Judge Lamberth Says Judicial Nomination System Is Broken

S.A. native Royce C. Lamberth, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, , who spoke to the San Antonio Bar Association in February, returned to the Alamo City this weekend (he and his wife have family here).

The judge spoke at the Bar Association's Law Day luncheon (my thanks again to Burns & Black P.L.L.C. for sponsoring the table where I sat; one of the attorneys there gave James A. Rodriguez some tickets, and he brought me and another classmate).

With the impending retirement of Supreme Court Justice David Souter on lawyers' minds, Judge Lamberth spoke about how the judicial nomination process is broken:

• He said he was disgusted by how some politicians criticized nominees for the U.S. Attorney General's office positions because of clients they had represented.
• The judge noted that his confirmation in 1987 took six months; today there are some judicial nominees who have been waiting two or four years.
• He said these partisan attacks come from both sides of the aisle, and each side needs to acknowledge that the other side has a point about the partisanship.
• The judge said that the appointment of the most qualified candidates should be the goal of all Americans.
• He added that this country needs the best and brightest; judge who will set aside their personal views and apply the law and the Constitution.
• The judge said he's very impressed by President Obama's first three judicial nominations (to the Second, Fourth, and Seventh circuits).
• He acknowledged the tradition of senatorial courtesy in signing off on the president's judicial nominations, but said that tradition is not absolute.
• Judge Lamberth said that during the nomination hearings, special interest groups feed questions to their senators and attend the hearings to make sure the senators stick to the script.
• He noted that the federal judiciary now has more than sixty vacancies--and twenty-two of them are considered judicial emergencies because of the excessive workload placed on their fellow judges.
• He also mentioned one person unsuccessfully nominated to a judgeship during the Bush administration who asked the President not to resubmit her nomination because the process was so demeaning.

All in all, it was an interesting speech, and I hope Judge Lamberth comes back to town soon for another talk.

Judge Lamberth's Speech to the San Antonio Bar

I received an email noting that many of District of Columbia Chief Judge Royce Lamberth's friends in Washington are interested in what he had to say to the San Antonio Bar Association at Thursday's luncheon.

I did not take notes during the speech, but here (paraphrased) are a few things I recall Judge Lamberth mentioning:

• On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, he was in the middle of a trial, but had recessed that morning for a dental appointment. He was on the freeway next to the Pentagon when the plane hit, and smoke from the crash blocked the road.
• The U.S. Marshals could not get to him to escort him to his chambers, so he granted several warrants over his cell phone while in his car. The FBI finally reached him to escort him to his destination.
• After the terrorist attacks, he did not get another good night's sleep until March, when the U.S. captured al Qaida's No. 3 man.
• He disagrees with the idea that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was a "rubber stamp" for the government. He said while he was on the court, he took care to make sure that people's rights were protected.
• After the Foreign Intelligence Suveillance Court ruled against the Bush Administration in 2002, the case was appealed to the Foreign Intelligence Suveillance Court of Review--the first appeal in the more than two decades of the surveillance court's existence--which struck down the ruling. Judge Lambreth said the review court concluded that the surveillance court and previous attorneys general had been doing it wrong for all those years.
• During the Robert Hanssen spy case, the judge met regularly with Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI director Louis Freeh. There were some 300 agents working the case, and the judge, AG, and director were the only three people connected with the investigation who did not take weekly polygraph tests.
• In the first months of the Clinton administration, he found that because Hillary Clinton was not a federal employee, her health care task force meetings should be made public. The D.C. circuit overturned him, holding that she was the "functional equivalent" of a federal employee, but the judge told us he thinks "you either are a federal employee or you're not."
• During that controversy, he attended a function for federal judges at the White House. When he introduced himself to Bill Clinton, the president replied, "Oh, I know who you are."

I will try to add to this later. If anyone remembers something I left out, please feel free to post in the comments below.

SABA Luncheon

The San Antonio Bar Association's February luncheon will take place Thursday at the Plaza Club (in Frost Bank Tower).

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, a San Antonio native, will speak at the gathering. It should be interesting.

Among other things, the District of Columbia judge presided over Cobell v. Kempthorne, a class action case in which Native American plaintiffs sued the government for mismanaging an indian trust. His various opinions in that case lambasted the government, as this Mother Jones article from 2005 points out.

He also found that Iran was to blame for the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, ordering the nation to pay the Marines' families billions in damages.

Should be an interesting talk.