said it would not be a factor at all.
• Six in 10 respondents want Obama’s next justice to uphold Roe v. Wade, with 38 percent wanting it reversed.

In a sharply different poll, which was the topic of an article in Christian Post, 64 percent of Americans said judicial rulings in recent years have been more anti-religious than was the intent of the Founding Fathers.

The Rasmussen Reports poll showed  21 percent of adults thought the Constitution was correctly interpreted by the courts.

To learn more about the nomination process, politics, and Obama?s criteria, check out other Gavel Grab posts or visit Justice at Stake?s ?Replacing Justice Stevens? page.

Full post as published by The Gavel on April 30, 2010 (boomark / email).