Posted by Randy Barnett:
Ricci Testimony is Political Stunt: :
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_07_12-2009_07_18.shtml#1247666706
On [1]The Best of the Web, James Taranto questions the wisdom of the
Senate Republicans' tactic of calling firefighter Frank Ricci as a
witness in the Sotomayor hearing:
[H]aving a litigant testify against a judge who ruled against him
is a political stunt that is likely to come back to haunt
Republicans. Stuart Taylor of National Journal adduces evidence of
procedural irregularities in the Second Circuit's handling of the
Ricci case, and this is certainly worth the senators' time to
explore.
But Ricci himself has no relevant expertise. The only thing his
testimony may establish is that Sotomayor ruled against a
sympathetic plaintiff. Sometimes that is a judge's job, as John
Roberts explained during his confirmation hearing for chief
justice:
If the Constitution says that the little guy should win, the little
guy's going to win in court before me. But if the Constitution says
that the big guy should win, well, then the big guy's going to win,
because my obligation is to the Constitution.
As far as we can tell, Ricci will be the first individual litigant
to testify in a Supreme Court confirmation hearing. (During Samuel
Alito's hearings, Democrats called a lawyer who argued that Alito
should have recused himself from a client's case.)
The next time a Republican president nominates someone to the high
court, it's hard to imagine that the Democratic witnesses won't
include a parade of sympathetic litigants. And does anyone doubt
that the Democrats will be more effective than the Republicans at
such theatrics?/blockquote>
References
1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124749070491132525.html
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