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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (709081)	10/27/2005 4:26:02 PM
From: goldworldnet	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Potential Nominee Profile--Judge J. Michael Luttig Brief biography: Judge Luttig was appointed to the Fourth Circuit in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush. Before his appointment, Judge Luttig served in a number of positions in the Department of Justice, finishing as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. Before joining the Bush administration, he was an associate at Davis Polk from 1985-1989. Judge Luttig graduated from Washington and Lee University and the University of Virginia School of Law. He clerked for then-Judge Scalia on the D.C. Circuit and then for Chief Justice Warren Burger (Judge Luttig had also worked for Chief Justice Burger before entering law school). Judge Luttig is 50 years old (he will turn 51 on June 13). He and his wife have two children. Relevant links: Judge Luttig is frequently profiled as a potential Supreme Court nominee. Tony Mauro's piece for Law.com is available here. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has a longer profile here. An older profile from CNN.com is available here. Selected notable opinions: Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 337 F.3d 335 (2003) (available here). In his dissent from the court's denial of rehearing en banc, Judge Luttig suggested that on rehearing he would have agreed with the government's position that the role of a court in a habeas proceeding is to "confirm that there is a factual basis supporting the military's determination that a detainee is indeed an enemy combatant." This stance is more deferential to executive power than the rule ultimately adopted by the Supreme Court, which held that a combatant be given a "meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker." Robles v. Prince George's County, 308 F.3d 437 (4th Cir. 2002) (available here). Judge Luttig dissented from a denial of rehearing en banc, arguing that police officers who arrested the plaintiff and left him handcuffed to a light pole in a deserted parking lot were not entitled to qualified immunity from a Section 1983 suit because reasonable officers would have known that such conduct was unconstitutional. His opinion argued that the panel's contrary holding substantially diluted Section 1983 as a remedy for constitutional violations. Richmond Medical Center for Women v. Gilmore, 219 F.3d 376 (4th Cir. 2000) (available here). This case was a challenge to Virginia's ban on the procedure known as a partial birth abortion. A district court initially invalidated the statute. In 1998, Judge Luttig ordered that the District Court's judgment be stayed pending appeal on the grounds that the regulations were consistent with the Supreme Court's "undue burden" analysis in Casey. However, in 2000, after the Supreme Court decided Stenberg v. Carhart, Judge Luttig concurred in the court's order lifting the stay because he found that Virginia's law was plainly unconstitutional under Stenberg's interpretation of Casey's undue burden test. Gibbs v. Babbitt, 214 F.3d 483 (4th Cir. 2000) (available here). Judge Luttig dissented from a decision holding that a Fish and Wildlife Service regulation limiting the killing of endangered wolves on private land was within the commerce power. Judge Luttig argued that the killing of a small number of wolves did not have a "substantial effect" on interstate commerce required by Lopez and Morrison. The case has received media attention because of the criticism of Judge Luttig's views in the majority opinion written by Judge Wilkinson. Judge Wilkinson argued that Judge Luttig "would rework the relationship between the judiciary and its coordinate branches" by allowing courts to invalidate laws based on "a judge's view of the wisdom of enacted policies." Brzonkala v. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 169 F.3d 820 (4th Cir. 1999) (en banc) (available here). In his majority opinion, Judge Luttig found that the provision of the Violence Against Women Act giving victims of gender-motivated crimes a civil remedy exceeded Congress's authority under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause. This conclusion was affirmed by the Supreme Court in United States v. Morrison. sctnomination.com * * *