Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor “made a plea for preserving the impartiality and independence of the American judicial system,” the Chicago Tribune reports.

In particular, she said she opposes the election of judges.

Said O’Connor: “I think there are many who think of judges as politicians in robes. In many states, that’s what they are… They seem to think judges should be a reflex of the popular will.”

The Week: “As the president prepares an aggressive push for his judicial nominees, Republicans are calling foul.”

Jeffrey Toobin: “The Court may agree to hear one or more abortion cases in its next term. For the most part, these cases have their roots in the Republican landslides in the 2010 midterm elections. At the time, those electoral victories were largely portrayed as being based on economics; the Tea Party was often described as almost libertarian in orientation. But soon after new state legislators took office it became clear that social issues, and especially abortion, were among their highest priorities. In state after state, those Tea Party lawmakers passed new restrictions on abortion, and as the restrictions have taken effect challenges to them have started to work their way through the courts.”

President Obama “will soon accelerate his efforts to put a lasting imprint on the country’s judiciary by simultaneously nominating three judges to an important federal court, a move that is certain to unleash fierce Republican opposition and could rekindle a broader partisan struggle over Senate rules,” the New York Times reports.

“In trying to fill the three vacancies on the 11-member United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit at once, Mr. Obama will be adopting a more aggressive nomination strategy. He will effectively be daring Republicans to find specific ground to filibuster all the nominees.”

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has been hospitalized following a bicycle accident in Washington, D.C., ABC News reports.

He underwent “reverse shoulder replacement surgery” — which Gawker correctly notes “sounds just awful.”

It’s the third bicycle mishap Breyer has had since being appointed to the court.

New York Times: “With a coordination and an energy that echo a Supreme Court nomination fight, the Obama administration is pushing for the confirmation of a senior Justice Department lawyer to the country’s most prestigious appellate court. If the effort fails, it could lead to a confrontation with the Senate over the long-simmering issue of judicial nominees.”

Jeffrey Toobin: “The next Supreme Court confirmation hearing begins on Wednesday afternoon, April 10th. Technically, Sri Srinivasan is just a candidate for the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but few are misled. The stakes in this nomination are clear: if Srinivasan passes this test and wins confirmation, he’ll be on the Supreme Court before President Obama’s term ends.”

“Srinivasan, who is forty-six years old, is currently the Obama
Administration’s principal deputy solicitor general. He’s had twenty or
so arguments in the Supreme Court, including part of the
Administration’s attack on the Defense of Marriage Act last month.”

President Obama “has pressed senators from both parties in recent weeks to confirm a new federal judge for one of the country’s most powerful courts, using an aggressive strategy to campaign for a judicial nominee whom White House officials consider a potentially crucial figure in boosting the president’s second-term agenda,” the Washington Post reports.

“The effort reflects a new White House effort to tilt in its favor the conservative-dominated U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is one notch below the Supreme Court and considers many challenges to executive actions.”

A West Virginia judge caught on video screaming furiously at litigants has been removed from the bench for the duration of his term, National Law Journal reports.

[Read more…]

A new Pew Research survey finds Americans continue to have mixed perceptions of the Supreme Court’s ideology.

Key findings: 40% say the court is middle of the road, while 24% say it is liberal and 22% say it is conservative.

Jeffrey Toobin: “Judicial appointments represent one of the great missed opportunities of the Obama Presidency. In his first term, especially in the first two years, Obama himself bore much of the blame for this. When Democrats controlled sixty Senate seats, Obama was slow to nominate lower-court judges, and his moment of greatest leverage passed. But, since the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans have been at fault, almost entirely. Most nominees are not formally stopped, as Halligan was, but rather are delayed and delayed. Bush’s nominees got votes within weeks; Obama’s take months, even for uncontroversial selections”

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg tells Jeffrey Toobin she intends to stay on the court “as long as I can do the job full steam.”

Said Ginsburg: “There will come a point when I — It’s not this year. You can never tell when you’re my age. But, as long as I think I have the candlepower, I will do it. And I figure next year for certain. After that, who knows?”

President Obama “is moving quickly to change the face of the federal judiciary by the end of his second term, setting the stage for another series of drawn-out confrontations with Republicans in Congress,” the Washington Post reports.

“The president has named three dozen judicial candidates since January and is expected to nominate scores more over the next few months, aides said. The push marks a significant departure from the sluggish pace of appointments throughout much of his first term, when both Republicans and some Democrats complained that Obama had not tried hard enough to fill vacancies on federal courts.”

“The new wave of nominations is part of an effort by Obama to cement a legacy that long outlives his presidency and makes the court system more closely resemble the changing society it governs.”

“A steady drumbeat of press briefings and messaging events is reaching a crescendo as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments Wednesday in a case that questions whether a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is still needed,” Roll Call reports.

New York Times: “All sides seem to agree that the Voting Rights Act did a lot to make
elections fairer. But is there evidence today that the law is still
needed?”

“A member of Pennsylvania’s highest court was convicted Thursday of corrupting the election process in her campaigns to win a seat on the bench, triggering renewed calls to change the system of electing state judges,” the AP reports.

Justice Joan Orie Melvin (R) “was just the second known Supreme Court justice to be convicted in nearly three centuries, and her conviction may soon set in motion political campaigns by would-be justices vying to replace her.”

New York Times: “Welcome to another night in the life of Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court justice, current queen of the best-seller list and suddenly the nation’s most high-profile Hispanic figure. She may be a relative newcomer to national life, plucked from circuit-court obscurity less than four years ago. But the release of her new memoir, My Beloved World, suggests that she has broader ambitions than her colleagues, to play a larger and more personal role on the public stage.”

“Prior generations of justices mostly hid behind their robes to preserve their authority, and some current members of the court seem more like legal technicians, dispassionately adjusting the law… To say that Justice Sotomayor is less cloistered than most of her predecessors and colleagues may be an understatement: among many other appearances to promote her book, she salsa-danced with the Univision anchor Jorge Ramos in her chambers.”

As the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision approaches, a new Pew Research poll finds 63% of Americans remain opposed to overturning the historic ruling on abortion, while just 29% want it reversed.

These opinions are little changed from surveys conducted 10 and 20 years ago.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas broke his seven-year silence on the Supreme Court yesterday but the official transcript shows he said just four words.

Tom Goldstein: “Wow, slow news day. On the Supreme Court front, the chatter has been over the sentence Justice Thomas interjected during today’s oral argument in Boyer v. Louisiana. Some of the commentary has devolved into psychoanalysis of the Justice’s supposed hostility towards Yale Law School. The real question to be asked is: can you take a joke?”