Kentucky

Washington Post story by R. Jeffrey Smith addresses the political impact of George Bush on the federal courts, to include our own 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Although there is a hue and cry at the Supreme level, let us not forget that the daily business of the bench happens closer to home in the district and circuit courts, and all those young former prosecutors who have close ties to a particular party or senator will be with you/us for a long, very long time since they get life-time tenure and can only be removed for high crimes and misdemeanors.



Inability to get along is evidenced by:

Ideological trench warfare is frequently on display in the 6th Circuit's austere fourth-floor hearing room in the Potter Stewart Courthouse here, which shifted to Republican-appointee control in mid-2005. Rulings sling around words such as "absurd," "rash," "meritless," "Pollyannaish," "unconscionable," "careless," "overwrought" and "alarming" -- from jurists on each side, directed at the judgments of colleagues appointed by the other political party. Tensions between Democratic and Republican appointees have become so intense that they no longer regularly lunch together at the city's University Club.

Click on heading for entire story:

CINCINNATI -- In June 2005, two federal appellate judges here ordered Joseph Arnold released from a 21-year prison sentence after ruling that there was no credible evidence he had threatened to shoot his girlfriend's daughter with a pistol.

But Arnold's relief was fleeting. Prosecutors appealed to all of the judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. And the full court, dominated by appointees of President Bush and other Republican presidents, reversed the initial appellate ruling, saying the evidence presented by prosecutors was sufficient to merit Arnold's conviction.

Other criminal defendants, including some on death row, remain in federal prisons for the same reason: After initial appellate verdicts that their convictions or sentences were unjust, the last word came from Bush's judicial picks on the 6th Circuit. Acting in cooperation with other Republican appointees on the court, they have repeatedly organized full-court rehearings to overturn rulings by panels dominated by Democratic appointees.

Although the impact of Bush's judicial appointments is most often noticed at the Supreme Court, it has played out much more frequently and more importantly here and in the nation's 12 other appellate courts, where his appointees and their liberal counterparts are waging often-bitter ideological battles. After Bush's eight years in office, Republican-appointed majorities firmly control the outcomes in 10 of these courts, compared with seven after President Bill Clinton's tenure. They also now share equal representation with Democratic appointees on two additional courts. * * *