Comments on: Cronyism and Harriet Miers, Our Next Supreme Court Judge? http://dancody.org/archives/cronyism-and-harriet-miers-our-next-supreme-court-judge.html Progressive commentary & Wisconsin politics by Dan Cody of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mon, 1 Dec 2008 19:39:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Arlen http://dancody.org/archives/cronyism-and-harriet-miers-our-next-supreme-court-judge.html#comment-2134 Arlen Wed, 05 Oct 2005 12:42:43 +0000 http://dancody.org/wordpress/?p=744#comment-2134 You sound like you're surprised political cronies are being appointed to the court. It's nothing new. Earl Warren and William O Douglas, just to name two, were also political cronies with no prior judicial experience. Also Byron White had none. Thurgood Marshall had only four years on an appellate court. Older Court watchers will remember Felix Frankfurter, one of the better justices of the 20th century, also had no prior judicial experience. Neither did Louis Brandeis. Hugo Black had one year of police court experience before being appointed. (I always thought one of the more interesting political appointments was Harding's appointment of former president William Howard Taft to the bench, but that's not relevant here, because he had been a judge before running for president.) Personally I like the idea of appointing people to the Supreme Court with no judicial experience (I haven't examined the specific person currently appointed, but I wholeheartedly support the idea that such people can be appointed). I don't like legal bureaucrats sitting as the final authority on law in this land; I like the idea that some of the Justices are just intelligent, reasonable people with good common sense. And history upholds that some of the best jurists in the history of the court have come from the ranks of the inexperienced. When it comes to that, John Marshall, the man who pretty much defined the role of the court, was a political crony of John Adams with absolutely no judicial experience. And, with the current tendency to tar and feather any judge who's ever had the misfortune of having a controversial case in his court, to malign any judge who's ever dared to express an opinion, I think we're going to see more and more appointees with no previous record. It's probably the only way we'll ever get really smart people past a congressional hearing, anymore. You sound like you’re surprised political cronies are being appointed to the court. It’s nothing new. Earl Warren and William O Douglas, just to name two, were also political cronies with no prior judicial experience. Also Byron White had none. Thurgood Marshall had only four years on an appellate court. Older Court watchers will remember Felix Frankfurter, one of the better justices of the 20th century, also had no prior judicial experience. Neither did Louis Brandeis. Hugo Black had one year of police court experience before being appointed. (I always thought one of the more interesting political appointments was Harding’s appointment of former president William Howard Taft to the bench, but that’s not relevant here, because he had been a judge before running for president.)

Personally I like the idea of appointing people to the Supreme Court with no judicial experience (I haven’t examined the specific person currently appointed, but I wholeheartedly support the idea that such people can be appointed). I don’t like legal bureaucrats sitting as the final authority on law in this land; I like the idea that some of the Justices are just intelligent, reasonable people with good common sense. And history upholds that some of the best jurists in the history of the court have come from the ranks of the inexperienced. When it comes to that, John Marshall, the man who pretty much defined the role of the court, was a political crony of John Adams with absolutely no judicial experience.

And, with the current tendency to tar and feather any judge who’s ever had the misfortune of having a controversial case in his court, to malign any judge who’s ever dared to express an opinion, I think we’re going to see more and more appointees with no previous record. It’s probably the only way we’ll ever get really smart people past a congressional hearing, anymore.

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