Tag: appellate judge
The Inevitable Indictment of Donald Trump
As an appellate judge, Merrick Garland was known for constructing narrow decisions that achieved consensus without creating extraneous controversy. As a government attorney, he was known for his zealous adherence to the letter of the law. As a person, he is a smaller-than-life figure, a dry conversationalist, studious listener, something close to the opposite of a raconteur. As a driver, his friends say, he is maddeningly slow and almost comically fastidious.
And as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer,
The Supreme Court Loses Its Chief Pragmatist
Last spring, during an online civics class I teach at the National Constitution Center for high-school students, I asked Justice Stephen Breyer about the values of compromise, consensus, and intellectual humility that he has championed throughout his career, as a Senate staffer for Ted Kennedy, an appellate judge, and a Supreme Court justice.
“I saw Senator Kennedy do this all the time,” replied Breyer, who announced his retirement from the Supreme Court today. “He was a Democrat—Republicans disagreed with him