OPPOSITION TO JUDICIAL NOMINEE GROWS: Legal Expert Rescinds Endorsement
Feature Story by Ritu Kelotra - 10/29/2003
Opposition to President George W. Bush's most recent controversial judicial nominee, Janice Rogers Brown, has continued to rise since the Senate Judiciary Committee had its confirmation hearing on Wednesday, October 22. Sixty-two national organizations to-date, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), have come out against Brown's confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which, next to the U.S. Supreme Court, is regarded as the most important court in the United States.One California legal expert, who signed a letter in support of Brown's nomination prior to the hearing last week, made public after the hearing that he no longer supports Brown's nomination.
UC Berkeley Law Professor Emeritus Stephen Barnett sent a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, professing his change of endorsement. At the hearing, Sen. Hatch had quoted from Barnett's original letter.
"I no longer support the nomination," Barnett wrote. Referring to several speeches given by Brown that were disclosed at the hearing, Barnett stated in his letter, "These speeches with their government-bashing and their extreme and outdated ideological positions, put Justice Brown outside the mainstream of today's constitutional law...To hear the views on these speeches expressed by a potential member of either the D.C. Circuit or the Supreme Court, is just too scary."
In addition to Barnett, more than 200 law professors and legal academics voiced their opposition to Brown's confirmation in another letter to Sen. Hatch.
"We are professors at law schools across the nation writing to you to oppose the nomination of California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown to a seat on the D.C. Circuit," the letter states. "Of even greater concern, she has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to render judicial decisions driven by her personal, prescriptive view of the law with little regard for the dictates of statutes and precedent."
Brown, who has been sitting on the California Supreme Court since May 1996, faces opposition from a broad coalition of groups, including civil rights, women's rights, workers' rights, seniors, disability rights, religious, and environmental.
In a resolution approved this month, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., expressed several reasons for their opposition to Brown, particularly with respect to her opinions on civil rights.
"Justice Brown's opinions on civil rights and discrimination cases are perhaps the most troubling part of her record, revealing a blatant disregard for judicial precedent and a desire to limit the ability of victims of discrimination to sue for redress," the resolution states.
In a letter sent to senators earlier this month, LCCR also expressed its opposition to Brown. In the letter, LCCR said that Brown often has been the lone justice on the California Supreme Court to dissent, illustrating that her judicial philosophy is outside the mainstream.
"Not only does she show an inability to dispassionately review cases," the letter said, "but her opinions are based on her extremist ideology and also ignore judicial precedent, even that set by the United States Supreme Court."
At a news conference on Oct. 17, U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and members of the CBC released a letter, which strongly opposed the nomination of Brown, to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, and Ranking Member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
"Ms. Brown has not been able or willing to divorce her personal views from the law that she has sworn to uphold," Rep. Cummings said. "The President's approach to selecting nominees has been exclusive to shutting out voices of reason. There are hundreds of well-qualified attorneys and legal scholars who would make excellent judges on our federal bench."
