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Rebalancing The Scales of Justice -- Get a Room, Liberty!

This is an interesting WP story on the impact Obama will have in restoring some balance to the federal judiciary, especially at the appellate level:

The federal judiciary is on the verge of a major shift when President-elect Barack Obama's nominees take control of several of the nation's most important appellate courts, legal scholars and political activists say. With the Supreme Court's conservative direction unlikely to change anytime soon, it is the lower courts -- which dispense almost all federal justice -- where Obama can assert his greatest influence.

The change will be most striking on the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, long a conservative bastion and an influential voice on national security cases, where four vacancies will lead to a clear Democratic majority. Democrats are expected to soon gain a narrower plurality on the New York-based 2nd Circuit, vital for business and terrorism cases, a more even split on the influential D.C. appeals court and control of the 3rd Circuit, which covers Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Although Republican control will probably persist on a majority of appellate courts for at least several years, some experts say that by the end of Obama's term, he and the Democratic Congress will flip the 56 percent majority Republican nominees now exert over those highly influential bodies.

"Obama has a huge opportunity," said Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who is an authority on federal courts. "In a very short time, significant segments of the appellate courts, which are the final authority in all but a tiny handful of cases, will be dominated by Democratic nominees."

I actually thought Justice Roberts was one of Bush' better decisions as President, and I respect him as a lawyer and jurist to a degree that is simply not possible with a partisan like Scalia.

But in Roberts' 25 or so years in DC, did he ever represent an individual? Ever?

Call me crazy, but it's good to have a few well-rounded civil litigators on the bench, and I found this quote by Obama to be right on the money:

"What I do want is a judge who is sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can't have access to political power and as a consequence can't protect themselves from being . . . dealt with sometimes unfairly," Obama, a former constitutional law professor, said in a May interview with CNN.

Oops! My liberalism is showing again.

Full post as published by South Florida Lawyers on December 08, 2008 (boomark / email).