Supreme Court Justice Souter To Retire

Liberal Justice David Souter to Retire at End of Term

NPR.org, April 30, 2009 · NPR has learned that Supreme Court Justice David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the court's current term.

The court has completed hearing oral arguments for the year and will be issuing rulings and opinions until the end of June.

Souter is expected to remain on the bench until a successor has been chosen and confirmed, which may or may not be accomplished before the court reconvenes in October.

www.npr.org...

Souter's retirement would give President Obama his first appointment to the high court. An Obama pick would be unlikely to change the ideology of the court. Souter generally votes with the liberal members of the court.

jw

i would venture to say we will see another minority on the supreme court now.

not because obama hates white people , it would just better represent the face of our country.

Originally posted by elitegamer23
i would venture to say we will see another minority on the supreme court now.

Cokie Roberts at NPR and others have predicted that Obama's 1st appointment would be a woman or a Hispanic.

Since Ginsberg is ill and may be leaving as well, the majority seem to think a woman is most likely.

jw

Although NPR was 1st to break the story, it is now being carried by several sources:
www.huffingtonpost.com...

www.msnbc.msn.com...

www.politico.com...

Salon has posted a list of potential Obama nominees:
Sonia Sotomayor, 54
Deval Patrick, 52
Elena Kagan, 48
Merrick Garland, 56
Cass Sunstein, 54
Diane P. Wood, 58
Jennifer Granholm, 49
Leah Ward Sears, 53
Harold Hongju Koh, 53
Ruben Castillo, 54 .
www.salon.com...

jw

reply to post by jdub297


One name you can strike from that list would be Deval Patrick. He is the current governor of Massachusetts, and if he gets nominated, I will eat my hat, simply because this guy is no more SCOTUS material than Homer Simpson. The only way he would be considered would be as a favor to Ted Kennedy.

Originally posted by jsobecky
reply to post by jdub297

 

One name you can strike from that list would be Deval Patrick. He is the current governor of Massachusetts ... . The only way he would be considered would be as a favor to Ted Kennedy.

The consensus opinion is that Obama's nominee will be a woman, perhaps Judge Sotomayor (female and minority).

However, Patrick has come under a lot of recent criticism as governor and a SCOTUS opening would provide him an "escape hatch" to avoid facing the electorate in a re-election bid. I wouldn't eliminate him from the list just yet.

jw

reply to post by jdub297

However, Patrick has come under a lot of recent criticism as governor and a SCOTUS opening would provide him an "escape hatch" to avoid facing the electorate in a re-election bid. I wouldn't eliminate him from the list just yet.

What you say is true. I meant to say, if he were nominated it would be a travesty of justice. pardon the pun. He's a useless politician. He disgusts me.

One of the troubling things about having this nomination in Obama's hands is that he has a cockeyed view on what a judge's job is. Traditional, rational thinking is that the SCOTUS should use the US Constitution as the basis of decisions, and leave their personal biases at home.

Obama wants judges that emphasize with litigants, and that use their own racial, gender, and cultural backgrounds to make decisions.

It's interesting that Souter is stepping down. Of all the liberals on the court, I was expecting him to stay the longest.

I was thinking JP Stevens would go first and then RB Ginsberg. Very interesting. I wonder if there was any pressure on him to get off the court. He's only been there for 19 years. Now, that sounds like a lot, but compare that to the others on the court. Souter came onto the court in 1990, what a noobie.

Obama is going to appoint a moderate-liberal woman. (HRC anyone?)

Originally posted by jsobecky

I meant to say, if he were nominated it would be a travesty of justice. pardon the pun. He's a useless politician. He disgusts me.

Pun pardoned. Wouldn't that apply to Eric Holder, as well?

Sadly, qualifications don't really mean much anymore. Appeasing key constituencies seems to be the determining factor in appointments across the board.

(Even though my sentiments on National politics and leadership run mostly conservative, I am sometimes embarassed by the crassness of some earlier appointments, such as those of Gonzales and Thomas.)

Patrick is symbolic of the adage that 'who you know' is more important than 'what you know.' I agree with you 100%. He's completely spineless and worthless as a leader. Which probably puts him high on Obama's list.

Maybe a thread could run off the topic of "appointees who aren't qualified for their positions."

jw

Yeah. We'll exchange one liberal turd for another.

Unless Obama can find a Marxist law school graduate who is black, gay, female, and poor.

Originally posted by jsobecky

One of the troubling things about having this nomination in Obama's hands is that he has a cockeyed view on what a judge's job is.

Obama has made no secret of his view of qualification for judicial office:

“We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what
it’s like to be poor and African-American or gay or disabled or old
– and that’s the criterion by which I’ll be selecting my judges.”

According to some, the Constitution is the last thing he considers important in this regard.

Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network says the three most-mentioned potential nominees – Kagan, Wood, and Sotomayor – are all far-left "radicals."

"If Obama holds to his campaign promise to appoint a justice who rules based on her own "deepest values" and what's in her own "heart" – instead of what is in the Constitution and laws – he will be the first American President who has made lawlessness an explicit standard for Supreme Court justices," she says.

www.csmonitor.com...

'What a long, strange trip' it's gonna be.

jw.

Originally posted by dooper
Yeah. We'll exchange one liberal turd for another.

Unless Obama can find a Marxist law school graduate who is black, gay, female, and poor.

You forgot to add "Must have tax problems". That seems to be a prime qualification for any of Obama's picks so far. :shk:

Originally posted by Iago18

I was thinking JP Stevens would go first and then RB Ginsberg.
...
I wonder if there was any pressure on him to get off the court.
...
Obama is going to appoint a moderate-liberal woman. (HRC anyone?)

Souter has always hated D.C. (gotta respect THAT!). He got mugged there a while back. He sees an opportunity for BHO to have three quick appointments and further cater to his key constituencies (minorities, women, social liberals).

It won't be long before Stevens and Ginsberg go, so maybe he'll give HRC a chance to accomplish something (other than blaming the world's problems on, and apologizing for, the U.S.), before he gives her a lifetime appointment.

(That would take her out of contention in 2012, no?)

jw