A second recent surprise shift in the leadership of one of the nation's top courts (after the sudden change on the Fourth Circuit) has occurred. This appears timed solely to ensure that a "conservative" jurist remains at the top of the court for the next several years. This sort of thing is of course entirely predictable when laws are written that tightly rule people out of contention for high office depending on the number of birthdays they have had. And one wonders if something similar will happen on the Fifth Circuit some years from now. Is Reagan-appointee Edith Hollan Jones going to want to be succeed by another Republican appointee like Jerry Smith or Emilio Garza, or by a Bill Clinton appointee?
Posted by armand at August 17, 2009 05:04 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Law and the Courts