Fairly thorough discussion of Roberts in NYTimes

[imenja]

The article is four pages long. This is only a brief excerpt, and there are a variety of comments from lawyers and acquaintances of Roberts. It's worth reading the whole article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/21/politics/21nominee.html?hp&ex=1122004800&en=3e6d2bbcdacc8242&ei=5094&partner=homepage

"Court Nominee's Life Is Rooted in Faith and Respect for Law"


By TODD S. PURDUM, JODI WILGOREN and PAM BELLUCK
Published: July 21, 2005


This article was reported and written by Todd S. Purdum, Jodi Wilgoren and Pam Belluck.

"WASHINGTON, July 20 - He is the son of a company man, and he has lived a loyalist's life. His teachers remember him as the brightest of boys, but his classmates say he never lorded it over them. He was always conservative, but not doctrinaire. He was raised and remains a practicing Roman Catholic who declines, friends say, to wear his faith on his sleeve.

And like his first judicial mentor, Henry J. Friendly of the federal appeals court in New York, John G. Roberts is an erudite, Harvard-trained, Republican corporate-lawyer-turned-judge, with a punctilious, pragmatic view of the law.

"I do not have an all-encompassing approach to constitutional interpretation; the appropriate approach depends to some degree on the specific provision at issue," Judge Roberts wrote in response to a written question during his 2003 confirmation to the federal appeals court in Washington. "Some provisions of the Constitution provide considerable guidance on how they should be construed; others are less precise. . . .

Laurence H. Tribe, a liberal professor of constitutional law at Harvard, remembers Judge Roberts as a student there and has kept in touch with him over the years. He does not recall Judge Roberts as a political conservative when he studied there.

"He's conservative in manner and conservative in approach," Mr. Tribe said. "He's a person who is cautious and careful, that's true. But he is also someone quite deeply immersed in the law, and he loves it. He believes in it as a discipline and pursues it in principle and not by way of politics."

A legal activist concerned with separation of church and state is critical of Roberts. Read through the article for his comments.

The authors conclude by arguing:

"There is little in Judge Roberts's known record to suggest he could ever be so polarizing a figure. . .

That is not to say that Judge Roberts has a low opinion of his own persuasive powers, as a lawyer before the court or a justice on it. His friends note that he often recounts the story of losing a Supreme Court case with none of the justices ruling in his favor.

Unable to explain to his client why he had lost 9 to 0, he finally said, "Because there are only nine justices on the court."

[imenja]

1. kick. Read this article folks