in re above peteyperpprose:

i rest my case.

i promise not to bother u dawgs about this again; i think….

i am not a troll.

Impeccable posts Adie. Heightens my learning curve on the issues exponentially.

i rest my case.

i promise not to bother u dawgs about this again; i think….

i am not a troll.

I would say the 9th still has some sane judges.

To be sure, Hugh, particularly the one married to a federal defender. But if you start going circuit to circuit, the vast majority of judges on them are pretty conservative, and consistently so, particularly on criminal opinions, and the D.C. Circuit is overall very conservative
I also like the colorful antics of Alex Kozinsky, even when I don’t agree with some of his rulings. I applaud that he writes prolifically, and I sure don’t agree with much that Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner does–his political philosophy or his opinions, but I appreciate his prolific writing. Most judges hide; those two do the opposite–they are out there in public conferences and are proflific writers.

At 10:30 ON A WEDNESDAY EVENING IN LATE SEPTEMBER, Judge Alex Kozinski, the high-flying conservative of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, bounded into his San Francisco chambers wearing black Keds, cargo pants, and a stretched-out blue polo shirt. Kozinski headed for the computer. His law clerks usually read and send out his court-related e-mail, but they had already left the bare-bones visiting chambers—not for home, but for the judge’s home base in Pasadena, 400 miles to the south. Kozinski, who builds computers for fun, logged onto their terminal without a password, gleeful about having rigged it to bypass court security.

Ninth Circuit Blog

Orders pertaining to the disposition of judicial misconduct and disability complaints against federal judges sitting in the Ninth Circuit will be publicly available via the Internet, beginning January 2008.

There have been hundreds of legal blogs now, and many of them that track and do commentary on opinions and judges specifically on each federal circuit are springing up.

7th Circuit Wiki

I think in some small way, they increase access to the Courts.

threatening to curtail your right to know how your government is conducting itself (incompetently but we’d like to know the texture of the incompetence)

we now have the new Banana Republic Phenomenon where appellate courts (including the Eleventh Circuit and the D. C. Cirucit) are now sealing courtrooms at oral argument and picking and choosing who can be present at oral argument, and we also have them sealing whole dockets, and the entire file from public view. The D.C. Circuit did this in the Sibel Edmonds appeal against the F.B.I. and the Eleventh Circuit has eggregiously done it in several instances, and the Clerk has lied about this and been caught lying.

Often the Courts i.e. their judges and DOJ are the biggest law breakers.

What always tickles me are these commentaries on law blogs and others as to which is the most Conservative Circuit. My answer is every last one of them.

I have come to prefer “progressive” to “liberal”.

I like progressive too although I am also a liberal. Progressive implies progress and for that you need facts and plans that work. Conservative to me means someone who can’t distinguish between their positions and their beliefs so once they have a position facts won’t change it.

But as well I hope that there is some discussion of the Appointments of AUSA’s and the role of the DOJ and WH Counsel in establishing legal positions and arguments about Executive power and reach. This Administration has essentially purged the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and replaced it with lawyers that, instead of protecting the rights of minorities from persecution, have actually introduced law suits and actions that are designed to weaken access of poor and minorities to the polls.