Latest on Pickering's renomination

[Toto]

A Judge, a Renomination and the Cross-Burning Case Without End (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/28/politics/28JUDG.html) {article now archived }

The prior thread on Pickering (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42871) wandered off onto another issue.

This article details some rather unjudicial behavior on Pickering's part, but no apparent racism:

Among other steps Judge Pickering took, he threatened to order a new trial. When prosecutors asked him on what basis he could do so, he replied, "Any basis you want."

When federal prosecutors from the same Jackson, Miss., office came before him in other unrelated cases, he hectored them, asking them repeatedly what their office was doing with regard to his request to reduce the sentence in the Swan case.

Justice Department officials at the time said Judge Pickering was making it especially difficult for Mr. Lacy, a senior trial lawyer in the office who would have to appear many times before him.

In a sealed order, Judge Pickering ordered the prosecutors to take up the Swan case with Attorney General Janet Reno, an unusual demand they did not comply with and one he did not enforce.

Judge Pickering also telephoned Frank Hunger, a friend who was then a senior Justice Department official, to complain. His call may have violated the canons of judicial ethics, several legal experts say. Mr. Hunger said he listened but did not take any action on the complaint.

(enphasis added)

[Toto]

Pickering nomination passes Senate committee (http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=16796)

The latest vote came after more than two hours of heated debate between the parties, including remarks by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

"Judge Pickering's nomination was bad enough and his re-nomination is even worse," Kennedy said, according to The Washington Times. "It's hard to believe the president would rather pick a fight than pick a decent judge."

New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/03/politics/03JUDG.html)

The committee session on Thursday was, at its most elemental, a replay of the complicated debate about whether and how far a white Mississippi political figure had evolved in terms of racial attitude over four decades. But the usual fragile shell of courtesy that surrounds such events had shattered.

Before the straight party-line vote of 10 to 9 in favor of the nomination, there were several heated arguments and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a freshman Republican, became moist-eyed when he accused the Democrats of irresponsibly describing Judge Pickering with the "worst possible epithet for a Southern white man," by calling him a racist.

The atmosphere was made more tense by the presence in the room of Representative Charles W. Pickering Jr., the nominee's son, who could hardly contain himself. At the conclusion of the hearing, he went near some Democratic staff aides and said in a low, intense voice: "You have participated in the smear of a good man and you know that. You know what you have done."

The Democrats, for their part, said that by renominating Judge Pickering, President Bush was "putting his finger in the eye" of the black political groups that had opposed him.



GOP enlists business allies in judicial fight (http://www.thehill.com/news/100803/kstreet.aspx)

[ohwilleke]

I hope the Democrats are successful in blocking this nutcase, like the many other nutcases Bush has presented to the Senate. His willingness to appoint such unqualified judges is one of the things that distinguishes him as a dangerous ideological hack, rather than a statesman with whom I only disagree.

[Toto]

The GOP is now going to play hardball:

Dems filibuster Pickering (http://home.abc28.com/Global/story.asp?S=1504037)

Senate vote a matter of timing (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pickering30oct30,1,3555383.story?coll=la-headlines-nation-manual) {requires free reg}

. . .

But Bush and his Republican allies may nonetheless achieve a political goal: embarrassing Democrats just before an important state election. The Senate vote will spotlight the divide on Pickering between top Democrats in Mississippi, who call the judge a racial conciliator and support his confirmation, and their peers in Washington, who oppose him because of his record on civil rights and other issues.

To help drive the wedge, Senate Republican leaders scheduled the Pickering vote to occur five days before the closely fought Mississippi gubernatorial election. That will give Republicans a well-timed opportunity to portray Democrats in Washington as out of step with a region where many Democratic incumbents are struggling to hold onto office.

And it will give Bush a fresh excuse to talk up his embattled judicial nominee when the president swings through the state Saturday to campaign for GOP gubernatorial candidate Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

[SLD]

Originally posted by Toto
The GOP is now going to play hardball:

. . . . .

Play Hardball? What the fuck did they expect? That the Democrats were going to change their minds? No. They did this to create an issue. Even though they spent the Clinton years sitting on nominations, they can't stand it when they get their own medicine. Screw 'em.

SLD

[jayh]

An article by Nat Hentoff in the Village Voice suggests that Pickerings critics may not have been so honest either.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0344/hentoff.php

[JGL53]

I think that he is basically like a lot of "good ole boys" - not in favor of violence or overt legal discrimmination, but not a real progressive thinking kind of guy, either. I bet he's the kind of guy that would get REAL upset if his daughter decided to marry a 'Nigra".

Both the fact that he once went out of his way to write in favor of keeping interracial marriage illegal, and the fact that he defended an anti-abortion stance, not even allowing for abortion to save the life of the mother (!), makes me wonder if I would care to have this asshole as a neighbor, much less as a federal judge.

Here's a couple of sites below with a different view of Pickering:

http://www.independentjudiciary.com/nominees/nominee.cfm?NomineeID=9

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=1280

[SLD]

A lot of the articles posted above focus on the cross burning case. Honestly, I would have to agree that 7 1/2 years in prison is draconian for such a case. However, I am more concerned about Pickering's statement, in defense of his poor employment rights record, that only weak cases do not get resolved at EEOC level. In fact, EEOC is understaffed, underfunded and overwhelmed with their cases. At best they can do a cursory investigation of the allegations in the charge, and often they allow respondents to get away with wishy-washy answers that don't address the issue at hand.

Here in Birmingham, about 300 or so charges are filed a month, and EEOC takes about 20 or so cases to trial each month. (that figure may in fact be lower). To say that EEOC resolves the serious cases is utterly absurd - and Pickering is either lying or completely ignorant. The vast majority of cases taken by private practitioners settle - so there is at least some merit to their cases. Of those that don't, a lot are indeed thrown out by judges. Of those that make it to trial, about 40% result in Plaintiff's verdicts. To suggest that these are all frivilous is ridiculous. We've had judges like Pickering in our district - the very thought of putting one of them on the 11th Circuit bench would be horrifying.

SLD