Bench Memos

Features news, commentary and criticism mainly involving the judiciary and confirmation process.

Author: Bench Memos is a group blog of the National Review Online, with contributors including Case Western Reserve School of Law professor Jonathan Adler (who also contributes to The Volokh Conspiracy), M. Edward Whelan III, who is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Matthew J. Franck, professor and chairman of political science at Radford University in Virginia.

Blawg Related Categories: Judiciary • Law Professors • Legal News Publication • Blawg 100

Recent Posts from Bench Memos

This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism-November 7 -- By: Ed Whelan
2000—So much for respecting a capital inmate’s final wishes. Don Jay Miller, sentenced to death in Arizona for first-degree murder and kidnapping, states that he wishes his execution to proceed as scheduled the next day,…
Slim Pickings from the Federal Appellate Courts -- By: Ed Whelan
If, as I expect, President Obama is presented with another Supreme Court vacancy next year, one prominent pool of potential candidates consists of sitting federal appellate judges. (Since Justice Alito replaced Justice O’Connor in 2006,…
This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism-November 6 -- By: Ed Whelan
2003—Senate Democrats continue their unprecedented measures of obstruction against judicial nominees, as they defeat for the second time an effort to end their filibuster of President George W. Bush’s nomination of William H. Pryor, Jr.,…
Short Memories -- By: Jonathan Adler
The AP takes a skeptical eye to Democratic claims that Republicans are engaged in unprecedented obstruction of judicial nominees. Ten months into Barack Obama's presidency, Democrats are accusing Republicans of creating "a dark mark on…
This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism-November 5 -- By: Ed Whelan
1996—If the First Amendment means anything, surely it must mean that the government must be open to funding a piece of “performance art” in which the performer smears chocolate on her breasts and another in…
Two NC Judges Nominated to Fourth Circuit -- By: Jonathan Adler
Today President Obama nominated two state court judges from North Carolina -- Albert Diaz and James Wynn -- to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. BLT reports here, and the official White…
D.C. Conference on School Choice -- By: Ed Whelan
Next Monday, November 9, the American Center for School Choice will hold its inaugural conference, “School Choice and the American Family: A Moral and Civic Imperative,” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. I…
Election Fallout for Next Supreme Court Vacancy -- By: Ed Whelan
At her confirmation hearing this past July, now-Justice Sonia Sotomayor exasperated and disgusted many of her supporters on the Left by attempting to disguise herself as a judicial conservative. In a recent event in which…
This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism-November 4 -- By: Ed Whelan
1986—What do actual citizens think of liberal judicial activists? By large margins, the people of California unseat state chief justice Rose Bird (66% no) and justices Cruz Reynoso (60% no) and Joseph Grodin (57% no). …
Supreme Court "Too Liberal" -- By: Ed Whelan
Amidst the usual media blather about our supposedly “conservative” Supreme Court, a new poll from Rasmussen Reports indicates that 36% of Americans—more precisely, of likely voters—consider the Supreme Court “too liberal,” compared to only 20%…