The Washington Post reports that Bush judicial nominee Charles Pickering was so upset that he had to sentence a convicted cross-burner to 7 years that he tried to get the Justice Department to intervene. Reportedly, he threatened to overturn the jury's verdict even though he agreed it was legal. He demanded Janet Reno personally review the case. Of the cross-burner, he said, ""They're wanting seven years for a young man that got drunk."

Pickering is a former Republican Party state chairman, a onetime head of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, a critic of congressional efforts to mandate uniform federal sentences and an opponent of abortion and what he calls "extensions" of federal judicial power. From the bench, he has repeatedly assailed what he calls "frivolous" lawsuits, especially petitions by prisoners alleging unlawful incarceration and workers alleging employment discrimination.

....In the cross-burning case, Pickering's pressure led the Justice Department to take the extraordinary step of withdrawing one of the three criminal charges of which Swan had been convicted, which reduced his sentence from more than seven years to 27 months. Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee cited the judge's handling of the case as their principal reason for rejecting his nomination last year.

....Bush, several months after telling an audience in Jackson, Miss., that "the Senate did wrong by Judge Pickering," renominated him in January.

Sure, we are glad the Judge opposes mandatory minimum sentences. But given his overall record, that's a drop in the bucket and hardly enough. This is a lifetime position we are talking about--a seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals which includes the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Like Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen, Charles Pickering has no place on the federal appeals court bench.