Another candidate rumored to be in the mix as a potential replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor is Fifth Circuit Judge Edward Charles Prado.
The 58-year-old Prado hails from San Antonio and received both undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas. Prado spent most of legal career involved in criminal work. He served as Assistant District Attorney in Bexar County, Texas, before moving to the federal public defender's office in Texas' Western District. After a stint as a Texas District Court Judge, Prado was appointed U.S Attorney for the Western District of Texas. Prado received several awards during this portion of his career, amongst them the Achievement Award, U.S. Attorney General (1980); Outstanding Young Lawyer of San Antonio (1980); and Outstanding Federal Public Defender, Western District of Texas (1978).

In 1984 Prado was nominated for a seat on the U.S Federal District Court in Western Texas by President Reagan. He served in that capacity until 2003 when George W. Bush nominated him to a seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and Congress approved him 97-0.
During the 1990s, Chief Justice William Rehnquist selected Judge Prado to lead a committee, which later came to be known as the "Prado Commission," to examine the administration of the federal public defender service. The Prado Commission recommended greater independence for federal defenders and recommended that criminal defendants be given more opportunities to select among public defenders.
There seems little doubt that Prado, if nominated, would be seen as compromise choice. In fact, a "Draft Prado" movement is advocating his nomination with a web site that describes Prado as a "nominee with a mainstream approach to the law who has earned the respect of both Republicans and Democrats."
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in a letter to the president, named Judge Prado as one of the five most-qualified candidates for the Supreme Court, citing Prado's legal excellence, moderate ideology, and ability to add diversity to the court. Similarly, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) called Prado, "a man who has made public service his career, and an outstanding one at that," and added that the people of Texas "know they will get fair and impartial justice in his court."
Judge Prado's record is highlighted by moderate decisions.
Prado on Roe v. Wade: In a 2004 case, McCorvey v. Hill385 F.3d 846 (5th Cir. 2004), Judge Prado was part of a Fifth Circuit panel that reviewed a suit by Norma McCorvey, the original Roe plaintiff, seeking to overturn that landmark decision. Judge Prado joined the panel and upheld the district court's ruling that McCorvey's challenge lacked standing and was moot. But notably, Judge Prado refused to join the concurring opinion of Judge Edith Jones which suggested that Roe was incorrectly decided.
Prado on Education Access and Due Process: In the 2000 case, GI Forum v. Texas Education Agency,87 F.Supp. 2d 667 (W.D. Tex. 2000), plaintiffs challenged a test that Texas high school students are required to pass in order to finish high school arguing that the test unfairly impacted minority students. Judge Prado did not find sufficient evidence that the exam violated students due process rights and upheld the constitutionality of the exam, but noted that courts must act "when a state uses its considerable power impermissibly to disadvantage minority students." Judge Prado described the case as "probably (his) most challenging decision ... in fifteen years on the bench."
Prado on Federalism: In the 1994 case Koog v. United States, 852 F.Supp. 1376 (W.D. Tex. 1994), Judge Prado ruled that the Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act, which required local law enforcement officials to comply with federal background checks, did not violate the Tenth Amendment state powers guarantee. Judge Prado held that the Tenth Amendment does not "prevent the federal government from imposing minimal duties on state executive officers."
Hat tip to DraftPrado.org.

Via TalkLeft, an ABA-sponsored survey has shown widespread public dissatisfaction with the nation's judiciary.

More than half of Americans are angry and disappointed with the nation's judiciary, a new survey done for the ABA Journal eReport shows.
A majority of the survey respondents agreed with statements that "judicial activism" has reached the crisis stage, and that judges who ignore voters' values should be impeached. Nearly half agreed with a congressman who said judges are "arrogant, out-of-control and unaccountable."

Prof. Charles G. Geyh of the Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington, called the findings "simply scary." Political figures have increasingly taken aim at the judiciary, to the dismay of several current and former Justices.

Reported by Media Matters today:

Addressing a caller's suggestion that the "lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years" would be enough to preserve Social Security's solvency, radio host and former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett dismissed such "far-reaching, extensive extrapolations" by declaring that if "you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." Bennett conceded that aborting all African-American babies "would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do," then added again, "but the crime rate would go down."

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed an overhaul of the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The revision allows compensation for private property owners whose development plans are thwarted due to protections for endangered species.

Judith Miller spoke and took questions in front of the U.S. District Courthouse in Washington today: "I served 85 days in jail because of my belief in the importance of upholding the confidential relationship journalists have with their sources. Believe me, I did not want to be in jail. But I would have stayed even longer if I had not achieved these two things: the personal waiver and the narrow testify -- and the narrow testimony. I could not have testified without both of them."

Starting tomorrow, Connecticut will begin recognizing civil unions for same-sex couples. Connecticut's legislature passed the civil union law in April of this year.

President Bush has completed his discussions with the Senate about his selection for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said that the President's list of potential nominees is "not that long" but the formal nomination will not be announced today.
In the meantime, speculation swirls around the position, as the replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor has the potential to swing the Court's jurisprudence in a very consersative direction. Today, the blog of the Oxford University Press published a list of potential nominees, with an analysis of each. Included in the list is D.C. Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who "[h]as compared big government to slavery," and 4th Circuit Judge Edith Brown Clement, who was named "as O'Connor's replacement hours before actually naming Roberts."
The full Oxford University Press article can be found here.

After spending 85 days in jail for refusing to appear before a grand jury, New York Times journalist Judith Miller has been released. Miller was held in contempt when she refused to disclose information that she had about the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Miller never published the information, and she was not allowed access to the information that the government submitted to secure her subpoena. Yesterday, her source, identified as I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, agreed to disclosure of his identity. Miller agreed to speak to the grand jury as soon as she was convinced that her source had waived their confidentiality agreement.
In February of this year, the D.C. Circuit decided against Miller, who asserted that there is a reporter's privilege under the First Amendment that entitles her to remain silent about her source. The Supreme Court denied certiorari this summer.

Justice O'Connor's swing vote may be replaced by Fifth Circuit Judge Priscilla Owen. Owen was confirmed by the Senate by a 56-43 margin following the deal allowing for votes on previously filibustered appellate court nominees. People for the American Way had urged the rejection of her nomination. She has been called "all too willing to bend the law to fit her views, rather than the reverse."

Judge Owen was elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 1994. Owen has consistently sought greater restrictions in parental notification cases, leaving her in dissent. As her colleague on that court, now-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sharply differed from her jurisprudence on reproductive choice. He called her opinion in In re Jane Doe 1 (II) "an unconscionable act of judicial activism." Following another abortion rights case, the Houston Chronicle expressed its opposition to Owen's nomination to the Fifth Circuit:

Among the Texas Supreme Court's unanimous majority in this latest abortion case is Justice Priscilla Owen. The court's ruling in this case is exactly the sort of tortured jurisprudence that caused Democrats on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to reject President Bush's nomination of Owen to be a justice on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Texas may be saddled with justices who elevate partisan ideology above law and logic, but justice and reason should discourage their infliction on the nation.

The Alliance for Justice has detailed her votes to shield corporations from suits by consumers, taxpayers, and workers. In Universe Life Insurance Co. v. Giles, the majority upheld a damage award to a woman whose insurance company refused to pay for heart surgery. Owen voted to deny the damage award in a dissent the majority characterized as taking "the resolution of bad-faith disputes away from the juries that have been deciding bad faith cases for more than a decade."
Salon.com calls her handling of the case of Willie Searcy "unconscionable." As a justice of the Texas Supreme Court, she delayed for two years issuing a ruling on Ford's appeal of 14-year-old Searcy's case, in which a jury found Ford liable for manufacturing the defective seatbelt that led to the boy's quadriplegia. Searcy died as a result of inadequate medical care while waiting to collect his $30 million judgment. Prior to issuing her opinion, Owen received a campaign contribution of over $20,000 from Baker Botts, the law firm representing Ford.
Searcy's was not the only case for which Owen sat despite a potential conflict of interest. After receiving over $8000 in campaign contributions from Enron, Owen voted in Enron Corp. v. Spring Independent School District to allow Enron flexibility in calculating its inventory, which saved the company $15 million in taxes and cost a local school district tax revenue.

by Liz Aloi, Editor-at-Large
One jurist who has recently been garnering attention in the news as a potential Supreme Court nominee is Michigan Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan.

Corrigan graduated from Marygrove College in 1969 and from the University of Detroit Law School in 1973. After graduation, she clerked for Michigan Court of Appeals Judge John Gillis and worked as a Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor. In 1979, she became an Assistant United States Attorney, serving as Chief of Appeals and later Chief Assistant United States Attorney. She then entered private practice as in 1989, as a partner at Plunkett & Cooney, Detroit law firm.
Justice Corrigan began her career as a judge in 1992 when Governor John Engler appointed her to the Michigan Court of Appeals. She was twice elected to that court and was appointed as its Chief Judge from 1997-1998 until her election to the Supreme Court.
Since her tenure as a judge began, Corrigan, has strongly emphasized a commitment to following legislative intent through "textual analysis," the philosophy of judicial restraint championed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In fact, she has declared that statutory interpretation in Michigan adheres to the principles consistently articulated by Justice Scalia. In a 2003 article, co-authored with one of her clerks, Corrigan criticized judges who dont subscribe to a textualist judicial philosophy. She wrote:

When the judicial branch does not honor the separation of powers but instead usurps the powers of another branch, the stability of our system of government is undermined... many problems arise when courts legislate under the guise of a preferential rule by, e.g., construing so-called "remedial" statutes "liberally" rather than reasonably. Judges have a solemn obligation to interpret laws in accordance with their plain meanings, and not to load the dice for a favored result.

Under her tenure as Chief Justice:
In Maier v. Gen. Tel. Co. of Mich., 645 N.W.2d 654 (Mich. 2002), the Michigan Supreme Court has rejected the "absurd result" doctrine. Under this doctrine, judges will look past the plain language of a statute whenever they deem the result required by the statute to be absurd or unjust.
In (Stanton v. City of Battle Creek, 647 N.W.2d 508 (Mich. 2002) and Nawrocki v. Macomb County Rd. Comm'n, 615 N.W.2d 702, 711 (Mich. 2000)), the Michigan Supreme Court has declared that governmental immunity statutes should be broadly construed while the exceptions to it are construed narrowly is not a true dice-loading rule.
In People v. Jagotka, 461 Mich. 274 (Mich. 1999) the court held it was not a state or federal constitutional violation when the state destroys a blood sample used to convict a defendant before the case was resolved.
In Franciosi v. Michigan Parole Bd., 461 Mich. 347 (Mich. 2000), Justice Corrigan dissented from an opinion of the court which held that a lawyer was not prevented from attending and participating in a parole interview in the same way as nonlawyers, but a lawyer could not act as a legal representative of a prisoner during a parole interview. Corrigan argued that the person representing a prisoner at a parole interview should be an attorney acting in any capacity, legal or non-legal.When not at work, Justice Corrigan participates in a number of professional activities. She is President of the American Inns of Court at MSU Law School and holds memberships on the Boards of the International Center for Healing and the Law of the Fetzer Institute, Vista Maria, and the Pew Commission investigating foster care issues in the U.S. Corrigan is a long time member of the Federalist Society, Michigan Lawyers Chapter, and was president of the Incorporated Society of Irish American Lawyers and the Federal Bar Association, Detroit Chapter.

The New York Times reports that reporter Judith Miller was released from jail this afternoon after agreeing to testify regarding the leak of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame. According to the Times, she has received a personal waiver from her source, who the paper is identifying as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Miller expects to testify before the grand jury tomorrow. Check out background on the case here, and legal analysis of the journalistic source privilege here.

One of the most controversial potential nominees to the Supreme Court is Janice Rogers Brown. Recently confirmed to the DC Circuit, Judge Brown's nomination to that position was heavily contested, and only approved after a group of moderate Senators from both sides of the aisle agreed on a compromise to avoid the potential use of the "nuclear option." (Photo via The Washington Blade.)

Prior to her confirmation, Judge Brown served on the California Supreme Court since 1996, although at the time of her nomination to that post the state bar gave her a rating of "unqualified." Her anti-government statements in speeches and from the bench have been particularly noteworthy. Some examples collected by People for the American Way include:

Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible. ["A Whiter Shade of Pale," Speech to Federalist Society (April 20. 2000)("Federalist speech" at 8]

A few other hints about her jurisprudence:
Judge Brown and Racial Discrimination: In several cases, Brown has written dissenting opinions insisting that victims of racial discrimination have no grounds for relief. In Aguilar v. Avis Rent a Car Systems, Inc., she argued that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act could violate the First Amendment.
Judge Brown and Economic Regulations: Judge Brown has praised the mostly reviled Lochner decision as consistent with her view of the Constitution, noting, "That Lochner dissent has troubled me - has annoyed me - for a long time and finally I understand why. It's because the framers did draft the Constitution with a surrounding sense of a particular polity in mind." She has also advocated against the New Deal in general, calling it "the triumph of our own socialist revolution."
Judge Brown and Choice: In dissenting from a ruling striking down a parental consent law, Brown said "the ruling would allow the courts 'to topple every cultural icon, to dismiss all society values, and to become final arbiters of traditional morality'." In another case, Catholic Charities of Sacramento, Inc. v. Superior Court, she dissented from a holding that required organizations like Catholic Charities to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives.