Patterico's Pontifications

8/19/2007

The Washington Post on Judge Southwick and Those Other White Men on the Fifth Circuit

Filed under: General,Judiciary,Media Bias — DRJ @ 8:33 am



[Guest post by DRJ]

The Washington Post editors reluctantly agreed with Sen. Feinstein that Judge Leslie H. Southwick is qualified to serve on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals:

“Judge Southwick wouldn’t have been our first choice for this vacancy. Nor do we like the results in the custody and racial slur cases. But we cannot find fault with Judge Southwick’s narrow but ultimately legitimate interpretation of the law in those cases, and we do not find in his record the anti-gay, anti-worker caricature his opponents have drawn. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the lone Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote in favor of his confirmation, got it right when she concluded that if senators were to examine Judge Southwick’s entire career, including his stint as a judge advocate in Iraq, they would find a ‘qualified, circumspect person.’”

This must be disappointing to people who oppose President Bush’s nomination of Judge Southwick and who vilified Sen. Feinstein for her Judiciary Committee vote. Perhaps to make up for it, the WaPo took a shot at President Bush and, by implication, Republicans as the party of white men …

From the same Washington Post editorial:

“Adding to the discomfort of many civil rights advocates is the fact that President Bush has once again nominated a white man to a court lacking in significant minority representation: Only 1 of 19 sitting judges on the 5th Circuit is African American, even though the three states forming that federal appeals court — Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — have between 30 percent and 40 percent non-white residents, according to the 2000 Census.”

I guess in Washington DC, if you aren’t black then you must be a white man.

Like the States it covers, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals may be more conservative than other circuit courts but its judges aren’t all white men. According to the official Fifth Circuit biographies, there are 19 Fifth Circuit judges of which 4 are women (including the Chief Judge, Edith H. Jones) and 3 others bear Hispanic surnames. With the 1 judge identified by the Washington Post as black, that means at most 11 of 19 judges are white men. Five of them are on senior status, which allows those judges with the longest service to continue to serve while handling fewer cases than active service judges.

My final tally for active service Fifth Circuit judges: 1 black, 3 Hispanic, 4 women, and 6 white men (7 with Judge Southwick).

9 Responses to “The Washington Post on Judge Southwick and Those Other White Men on the Fifth Circuit”

  1. adding to the discomfort of many civil rights advocates is the fact that president bush has once again nominated a white man…

    are these the same civil rights advocates who opposed the nomination of miguel estrada, a brown man (sorry your honor) to the d.c. circuit?

    assistant devil's advocate (257d22)

  2. I think you left an italics tag open at the end of the second quotation.

    Al (b624ac)

  3. But we cannot find fault with Judge Southwick’s narrow but ultimately legitimate interpretation of the law in those cases

    Shorter WaPo editors: Dammit! He’s right!

    Paul (f54101)

  4. Can’t help it DRJ, when I saw your header, I thought it should have been: Judge Southwick…the Other White Meat.
    I have to say that Sen Feinstein went up a notch in my opinion of her, even though I know it was just part of the horse-trading that goes on. At least she honored a commitment to act reciprocally, knowing, I’m sure, that she would face a lot of flack from her own side.

    driver (faae10)

  5. Judge Southwick…the Other White Meat.

    Well played, driver.

    Paul (f54101)

  6. Doesn’t Bush have a couple of other women nominated for vacancies on the fifth circuit? Is the WAPO going to bitch and carp about them too?

    daleyrocks (906622)

  7. Wait, you mean that white men are a minority on the court? Even after Judge Southwick is confirmed? Bush clearly needs to take action there!

    Kevin Murphy (0b2493)

  8. I gather that with Patterico away, no one can clear posts that have multiple links through the anti-spam filters?

    Okay, then, without links, and shorter:

    One pending nominee is Jennifer Elrod, currently a state district judge in Houston. I’ve tried a complicated commercial jury trial in her court. She’s absolutely first-rate in every respect.

    Edith Jones’ immediate predecessor as Chief Judge, from 1999-2006, was the judge for whom I clerked in 1980-1981, Carolyn Dineen King. On September 20th, Justice Ginsberg will present her with the Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award given by the American Judicature Society.

    Before Judge King and Judge Phyllis Kravitch of Atlanta were appointed to the (old, pre-split) Fifth Circuit, it was indeed a good ole’ boys club composed exclusively of white men. However, keep in mind that those good ole boys were the “Unlikely Heroes” (per the name of Jack Bass’ 1982 book on them) who actually did the hard (and dangerous) work of desegregating the South after Brown v. Board of Education on a painful, case-by-case basis.

    Beldar (1b82e4)

  9. Liberal demacrats only want the same kind of lawyers that run the infamous 9TH CURCIUT COURT

    krazy kagu (43a7ee)


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