Move Over, Nino. There’s a New Sparring Justice on the Bench
Much has been made of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin’s Scalia’s sparring at oral arguments. But there’s a newer justice on the bench who outdoes Scalia, albeit in something of a Midwestern twang.
He’s 54-year-old John G. Roberts Jr., the chief justice who promised at his confirmation hearings that he would practice modesty and humility, the New Yorker writes in a profile. Roberts said judges are like umpires who merely apply the rules.
But author Jeffrey Toobin says Roberts’ record “is not that of a humble moderate but, rather, that of a doctrinaire conservative. The kind of humility that Roberts favors reflects a view that the court should almost always defer to the existing power relationships in society. In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth chief justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.”
Toobin asserts that Roberts has one-upped Scalia, who was known for bringing a “gladiatorial spirit” to oral arguments by asking questions that are more campaign speeches than requests for information. “Roberts, though, has taken this practice to an extreme,” the story says, “and now, even more than the effervescent Scalia, it is the chief justice, with his slight Midwestern twang, who dominates the court’s public sessions.”
Despite his tough courtroom performances, Roberts is an appealing figure in public, the profile says. He warmly welcomes new lawyers who are sworn in to the Supreme Court bar, makes jokes that break the tension during oral arguments and gives speeches that showcase his humor and masterful speaking talent. A Harvard law grad who clerked for then Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, he went on to work in the Justice Department and as an associate counsel in the White House. His writings from the time show him to be “a loyal (and low-level) foot soldier in the Reagan revolution.”
He later developed an appellate practice at Hogan & Hartson, did a stint again in the Attorney General’s office as principal deputy to Solicitor General Kenneth Starr, and was appointed to be a federal appeals judge.
Roberts never embraced one particular judicial principle, such as federalism, but he clearly believes that government should not make any distinctions on the basis of race, according to the story. In one dissent, he wrote, “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”
Above the Law notes the profile and its harsh treatment of Roberts.
“Everyone’s a-twitter about Jeffrey Toobin’s profile of Chief Justice John Roberts in this week’s New Yorker,” Above the Law writes. “And with good reason. We’re not sure whether the title of the profile, ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy,’ is meant to describe Roberts or Toobin.”
