Judge John Roberts: No Friend of the Accused
Among the documents released from Judge John Roberts' tenure as Associate White House Counsel during the Reagan era are memos criticizing the Supreme Court Justices for accepting too many death penalty appeals and prisoners-rights cases:
Mr. Roberts wrote in a memorandum to his boss, Fred F. Fielding, the White House counsel, that ...the court had only itself to blame for its burden of cases.
"If the justices truly think they are overworked, the cure lies close at hand," Mr. Roberts wrote. "The fault lies with the justices themselves....He wrote that if the court took fewer death penalty and prisoner-rights cases, the docket would be cut by at least a half-dozen cases a year. He added a comment that may signal his view of the Supreme Court's proper role.
In another memo, Roberts argued for term limits for federal judges. His reason?
He went on to argue that lifetime tenure was more defensible when judges limited themselves to strict application of the Constitution. When judges strayed into social policy-making, he said, they made a case for limited terms. "The federal judiciary today benefits from an insulation from political pressure even as it usurps the roles of the political branches," he said.
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